The Braves announced that third baseman Austin Riley won’t return this year, neither in the regular season nor the postseason. A recent CT scan of his fractured hand showed that it hasn’t healed enough to take off his cast. At this point, there’s not enough time for him to heal and return to the club. David O’Brien of The Athletic was among those to relay word from manager Brian Snitker on X.
Riley suffered the injury August 18 when he was hit by a pitch on his hand. The following day, the club announced the fracture and that his timeline to return would be about six to eight weeks. There were only about six weeks left in the regular season at that moment, but there was still some hope of Riley being able to return for the postseason if the club played deep into October.
Unfortunately, his hand and the calendar have conspired against him and he won’t be able to help the club out this year, regardless of how long they stay alive without him. It’s an unfortunate development for Atlanta, as Riley has been one of their best players in recent years. From 2021 to the present, he’s hit 127 home runs and slashed .280/.348/.513 for a wRC+ 132. He scuffled at times in 2024 but still managed to hit 19 homers and slash .256/.322/.461 for a 116 wRC+ before suffering his injury.
This is just the latest in a string of injuries that have hamstrung the club all year. Spencer Strider required UCL surgery in April. Ronald Acuña Jr. suffered a torn ACL in June. Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II missed significant time due to injuries as well, though both are back now.
Those injuries have played a key role in the club having a disappointing year. Coming into 2024, they were considered one of the top teams in the majors but they are currently fighting for their lives. At 85-71, they are 1.5 games back of the Diamondbacks for the final Wild Card spot in the National League, with the Mets also half a game ahead of the Snakes. Atlanta could still nab a spot, especially since they kick off a three-game set against the Mets tonight, but it’s not where they planned to be.
They will have to try to squeeze in to the playoffs without Riley and then proceed through the postseason without him as well. Gio Urshela was signed to cover for Riley at third and will presumably continue to do so. He has hit .270/.289/.423 for a wRC+ of 95 since joining the squad. Perhaps Whit Merrifield will factor in now that Albies is back at second, though Merrifield is playing through a left foot fracture.
Riley will still be a huge part of the club’s future, as he signed a ten-year, $212MM extension in August of 2022. That deal runs through 2032 and there’s a club option for 2033. Once his hand heals, he will presumably be in line for a fairly normal offseason in preparation for 2025.
Tough break for a team going through a rough injury year. All said, Snitker has done an amazing job in keeping them in the hunt.
Nice pun.
“Rough injury year..amazing job”…Agreed. There’s truly something to the idea of promoting a winning culture.
Atlanta clearly has a winning culture and will almost certainly be back in the hunt next year.
Next year? They are going to finish the Mets off this week and grab a wild card. Mets gonna have to hope Arizona keeps losing because Atlanta has pride. They aren’t about to just give up, they haven’t all year and being a Red Sox fan I know Sale won’t let them. His competitiveness is off the charts and it’s contagious.
Rats!
Sounds like you need to move.
Next year is shaping up to be quite the battle between ATL, PHI, and NY. Should be a lot of fun.
It’s going to be fun to see what Cohen will do. Alonso and their one-year players which have largely worked out are free agents. Max and JV money are off the books.
Cohen money, Stearns at the helm. The NL East is now a three headed hydra.
The bleacher creature forgets David Stearns came to the Mets from Milwaukee, where he had to watch what he spent. That mindset should tell the Mets “don’t sign Soto, do what it takes to keep Alonso”.
BTW, the Thursday getaway game in Atlanta is likely to be moved up as Hurricane Helene is forecast to move through Georgia.
Marlins winning the division next year. But yeah, should be a great race for second place otherwise
I think the Mets are about to lose this season ending series to Atlanta and miss the playoffs. This will trigger a Cohen spending spree I think not unlike the Dodgers did last off-season spending a billion+ in future payroll. It’s going to be an all out bidding war between the Mets and Yankees for Juan Soto
They also lost Sean Murphy for a couple of months, and he may have come back too early. He doesn’t look quite right.
It might be a blessing if Atlanta misses the playoffs. Just focus on getting healthy and ready for next year. They fought hard. There’s no shame in the season they had under the circumstances.
Don: Strange blessing. If you’re competitive, you don’t stop trying. The Mets were supposed to just float through this season after dumping huge salaries, but the players obviously didn’t get the memo.
I’m not suggesting they pack it in or anything. I’m just saying if it works out that they miss the playoffs, it could work out better for their long term plans.
In defense of the calendar being part of a conspiracy, I’m pretty confident that the calculation of days left in the season since August 19th has not changed since the he suffered the injury.
Considering how many injuries this team has had to go through and they’re still in the hunt for the wild card snitker should get consideration for manager of year
Based upon what? What specifically did he do to garner that consideration? If you watched how he mismanages you’d realize the team could have been neck and neck with the Phillies with someone else at the helm.
You’re one of the fans Steve Adams was referring to in his chat:
“ For the record, I think this now makes over half the league’s managers I’ve been asked about being fired, all in this chat alone. And all with some variation of “he just makes poor/indefensible/awful decisions.”
Basically, every fan base thinks their manager is an idiot.“
They are under the delusion that the main thing a manager does is in game decisions. The front office makes many of them anyway. The manager is like the umpire-their calls are only noticed when they dont work. One thing Snitker does, like Cox, much to the annoyance of certain fans, is he trusts his players and if they blow a game against Castellanos, for instance (Holmes), he will put them right back out there to face him again tomorrow in the same high leverage situation. Players appreciate that. He never calls them out unless they miss a sign or something like that. A struggling guy like Whit comes and Snit talks about how great it is to have a guy like that even tho he was atrocious at that point. He’s a real players manager.
Someone else at the helm if they replaced him mid season and they probably finish around .500 The fact that they’re still in the hunt with all the injuries just proves he’s a good manager. You ought to try learning more about the game ok kid!
Yeah even with the injuries I think Snitker underperformed still. Atlanta has the deepest roster in baseball, if anything AA should get executive of the year just for the Sale trade lol.
That’s the thing people forget. They have had great luck with Lopez and Sale. Sure that doesn’t necessarily balance the scales entirely but I agree…the roster has just underperformed. Look at Acuna’s nothing WAR (basically) in half a season. Olson, Riley, Albies. Most of the season they weren’t very good.
@Rishi: While I agree w/you that Acuna was underperforming his norms, he only played 49 games in 2024. Not even close to “half a season.” Less than a third played by Acuna. He had plenty of time to be better if not for his unfortunate injury. Riley played in 110 games. Olson has been one of the best hitters in the game since July 24th.
For sure. I thought he had 300 at bats but he was basically at 200. I only really payed attention to ATL in second half because of the Comcast/bally situation and being focused on other things. I mean I knew basically but wasn’t thinking clearly.
@Rishi: Yeah I have the Braves on Bally Comcast too. Spent most of the season watching them on free stream——720pstream.nu. Storm knocked out Bally here in Nashville tonight. Would have hated to miss Fried’s gem tonight. Thank goodness for free streaming. Good quality stream too.
Yea Max was great. You could tell he knew it could be his last start here. He was really taking in the standing ovation. And yes, I live in Cobb a city away from the stadium and spent the night getting water out of my basement. Didn’t lose power though.
I hate these kind of injuries.
Send in the special teams – it’s time to punt.
The Braves showed up in Atlanta tonight and beat the Mets and they’re only 1 back and they might be a half game back if Arizona loses
Austin not living the life of Riley right now.
And they’re still SPOILER ALERT
kicking Met arse tonight. Win tonight, split the next two, and it’s 1 down, 3 to play—where a tie goes to Atlanta. Of all the nights for Severino not to have it….
Prediction: both NY and ATL get in, with the Snakes on the outside looking in.
That’s what I was predicting last week. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the Mets Braves games Wednesday and Thursday. That hurricane coming in is going to dump 5 inches of rain over the Atlanta area so those games will more than likely have to be made up after the Royals series this weekend if they are needed to determine the third wild card
Also not returning in 2024: the Atlanta Braves. Off to the wigwam they go
Well, ain’t that a kick in the teeth! Austin Riley, one of the only fellas keepin’ the Braves in it, and now he’s out for good this year? Back in my day, we played through broken bones and blisters, and we didn’t have all these scans and fancy machines tellin’ us we couldn’t. If the Braves had half the grit those old-timers did, they wouldn’t be fightin’ for a Wild Card spot.
So you’re saying they should be more like Popeye in Band of Brothers, ansd less like Webster?