Atlanta’s Riley Factor
(Q4) Is this a make-or-break year for Dansby Swanson?
(A4) I’m going to change the question a bit and suggest that this name should have been spelled as “Austin Riley”.
I’m of the opinion that Dansby is exactly who he was in 2020: a very good player who plays well enough on defense and hits well enough for his position on offense.
He isn’t one of the elite shortstops in the sport – and doesn’t have to be. He gets the most out of his skills with Grade 70 game-awareness, and there’s solid value there.
Swanson’s hitting could improve just a bit, but I do think we’ve seen what he actually is, and I believe the team is okay with that at this point.
Riley, on the other hand, has much more at stake. While the club has clearly considered going in a different direction for third base, they seem committed now to going forward with him despite the plate struggles he’s had… or maybe because they didn’t want to pay for Arenado’s contract.
Riley is a gamer and he works hard to improve; there’s no doubt on that. He’s also providing much better-than-expected defense at third base.
It’s the hitting part that’s concerning. Riley can murder mistake pitches, but he needs to be able to recognize breaking pitches better.
In the limited arena known as the 2020 season, it did look like some improvement could be developing: average up marginally (.226 to .239), OBP up 22 points, and K-rate down noticeably (36.4% to 23.8%).
If Riley – who’ll play at age 24 this year – can continue this kind of improvement, then the Braves lineup becomes almost unstoppable. If he regresses to a spot in the order where pitchers can find an “out guy”, then it’s merely above average… and the team will be forced to replace him.