Austin Riley (CI/OF, ATL) - Week 2 Waiver Wire Pickups

July 30, 2020

Brady Grove profiles Atlanta Braves power bat Austin Riley as a potential waiver wire acquisition of value for fantasy baseball leagues in Week 2 of the 2020 MLB campaign.

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ANALYSIS: Austin Riley garnered considerable attention for the offensively astute Atlanta Braves in 2019 by hitting 18 home runs with a .471 slugging percentage over 274 AB, and that kind of attention doesn't come easily when you share the field with Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna Jr.

In kicking off the 2020 MLB season, Riley has seen time both in the outfield (LF) and at third base due to the departure of Josh Donaldson. While he has gotten off to a pedestrian start for this extremely limited sample, he has already smacked a home run, which is more than a substantial volume of batters are able to say at the moment. In 2019, Riley paired a robust .245 ISO with a .293 BABIP, a fitting figure when considering the power he possesses.

This season, while Riley is still putting up a formidable .215 ISO, his BABIP has been absolutely unforgiving at just .125. The 23-year-old Memphis native clearly has plenty of work to do with his game before he can be elite, as evidenced by his career 36.2% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate when compared to the MLB averages of 23% and 8.6%. However, Riley's potential as a devastating power-hitter is also clear, and that is evidenced by his career HR percentage (6.1%), XBH percentage (9.9%), and HR/FB ratio (17.4%), as well as the 27 dingers and .286/.353/.525 slash that he produced across 465 Triple-A at-bats on his way to top-100 prospect status. Even if you aren't patient enough to wait for Austin Riley to evolve into a complete hitter in 2020, it won't take any patience to wait for him to send pitches into the empty stands.