Braves need more from Riley: ‘They pay me to hit homers and drive in runs’
NORTH PORT, Fla. — The Braves have at least five “maybes” in their lineup. Those are the hitters who you can’t be sure will reproduce something close to their best years.
None of those guys have reached a higher peak than Austin Riley. He hasn’t been awful at the plate over the past two years, but the Braves need more than slightly above-average production from the highest-paid player in franchise history.
“They pay me to hit homers and drive in runs,” Riley said this week at the team’s spring training complex. “I set a standard to myself (with) expectations and goals, and obviously, when you don’t reach those, you want to do everything in your power to make the necessary adjustments to get back to that.
“Yeah, they weren’t just absolutely terrible (years) but, in my eyes, I need to be better.”
That won’t be possible if Riley isn’t healthy. After he played 159 games or more in each season from 2021 through 2023, injuries limited Riley to 212 total games over the past two seasons.
A hand injury cost Riley more than a month of the 2024 season. Riley still managed to produce a power rate that was better than all but seven MLB third basemen with at least 400 plate appearances.
But abdominal injuries in 2025 hindered Riley from getting close to his usual form. Riley sat out two games before the All-Star break and seven games after. The hope was that nearly two weeks of rest would allow Riley to finish the year strong.
Instead, he struggled to hit for nine games before shutting down for the season.
“Injuries happen, but I take pride in … being a guy who comes in to the yard every day and guys can count on me to be out there,” Riley said. “With the hand injury and the sports hernia, that was a blow, especially in back-to-back years. It’s rough. You deal with it. It’s part of the game.”
Riley had surgery in August to repair the core muscle injury. He said he stayed in Atlanta until about a week after the end of the season to finish up his rehabilitation program and then had a “normal offseason” with no restrictions.
That allowed Riley to focus on fixing some mechanical issues that had started to “creep in” to his swing. The biggest problem was a slide step that Riley said caused his hands to drop. That created an inefficient, upward swinging motion.
Riley said the swing problems contributed to him missing pitches in the strike zone or making weak contact on balls that he usually hits hard. Statcast tracking data support that conclusion.
Riley’s contact percentage on pitches in the strike zone (81.5%) last season was the lowest since he became a lineup regular. From 2024-2025, the percentage of Riley’s contact that was classified as “under” the ball was the highest of his career.
The slide in Riley’s swing also reduced the distance between him and pitches, leaving him less time to see the ball and react. Riley said he made adjustments during the offseason and is ready to put them to practice during Grapefruit League games.
“Cleaning up that aspect of it, it’s gonna put me in a better spot to do damage,” Riley said.
A combination of better health and a quieter swing could be big for Riley, who was the best-hitting third baseman in MLB from 2021-23.
During that time, Riley hit .286 with 108 home runs and 297 RBIs. He finished within the top 10 of National League MVP voting each year. The Braves signed Riley to a 10-year, $212 million contract extension during the middle of that run.
The deal dwarfed the financial commitment the Braves made to first baseman Freddie Freeman before the 2014 season (eight years, $135 million). Riley, who is nearly eight years younger than Freeman, became the face of the franchise once Freeman opted to sign with the Dodgers before the 2022 season.
Riley lived up to the billing in 2023 with 37 home runs, a seventh-place finish in MVP voting and a Silver Slugger award. He was the No. 3 hitter for a potent lineup that set the MLB record for slugging percentage (. 501) and tied the record for home runs (307).
Riley’s decline in production coincided with the team’s slide. Two of his veteran teammates, Sean Murphy and Ozzie Albies, had bigger drop-offs in offensive production. Riley’s best has been better than those two, so his down years look worse.
“Only the Hall of Famers do good all the time,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “It’s not that Riley hasn’t done well. But the expectations are high with him because he’s done (so) well in this league and people expect you to keep doing it and keep doing it.
“He’s dealt with some injuries. There have been some challenges … I look forward to him being a really big part of this again.”
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