Austin Riley Love Thread

C

Carp

Well-known member
The Man. The Myth. The Legend. He had most of us ready to give up on him coming into the season (including me). And he didn't really look any better to start the season with a .553 OPS on April 20th. Not counting today, we has a slash line of .299/.370/.559 in his 416 PA's since April 20th. He's showing the sort of power and plate discipline he had all hoped would develop.

I don't know if his defense is good enough to hold up at 3b long term. And he's probably more of a .260 hitter than a .290 hitter. But what a great job this young man has done to be able adjust and transform himself from a free swinger to an on base machine. Currently on pace for 3-4 fWAR and 4-5 bWAR. As incredibly crummy as 2021 has been to us, he's absolutely the silver lining here, regardless what happens down the stretch for us. So glad we didn't trade him for Bryant before the season.
 
Sheffield10 said:
Lolol I remember when a back of a Wheatie’s card stats reader said he was garbage lololol
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The back of that Wheaties card did say he was garbage, because he was garbage. What the back of that Wheaties card didn’t say though was that he couldn’t improve.

But I get that you’re just an obnoxious moron who doesn’t understand the difference.
 
He's overachieving a little bit, but he has improved vs. last year. His expected wOBA .363, which is rock solid, he's hitting the ball harder which is why he had a big spike in both SLG and BABIP. Hopefully he keeps it up.
 
Hold up a second. I'm not calling anyone out specifically, but someone looked at some metric and announced he could improve, but he'd essentially be the first player in history to improve considerably on whatever metric was given.

You can't just fall back on I said he might improve. Either the above opinion was trash or Riley is the first player in history to do improve on some magical metric... or I suppose the metric could be trash.

Similarly, a bunch on here said this team was dead.

Again, I'm not calling anyone specifically out, I'm just pandemic'd out of pronouncements that turn out to be wrong and society acts like its no big deal. It is a big deal when you are adamant about an opinion and it turns out it is unfounded.

No need to eat crow. Just be a little more humble the next time you make a pronouncement about a 22 or 23 year old kid playing the game at the highest level... or about a team that has considerable talent even without its best young bat and 2/3 of its best young pitching.
 
OcalaBrave said:
Hold up a second. I'm not calling anyone out specifically, but someone looked at some metric and announced he could improve, but he'd essentially be the first player in history to improve considerably on whatever metric was given.

You can't just fall back on I said he might improve. Either the above opinion was trash or Riley is the first player in history to do improve on some magical metric... or I suppose the metric could be trash.

Similarly, a bunch on here said this team was dead.

Again, I'm not calling anyone specifically out, I'm just pandemic'd out of pronouncements that turn out to be wrong and society acts like its no big deal. It is a big deal when you are adamant about an opinion and it turns out it is unfounded.

No need to eat crow. Just be a little more humble the next time you make a pronouncement about a 22 or 23 year old kid playing the game at the highest level... or about a team that has considerable talent even without its best young bat and 2/3 of its best young pitching.
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I don’t remember him making that claim. I just remember him saying it would be extremely unlikely. Based on history, which was true.
 
Enscheff said:
I was detailing the improvements Riley was making as he was making them.

I also called him the single most interesting player on the roster this year.

I’m now saying to be wary of that .343 BABIP when you project his 2022 production.
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.260/.340/.500 would still be pretty dang good.
 
I once noted that Riley's age 23 year was not unlike Mike Schmidt. Slammed. So Ill try something else. Swanson was the number one pick in 2015, Austin 41st. One was college pick the other typical HS pick. Two weeks ago this board was ready to hang Swanson. BTW in 2015 Braves picked Kolby Allard over Riley. How did than work out? Now, Im not saying Austin is a HOFer but I will say almost any team in baseball would take him on for the next 2 or 3 years no questions asked.
 
Southcack77 said:
The question is really whether his expected stats can be maintained at this level.
I don't know.
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BB rate at 9.4% compared to a career average of 7.8. K rate at 24.7% with a career level of 28.1 (heavily weighted by his 2019 season though). HR Rate exactly at career averages. EV 89.5 compared to 90.1 career average. Really nothing out of the extreme here.

Obviously the .346 BABIP suggests he's gotten a good bit lucky, and his current .293 BA is way over previous years. But I think his current career average stat line of .261/.327/.485/.812 is likely a good barometer of what we should expect next year.
 
I'm too lazy and don't know where exactly to go, but I would be curious to see his O-swing/Z-swing stats. I'd also like to see his spray chart. He just seems to be a more mature hitter than in the past.
 
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