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

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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.

At least the Atlanta Braves haven’t taken defensive shift positioning to THIS level for opposing hitters. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /

Hitters in the Age of the Shift

As you scan the list of names on that first page of BABIP numbers, you’ll see a lot of players that have a solid reputation for hitting. Even with some who don’t necessarily hit well, there’s an evident reason for being on the list — so “luck” really isn’t a big factor overall.

Examples include Jazz Chisholm (45th), Myles Straw (22nd), and Cedric Mullins (39th). These guys have the speed to beat out some hits that might be routine outs for others.

But that’s not really the case for Riley. He generally got his hits the old-fashioned way: by punishing baseballs.

Riley was tied for 46th position in average exit velocity at 90.1 mph. He also ranked 17th in the majors in number of “barrels” — balls hit right on the sweet spot. His barrel percentage was 28th overall, and 36th in fangraph’s “Hard Hit” percentage.

All of these numbers contribute to a profile that suggests Riley hits the ball hard, and hard-hit balls will generate more base hits as a rule.

So that part isn’t about luck… it’s much more about the kind of quality contact Riley makes with the ball.

Except… that’s just the positive side of this equation.

I would be remiss if I ignored the other half of Riley’s profile.

BrooksBaseball.net characterized Riley’s 2021 performance at the plate as being “steady” against fastballs (roughly 57% of the pitches he saw) and “aggressive” against offspeed and breaking balls.

Overall, he has a relatively high likelihood to swing and miss against any pitch he sees — especially fastballs.

When he squares up a pitch… the ball goes far and the ball goes far quickly. But it’s that whiff rate which also contributes to this stat: after fangraphs revealed in that previous chart, he’s the 10th most likely in the sport to generate soft contact off a pitch.

So now we need to explain that in light of his BABIP score.

Austin Riley of the Atlanta Braves crosses home plate after hitting a solo home run off Tony Gonsolin of the Dodgers during the fourth inning of Game 1 of the NLCS. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

Infield Hits vs. Way-outfield Hits

Riley managed to get 19 infield hits in 2021… tied for 14th best in baseball… though the average number was 12.5 among qualified hitters (Freeman had 12; Albies’ speed generated 14; Swanson netted 17).

You pretty much can recall the kinds of hits we’re talking about… balls that Riley barely ticks toward third base… effectively functioning as a bunt.

This spray chart from Brooks shows that yes — he had a bunch of these in 2021. By my count, there were 8 singles that never made it as far as third base.

Had Riley been merely average here (let’s say he loses 7 hits), his batting average would have slipped 12 points to .291. Accordingly, his BABIP would have dropped 17 points to .351.

With a 60-point difference between his regular hitting average and his BABIP, a lot of folks would still think “lucky”.

Except that there’s a bit of a quirk in the BABIP formula. It removes home runs from the results.

The full formula is this: BABIP = (HITS – HR) / (AB – K – HR + SF)

Homers, you see, are not considered to be “Balls in Play“… they escape the prowess of a fielder and thus they are excluded from the equation.

I have a personal problem with that, because the highest quality stroke you can make with the bat is a homer, and as you hit more of these… well, you’re a lot less lucky and a lot more of a good hitter overall.

So those “lucky” hits Riley accumulated to pad his BABIP pale in comparison to his 33 homers. Even if you were to exclude all 19 infield hits, for example, he still has a surplus of 14 homers above that count that BABIP won’t even consider.

So was Riley lucky or good? HE was clearly a lot of both in many respects because he had…

Elite exit velocity when he’s barrel up a ball, and
Lousy EV when he’d barely tick a pitch for an infield grounder

… and there were plenty of both kinds of strokes from his bat last year.

For me, if you’re going to keep talking about the “luck” factor of a BABIP, you need to add back in the homers. Again: home runs represent a skill stroke from a hitter and if you’re going to discount a high-BABIP to luck, then you should also give the hitter the skill credit for barrelling up pitches.

Doing this (adding the homers back in) would bump Riley’s BABIPx (the “X” is for the home run X-factor… I just invented that) to .432.

Frankly, what that tells me is more about how scary-good a hitter Riley might be if he cut down the strikeouts a bit more.

Next. The Neon Deion Era. dark

Oh: in 2020 and 2021… he did just that (down from 36% in 2019). Get that below 20% and he’ll be a force-of-nature kind of hitter. And that would be lucky for the Atlanta Braves.

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