Sheffield10
Arizona Fall Leaguer
Lolololol but but but my mom’s MLB app said he was just lucky! Lololol
Austin Riley Love Thread
- Thread starter Carp
- Start date
PawPawMaxwell
Called Up to the Major Leagues
By the logic employed here about Riley's future, if I was AA and wanted to extend anyone other than FF I would look hard at Dansby right now, The prices that all of the pending FA get will dictate Dansby's asking price next year.
TURBO
Sexist Pig
I know you are trolling but do you even read his posts? Hes not saying Riley isnt a good player, just to expect some regression.
Southcack77
Well-known member
I agree with you. No real reason to do it right now though if you can get something good that isn't a bigger long term commitment after you know the CBA maybe.
If the Braves can keep turning over pitching and finding cheaper options for various positions then maybe they can pay most everyone because of the Albies and Acuna deals.
Filling an OF spot or two at the minimum to go along with catcher and some pitching let's you do a lot.
Southcack77
Well-known member
What's a reasonable arbitration estimate for Dansby?
Sheffield10
Arizona Fall Leaguer
Who are you referring to?
And yes, many people have said he can “regress”, and many people said he still needs more time to develop. I don’t think anyone is advocating to locking him in on a 10 year multi-million dollar deal… but when weirdos who claim they are analyst because their 3rd step dad bought him access to Bill Shanks insider emails have actually convinced some people on here they know about a sport because they played badminton at their community college…. And they are constantly wrong? You gotta relish in their inability to know the sport. Gotta prepare to be in the limelight when you throw rocks in a glass house. Years of being snarky will never get them everywhere. It’s a life lesson for them before they switch over to their McDonald’s nightshift for the extra .50 an hr. Gotta be responsible for your actions. I’m here to be the reincarnated bully that shoved his 120 lb ass in the locker in HS.
/rant
/TLDR = lolololol Austin Riley lololol
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PawPawMaxwell
Called Up to the Major Leagues
DeRosa stated this morning that $10M would be in the ball park.
zbhargrove
Well-known member
Even for a troll you need some major help
I haven't seen anything that shows plate discipline correlates to a higher BABIP, which might make sense if it lead to more high quality contact.
The things I've seen correlate to sustaining higher BABIPs are:
1. Not hitting a ton fly balls (line drives are hits more often)
2. Being fast (to beat out a handful of extra hits)
3. Being a left handed hitter (to help beat out some more hits)
4. Spraying the ball around (harder to defend against)
5. Hitting the ball hard often (harder hit balls are harder to catch)
If Riley's improved plate discipline was leading to better overall contact quality, we would expect to see an improvement in his overall average exit velocity. We don't see that (89.4, 91.0, and 89.5 the last 3 years).
If we look at his expected BA on ball in play based on quality of contact, we see .325 in 2019, .320 in 2020, and a jump to .345 this year.
So if his 2021 BABIP looks roughly legit, what changed?
He still pulls 40%+ of his balls in play (this narrative he is suddenly an all-fields hitter is quite simply untrue). He isn't hitting the ball any harder overall. He probably hasn't gotten any faster, or switched which side of the plate he's batting from. He's hit line drives at a pretty consistent rate of ~25% all 3 MLB seasons.
He is hitting the ball on the ground more in 2020/2019 than he was in 2018, which could be leading to more singles. Keep in mind the statcast data we have available does not take batted ball direction into account for expected stats, so a few of those grounders finding holes or being caught can impact the xBA number quite a bit.
Just based on what we know about BABIP and how much it can fluctuate over a single season (for example, Freeman's has fluctuated from .295 to .371 over his career for a full season, and we know he's been pretty much the same elite hitter all those years), I don't think anyone can say a player "should" have a BABIP with any more accuracy than +/- 25 points. Having said that, this current .345 mark certainly seems like the upper limit for a hitter like Riley.
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If I was betting, I would also bet on Riley to be a guy who declines early and fast. No way I extend him unless it's an Ozzie type bargain and they get control of the rest of his 30s via options. My comp of a RHH Jake Lamb is consistent in this regard as well.
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OcalaBrave
Spring Training Invitee
En you weren't the only person on this Board that declared Riley dead following last year's post season flame out. As I say, I wasn't specifically calling anyone out. Most on this board love the prospects and love to talk about what if when dealing with prospects. That's why I come here. I truly appreciate what you and others bring to this board. I'm too old to troll.
You were pretty down on Riley. That's fine, but when some of us disagreed, you (and others) threw around these advanced metrics and pretty much pronounced our opinions on Riley's future potential garbage. Of course, when his metrics started to improve you (and others) did raise an eyebrow. However, you (and others) never once said, "Wow. Good for the kid. I didn't see it coming. Kudos to those of you that had faith." Nothing like that. Instead, we get "be wary of that .343 BABIP when you project his 2022 production" as though you (and others) never doubted the kid, but were just trying to keep those rubes that thought the kid still had a future from getting carried away.
Rubes like me have seen all kinds of prospects come up through the Braves system. I bought into the hype on some only to watch them flame out (Klesko, Giles and Schaffer) and bought low on others when their ability was questioned (Prado and LaRoche). We all get some right and we all get some wrong.
I'm tired of watching goal posts get moved, disproven opinions, or worse - statements of fact, ignored by the giver as though never uttered. The web is a great place, to get information, but if we don't start policing ourselves - and I don't mean each other - the board just becomes polluted with opinions uttered as fact dismissing any discussion. What's the fun in that?
You, and the others that are hanging in the background letting you fight the fight, never thought Riley had this in him. Doesn't matter if he falls on his face next year. If this team makes the playoffs it did it on Riley's bat. Not one of you thought he was that kind of player for a full season; especially not in 2021. It is wonderous that you were wrong. The metrics didn't see this coming. They'll be right more than they are wrong. There is always an exception to the rule. For this wonderful season, that exception has been Riley. Celebrate it... or don't. That's your call. I'm just asking that you not pronounce that you (and others) were actually right about Riley because he can't keep this up or he won't be a hall of famer or you commented his metrics were improving. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with being incorrect so long as you don't pretend you weren't.
jpx7
Very Flirtatious, but Doubts What Love Is.
Isn't it boring acting this dumb?
You mention that the data doesn't take batted ball direction into account. While his EV number of balls in play hasn't necessarily increased, isn't there a chance that the balls he actually puts in play the opposite way are being hit harder? While most of the balls he hits harder are to the pull side, is there nothing that tracks the EV the opposite way? It just seems that with teams constantly shifting against him that a minimal increase in EV the other way would greatly increase his chances of getting a hit as long as everything he hits the other way isn't a dribbler.
That's not to infer he's changed his approach and is constantly looking to drive the ball the other way like Freeman does, but when defenses shift so radically Freddie gets plenty of hits the other way that aren't hard hit balls - he doesn't just softly poke those the other way, but he certainly doesn't hit all of those with authority.
jpx7
Very Flirtatious, but Doubts What Love Is.
There's a major and real difference between "never thought he had this in him" and "not betting on 10% likelihood over the 90% likelihood", and that difference is escaping your narrative of "moving goalposts". I'm personally in the latter camp: I didn't think that Riley improving his game to this extent (mostly in the crucial plate-discipline area, as has been discussed) was likely, and I wouldn't have bet on it, but I certainly didn't think it was impossible—indeed, some of the very projection-systems above-maligned thought Riley would have a solid 2021, if not nearly this good. But I'll always be happy when a Cobb County player hits the unlikely end of the positive side of his projections.
The big thing for Riley, in talking about how much progress he needed with the bat, is that he just doesn't add much with the glove (where metrics have him below-average to bad at 3B), at a position where there is often real hitting talent. It's why I was way more down on Riley than Swanson, even though—before the recent hot-streak—Swanson too took a lot of heat. But an average defender at SS doesn't need to hit nearly as much as a below-average defender in 3B to be valuable—especially when they're pre-FA.
But I hope Riley can give the Braves another four above-average years at 3B. It's been a long wait for stability at the hot-corner, post-Chipper, particularly since my pick Andy Marte (RIP) flamed out so miserably.
This is mostly untrue.
My stance on Riley was always that he comped to a RHH Jake Lamb...if he could fix his plate discipline. I explained how rare and hard that was for a player to do, and I followed his progress monthly. There are literally a dozen posts where I showed his improvements in Z-Contact% and O-Swing%. I literally pasted the charts into posts, over and over to show his progress. Maybe you missed them?
Back when he was struggling I very clearly detailed how unlucky he was getting on batted balls, which seemed to plague the entire team. I also declared Riley the best story of the 2021 Braves specifically because of the progress he made in the exact areas I detailed he needed to improve. Maybe you missed those posts?
I pointed out his flaws, and then cheered him on the entire way as he made improvements...and detailed the progress in several posts. Just because I wasn't jumping up and down calling him "the next Troy Glaus" doesn't mean I thought he was useless garbage. In fact, I was consistent in my judgment that the Braves should NOT trade Riley unless another team overvalued him. Maybe you missed all those posts as well?
So yes, your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired, and it's being influenced by some odd desire to say "I told you so" to someone who never said what you're claiming I said.
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While the expected stats (xwOBA, xBA, etc) don't take batted ball direction into account, that can be filtered.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/stat...c&min_pas=0&chk_stats_launch_speed=on#results
His average exit velocity on balls hit to the opposite field has been 87.5, 89.1 and 88.2 this year. Those all appear to be within the realm of small sample noise (2020 was the year they used a golf ball), and don't seem to show any type of improvement in any real skill.
As a sanity check, we can look at Freeman's opposite field exit velocity (I refer to him because he's been the same consistently elite ball striker pretty much from day 1):
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/stat...c&min_pas=0&chk_stats_launch_speed=on#results
I believe 2018 was the wrist injury year? And 2020 was the bouncy ball year. Other than that, he's been right around 89-90 his entire career.
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nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
kinda like monkey fooking a football
OcalaBrave
Spring Training Invitee
Alright. I've said my bit. If you're comfortable what you've been writing given Riley's season and feel it needs no revision, we don't need to discuss it further.
Sheffield10
Arizona Fall Leaguer
Lololol got called out lololol