Don’t Quit on Austin Riley Just Yet

In every draft you join in 2027, someone will draft Austin Riley. 

They will pay the lowest draft day cost for Riley since before his full breakout in 2021. 

Will it be a worthwhile gamble?

I’ve avoided the question over the last few seasons, but with what is sure to be his lowest ADP in years, the value proposition caught my attention. 

I was a big fan of Riley back in the early days of his breakout. Prodigious power at a premium position, with a palatable 25% strikeout rate, and a lock for 90-plus runs and RBI in the heart of the dynastic Atlanta Braves order. 

From 2021 through 2023, Riley really was metronomic. From age 24 through age 26, he seemed destined to be a part of the growing legend of the Braves, as the third piece of a hometown trio, with Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies, that would bring Atlanta multiple rings. That young trio all signed long extensions. Riley is signed through 2032, for a little more than $20 million per season. 

You probably know all of this already. What you and I both are far more interested in is how to deal with Austin Riley as a fantasy asset in 2027. After spending as many years lost in the forest as he did on the mountain top, Riley is one of the most challenging players to price heading into drafts. What’s more, he’s playing what I would consider one of the positions most starved for top end talent. 

In this article, I’ll bring you along with me as I think through potential ways to price Riley in 2027. At the end, I aim to present enough information for you to make a decision consistent with your own risk tolerance, league format, and strategy. I don’t think that Riley will ever return to his .280 AVG, 30 HR heyday, but he can still be interesting at his new lower price point. 

I hope no one is opposed to a nice pros and cons list. The yellow legal pad format I typically use for these doesn’t translate well to an article format, so I’ll do my best to section these out so they’re both easy to remember and not too clunky. 

Those who know me would say I’m a positive guy. Not a fan of decorating for Halloween or Christmas, but still a generally glass half full optimist. But with Riley, you still have to start with the negatives. Luckily, they’re both easy to spot and well documented. 

The Cons

The biggest knock against Riley is that he was way worse than his draft cost in 2026. The third baseman finished as the 146th hitter by the FanGraphs Player Rater, despite an ADP of around 60. But with his history, you can see why managers keep taking a shot at the upside. 

It’s just been three consecutive years of overpaying now. Assuming the market cools considerably relative to years past, then this knock against him will lessen. But a top 60 pick for 20 HR and a middling average and counting stats of course won’t cut it. 

Mapping Riley’s growing strikeout rate and diminishing OPS against each other helps illustrate this divide in value and results. If his 2024 output left some hope for a bounceback, 2025 and 2026 have at the very least fogged up the forecast. 

This poor performance has meant Riley has fallen behind young up and comers in the Braves’ lineup, making his ascent back into fantasy stardom that much harder. Riley had 94 plate appearances hitting fourth this season, but more than 100 at each of the 5-8 slots in the order.

Clearly, his own team is struggling with how to handle his slump. 

Now that we’ve established that he truly has struggled, and struggled for a while, are there any particular underlying metrics that help explain the downturn?

FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe pointed to Riley’s plate discipline being a primary cause for concern. 

“His swing choices have really suffered; he’s cut his overall swing rate from 51% to 48.7%, but his chase rate has jumped from 27.7% to 32.4%, and his 31.6% strikeout rate is his highest since his abbreviated 2019 rookie season.”

If you look at his best seasons, particularly 2022 and 2023, Riley spent most of the season running long, locked in stretches with a low O-Swing%. Injuries shortened his 2024 and 2025 seasons to an extent, and may have messed with his discipline and rhythm at the plate. In 2026, he spent most of the year with an above average O-Swing% relative to his career, the first season this was true for since 2022. And he was good in 2022, it just represented a change that coincided with a spike in strikeout rate. 

Perhaps just as damaging to Riley’s production has been the change in his batted ball profile. Riley’s expected stats tumbled dramatically, with a .213 xBA that was by far the lowest of his career. This wasn’t due to weak contact though, as we’ll get into under the “Pros” section. The low xBA for Riley comes largely from a batted ball tradeoff: less line drives, more flyballs. 

Line drives are the best batted ball for batting average. Watching Riley’s line drive rate crumble, in lock step with his batting average, makes a lot of sense. Riley had always run BABIPs comfortably above .300 heading into 2026. His BABIP fell to .299 this past season, with career worsts in xBA, AVG, and LD%. 

At the same time, Riley’s flyballs became less valuable. Despite still hitting the ball hard (which again, will be discussed under “Pros”), Riley’s HR/FB fell steeply in 2026, while his flyball rate crept higher. 

Comparing Riley’s squared up profiles from 2023 and 2026 is illustrative of this. Riley used to square up more balls in the ideal home run launch angle band between 20 and 35 degrees.

Now, even though he hits more flyballs, he hits less in the ideal launch angle band, and squares them up less often. This has meant his Blast Contact% has fallen from around 20% to below 15%, taking him out of elite territory. 

Weaker results on flyballs don’t help batting average or BABIP either. Paired with strikeout rate increases, due in part at least to chasing more pitches outside of the zone, it becomes easy to see how Riley found himself having a career worst season in his eighth year as an established big leaguer. Which has to be frustrating.

Riley talked about the his multi-year slump back in August with MLB.com’s Bill Ladson. If you read through the interview, you’ll read a lot of quotes where Riley talks about how his body feels and about aging. 

This quote stuck with me.

“I have a ton of notes from ‘21, ‘22 and ‘23. They were really good. I was trying [to practice what I wrote] in the cage and they were not working. I was 25, 26, 27 years old at that point. I’m almost 30. My body has changed with several surgeries. It’s learning my body.”

Riley has dealt with a lot of injuries since 2024, after starting his career with a lot of good health. In 2021, 2022, and 2023, Riley’s games played totaled 160, 159, and 159, respectively. The 29-year-old played 110 in 2024, 102 in 2025, and bounced back to 159 in 2026, though with poor results. 

The Pros

But there is plenty he still does well. 

For starters, Riley did return to health this season, suiting up for the aforementioned 159 games, his most since 2023. Part of playing that much is being trusted by your manager to field your position. Riley, not known for his defense coming up, posted two Outs Above Average in 2026, the first positive mark of his career in that metric.

A $21 million salary can help keep you in the lineup. But so can good defense, despite struggles at the dish. Entering his age 30 season, Riley has prioritized his defense and “mobility” rather than strength, according to that Bill Ladson interview cited earlier. 

And he’s remained in the lineup for a really solid team. A playoff team! The Braves still have Albies and Acuña, who have been bolstered by Michael Harris III and Drake Baldwin at the top of the order, who each had breakout 2026 seasons, and of course, steady Matt Olson.

The distinction Riley has in this lineup is that he’s right handed. Acuña is the only other right-handed regular, though Albies switch hits. When Riley is going right, he helps protect the left-handed bats at the top from lefty relievers.  

Context aside, Riley’s best attribute is still that he hits the ball hard. He comes by it honestly, as he has 94th percentile bat speed at 74.9 mph. Even in 2026, Riley’s hard hit rate, barrel rate, and average exit velocity were all 88th percentile marks or better. 

When he connects, it still looks oh so pretty. The sound is still there too. He’s just not getting to it as often as he used to. 

With all of this in mind, how are the projection systems handling Riley?

Only Steamer and Depth Charts are available at this point on FanGraphs. Steamer has Riley down for a .711 OPS and 21 HR with less than 70 runs and RBI in 2027, with a .234 and 29% strikeout rate. Depth Charts projects the same K%, OPS, and AVG, but with 25 HR, 75 runs, and 80 RBI, thanks to 100 extra plate appearances.

These projections essentially think Riley will mostly stay healthy, and mostly remain a poor hitter relative to his 2021-2023 average. Even compared to 2024 and 2025, a .711 OPS would be more than 20 points below his baseline.  

Is this a fair projection? Considering Riley is a large corner infielder who, until his age 29 season was a poor fielder without much speed, this feels more or less spot on. That is, if the assumption is that Riley won’t unlock some approach changes this offseason. 

Confidence seems to be a barrier for Riley right now. As does luck. Riley spiked a 13% infield pop up rate in 2026. He probably earned it, considering his flyball rates and overall lack of squared up fly balls. But in every other season, some of those misses would’ve turned into better batted balls. For a guy with top-end exit velocities, that seems like a decent bet to make. 

Pricing Riley in the Third Base Market

So, with wishcasting on less pop ups and recapping Riley’s pros and cons complete, how do we place Riley within the third base market?

Third base is a weak position in fantasy. Manny Machado just finished 10th at third base despite hitting .217 with 30 homers. Riley could conceivably reach those marks. Kazuma Okamoto hit .232 with 33 homers to finish seventh. I mean Nolan Arenado hit .250 with 30 homers and finished fifth at the position. In 2027, I feel like Riley still should outperform Arenado. Right?

Riley finished 24th, down with Coby Mayo in the low average with mediocre power doldrums. He finished behind Caleb Durbin and Brooks Lee. This trio of Mayo, Durbin, and Lee feels like a floor that Riley could be priced around. 

There could be upside cases made for all of them. Conceivably, there is a wide range of lineup spots that they all could hold, from the top to the bottom of potentially potent groups. Riley stole nine bags in 2026, making him competitive enough in that category to match these youngsters. Really, it’s a question of upside. Do any of them have a shot at 30 homers and 100 RBI with a .270 AVG? Probably not, but I don’t think Riley does either. 

At this point in his journey, with his admittedly changed body, he probably doesn’t have the lower half mobility and quick twitch to turn more poor swing choices into line drive singles and doubles. But reaching 30 homers with a .220 to .250 AVG, like Machado and Arenado did? Riley seems more likely than Mayo to do that, and certainly more likely than Durbin or Lee.

Early ADP has Riley going mostly between picks 125 and 200 at the NFBC. After having traditionally gone no later than the 60s, this is a steep discount, and one that would really place him down with Mayo, Durbin, and Lee. Of that group, and likely compared to other third basemen, I think Riley compares favorably, despite all of the aforementioned poor production, plate discipline, and batted ball data. 

Riley meets a handful of conditions that, especially in deep leagues, matter for floor. Because at this point, that is far more in question than his ceiling. Undoubtedly, Riley could be a top five third baseman in 2027, because the position is weak. But how likely is he to be a top 15 option? 

In deep leagues, three conditions I think are prerequisites for establishing a floor in this weak third base environment are 1) average or better defense to protect playing time, 2) recently demonstrated health, and 3) power potential with hard hit rates. 

Riley meets all of these conditions. If you quantify defense at at least a 0 OAA and 0 DRS, health as 100 games in 2026, and power potential as a hard hit rate or average exit velocity of one standard deviation above the mean, there’s technically only one player that meets all three conditions from the 2026 season. Austin Riley. 

Okamoto comes within one tenth of a mile per hour in average exit velocity and had a -2 OAA in 2026, but did have a positive DRS. Only Riley and Junior Caminero met both the average exit velocity and hard hit rate thresholds. 

To use Okamoto as a comp for Riley in ADP feels about right. Okamoto has gone between 110 and 175 in early drafts so far this offseason. He’s a few years older and has demonstrated more in-game power more recently than Riley. But he is right in line with what makes a top 10 season at third base in today’s environment. 

And given age, demonstrated ceiling, and lineup context, I think I’d buy back in at Riley’s newly competitive ADP. If Riley’s price moves up well above Okamoto and Isaac Paredes let’s say, out of the 120-150 range and into the 90-110 range, I’d have to pause. The opportunity cost at that range is markedly different, especially with starting pitchers. That alone would be enough to make me retreat off of Riley. At this point, he can’t be considered more than a potential bounceback at a potentially competitive price, to help fill a weak position.