By nearly every metric you can think of, Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley has been terrible in 2026, and we aren't talking about it in comparison to what he was. The Braves have six qualified hitters at the moment, and Riley's 71 wRC+, .206/.285/.329 line, and -0.2 fWAR rank dead last among them. If you expand the comparison to all of MLB, only Marcus Semien (-0.3), Brett Baty (-0.4), Ezequiel Tovar (-0.4), Jeff McNeil (-0.5), and Salvador Perez (-1.6) have a worse fWAR among qualified hitters. That is a special kind of bad.
However, this hasn't really come out of nowhere with Riley. A series of injuries and ineffectiveness has been hard to ignore as Riley began his slow descent into the shadow of his former self that he is right now. That said, when MLB expert Paul Hembo appeared on Buster Olney's podcast, he summed up Riley's decline in a way that, to be blunt, doesn't leave much room for optimism.
Austin Riley is the 23rd live-ball player (since 1920) to see his OPS decline in 5 consecutive seasons.⁰⁰Most alarmingly, he’s the youngest to do it.⁰⁰Will Alex Anthopoulos continue to roll the ball out, or act before the deadline? https://t.co/ZHZ8Qa5Ev9 pic.twitter.com/Hx56ynDYUZ
— Paul Hembekides (Hembo) (@PaulHembo) July 4, 2026
Austin Riley's decline has been long in the making, and the Braves are paying the price
While seeing a player's production decline is hardly rare, it usually isn't particularly linear. Generally, there is an injury or a steep dropoff that forces a player to either completely change what they are doing and salvage their career, or call it. In Riley's case, the decline he has experienced has defied the normal course of events, and that is not a good thing.
According to Hembo, there have only been 23 players who have seen their OPS decline in five consecutive seasons, and Riley's drop is among the largest in that group. Moreover, Riley is the youngest player in that group of 23 players, which, well, is hard to understand. Hembo said it best when he said, "In other words, there has never been a player this young that has declined THIS much."
It is hard to find a root cause that is helpful when a guy's decline is across the board like Riley's has been. It's possible that all of his injuries have caught up with him and his hernia surgery last season was the last straw. Maybe Riley's hitting mentor, Mike Brumley, passing away was a bigger loss than any of us could have envisioned. Maybe it is all of those things and more. Whatever the case, Riley is reaching rarified air with his struggles right now, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.