Look, I didn’t want Austin Riley to injure himself. Seeing how long the WPA vortex could engulf him was kind of fun in and of itself. But now that he has, the Braves have received a bit of a windfall baseball lab-wise, as they’ve been able to use the opportunity to give Nacho Alvarez Jr. some run.
Alvarez has hit really well in the minors, but has oddly struggled with fastballs, and his inability to do much of anything with them was glaring in a cup of coffee in the majors last year. (He had a .301
xwOBA against breaking pitches, but just a .167 xwOBA against fastballs last year... though we’re talking nine PAs ending on a breaking pitch for the former and just 20 ending on a fastball for the latter.)
So far this season, he hasn’t actually come out of the gate strong, either. He has a .222 xwOBA that’s somehow higher than his .216 xwOBACON. It’s only been a few PAs, though. That said, probably ignoring his major league exposure to date because it’s so teeny-tiny, where do you think his career will end up? It’s weird for guys who dominate the minors to be completely incapable of hitting in the majors, but not that weird that it’s unheard of or anything, and he’s going to get a decent opportunity to show he’s not one of those weird edge cases at this point.
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