Atlanta Braves Austin Riley: was he lucky or good in 2021?

Was he just lucky or really good?  It’s a good time to look deeper into the 2021 numbers of Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley.

After a lot of hand-wringing about the Atlanta Braves third base situation starting in 2019, the answer seemed pretty emphatic in 2021:  Austin Riley unwrapped a career season with a .303 average, 33 homers, 107 RBI, and lots of MVP consideration.

But there’s a certain number in his stats that a lot of people won’t allow themselves to ignore:  BABIP… Batting Average on Balls in Play.

Many who cite this figure feel obliged to make reference to this being a “luck” number… the higher the value gets, the more “luck” a hitter has received in the form of “seeing-eye singles” or “bad bounces” where a fielder wasn’t able to get him out.

Such discussions fall within my personal pet peeves.  In fact, I’d like to suggest that hitters experience far more bad luck than good within a season… particularly now in this era of defensive shifting.

So let’s look at Riley’s season and see if we can debunk that “luck factor” discussion.

Among qualified batters in 2021 (132 such players overall), Riley ranked 3rd in all of major league baseball with a BABIP of .368.  This came behind Tim Anderson and Starling Marte (tied at .372) — hitters averaging .309 and .310 overall respectively.

Behind Riley came Tyler O’Neill, Randy Arozarena, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Teoscar Hernandez, Javier Baez, and Yoan Moncada to round out the top 10.

The next highest Brave on the list was Freddie Freeman (.321 BABIP, .300 avg., 40th position in BABIP).

Of particular note, Freddie is not someone that we normally attribute “luck” to… unless it’s bad luck… when discussing his hitting prowess.

The same can be said for that top 10 group we just listed… but we’re scratching the surface thus far.  We need to look deeper.