DataBaseball
2026
Austin Riley headshot

Players · R · 3B · 2026

Austin Riley

Age
29
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 1"
Weight
225 lb
Number
#27
Born
April 2, 1997 in Memphis, TN, United States
MLB debut
May 15, 2019
Drafted
2015, round CB-A
High school
DeSoto Central
Salary, 2026
$22M
dbWAR
24.1
8 season(s)
PA
621
AVG
.222
OBP
.293
SLG
.369
wRC+
82
100 = avg

Austin Riley is a third baseman for the Atlanta Braves. So far in 2026 he has hit 19 home runs and knocked in 72 RBIs, notching 124 hits across 621 plate appearances in 157 games. His batting average is .222, 8.9% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .293 clip and slugged .369, for an OPS of .662, 7.8% lower than the league mark of .719 — 10th of 14 on his team, and 314th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 91.2 mph off the bat, hit 44.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.7% of them and made contact on 68.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 82 wRC+ puts his offence 18% below average. That comes to 1.1 dbWAR — -12.0 runs with the bat, -0.6 for the ballpark, +0.2 on the bases, -0.2 on double plays, +4.2 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+82
wOBA.295
ISO.147
BB%7.6%
WAR1.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +10.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-12.0Ballpark-0.6Baserunning+0.2Double plays-0.2Position+4.2Replacement+19.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

6.73.30.01920212223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026ATL1576211241972947197.222.293.369.147.3037.6%31.7%.295-12.0821.1
2025ATL1024471081654227128.260.309.428.168.3376.0%28.6%.320+1.71041.7
2024ATL1104691091956037118.256.322.461.205.3107.9%25.2%.339+10.61223.1
2023ATL1597151793797359172.281.345.516.234.3248.3%24.1%.364+26.41285.1
2022ATL1596931683893257168.273.349.528.255.3158.2%24.2%.379+37.61506.7
2021ATL16066217933107052168.303.367.531.227.3687.9%25.4%.382+35.91405.7
2020ATL512064582701649.239.301.415.176.2807.8%23.8%.308-2.4900.5
2019ATL80297621849016108.226.279.471.245.2935.4%36.4%.309-3.4910.2

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1831603731859.231.322.344.30232.2%
vs RHP438398871629138.219.281.379.29231.5%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 364 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 366 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
10.7%
39 barrels
Exit velocity
91.2
mph average
Max exit velo
112.2
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
44.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
35.2%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
18.5°
average
Barrel rate10.7%
Exit velocity91.2 mph
Hard hit rate44.0%
Contact rate68.0%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.051.107.209.070.15819 AB.21233 AB.13345 AB.28945 AB.33363 AB.31844 AB.33321 AB.35645 AB.28663 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Austin Riley hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations621——————.222.293.369.295
Bases empty34831568131426110.216.290.375.298
Runner on first12110621141236.198.298.264.267
Runners on273243566582187.230.297.362.292
RISP15213735554951.255.296.438.312

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Head to head

Put Austin Riley beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Austin Riley

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.