<img alt="MLB: SEP 14 Dodgers at Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1bXZNio6P39nNPHJa1dK82L6LL8=/0x0:3600x2400/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73608106/2171262703.0.jpg">
Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
110 games will bet it for the star third baseman Austin Riley’s 2024 is over, per the Braves:
Austin Riley's season is over according to #Braves manager Brian Snitker. Simply was not healing fast enough, CT scan showed yesterday.— Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) September 24, 2024
Riley was a longshot to return this season anyway, even prior to this news — not so much because of the injury, but because the Braves were unlikely to extend their season enough to allow him to get healthy enough to come back. But, the book is officially shut now, as his recovery apparently hasn’t progressed with sufficient alacrity to make a return during some unspecified round of the playoffs possible.
2024 will then see Riley record “just” 2.4 fWAR across 469 PAs. That’s a pretty lame mark considering where he was (barely north of 3.0/600), but like many of his teammates, it’s mostly due to some heinous xwOBA underperformance. His .366 xwOBA on the season was right in line with his 2023 and 2021 marks (both 5.1 fWAR seasons), but he underhit it by much more than .020, which is just brutal. He also took a bit of a step back defensively after a surprising 2023 campaign that saw him grow into an average defender, but it was really the xwOBA underperformance that tanked his overall production.
Riley also missed two weeks in May with an oblique issue, so missing the stretch run as a result of a hit-by-pitch was just the latest in a run of terrible things to happen to him this season.
Amusingly, Gio Urshela, Riley’s replacement, has played phenomenal defense despite being a relatively poor defender in his career. Urshela also has a 95 wRC+ as a Brave, thanks to outhitting a very sad .287 xwOBA by .020, so he’s actually produced the same as Riley on a rate basis when you take that surprising defense and the massive wOBA-versus-xwOBA swings into account.
<img alt="MLB: SEP 14 Dodgers at Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1bXZNio6P39nNPHJa1dK82L6LL8=/0x0:3600x2400/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73608106/2171262703.0.jpg">
Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
110 games will bet it for the star third baseman Austin Riley’s 2024 is over, per the Braves:
Austin Riley's season is over according to #Braves manager Brian Snitker. Simply was not healing fast enough, CT scan showed yesterday.— Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) September 24, 2024
Riley was a longshot to return this season anyway, even prior to this news — not so much because of the injury, but because the Braves were unlikely to extend their season enough to allow him to get healthy enough to come back. But, the book is officially shut now, as his recovery apparently hasn’t progressed with sufficient alacrity to make a return during some unspecified round of the playoffs possible.
2024 will then see Riley record “just” 2.4 fWAR across 469 PAs. That’s a pretty lame mark considering where he was (barely north of 3.0/600), but like many of his teammates, it’s mostly due to some heinous xwOBA underperformance. His .366 xwOBA on the season was right in line with his 2023 and 2021 marks (both 5.1 fWAR seasons), but he underhit it by much more than .020, which is just brutal. He also took a bit of a step back defensively after a surprising 2023 campaign that saw him grow into an average defender, but it was really the xwOBA underperformance that tanked his overall production.
Riley also missed two weeks in May with an oblique issue, so missing the stretch run as a result of a hit-by-pitch was just the latest in a run of terrible things to happen to him this season.
Amusingly, Gio Urshela, Riley’s replacement, has played phenomenal defense despite being a relatively poor defender in his career. Urshela also has a 95 wRC+ as a Brave, thanks to outhitting a very sad .287 xwOBA by .020, so he’s actually produced the same as Riley on a rate basis when you take that surprising defense and the massive wOBA-versus-xwOBA swings into account.
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