Saturday seeds: Riley's back soon, Draft picks are signing, and more
Here's some of the news and notes you might have missed from this week
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Riley might return next week
Third baseman Austin Riley, who was placed on the injured list last week with a “strained right abdomen”, might not miss that much more time. Riley was spotted taking swings in the indoor cages and David O’Brien of The Athletic, reporting from Truist Park, shared that the infielder wasn’t relaxing over the All-Star Break.
#Braves' Austin Riley (lower abdominal strain) rehabbed back home in Memphis area during break, said he's feeling much better and that this isn't nearly as severe as the oblique strain he had a year ago.
Other reporters in the ballpark for the series opener versus the Yankees relay that Riley’s hoping to return early next week. He’s first eligible to be activated off the 10-day IL on July 22nd, the middle game of a three-game set against the San Francisco Giants in Truist Park.
In Riley’s absence, prospect Nacho Alvarez Jr. has been playing third base and was 2-7 with a run scored entering Friday night’s opener.
Draft pick signing figures are coming in
If you read our draft recap on Tuesday morning, I discussed how Atlanta was likely saving money with their first three shortstop picks to sign their dual prep picks from early in day two.
Now that signing bonuses are starting to come in, we know exactly how much those prep draftees took to forgo their college careers.
First-round pick Tate Southisene signed for $2.62M against a slot value of $3.98M.
Second-round pick Alex Lodise took $1.3M against a $1.52M slot value, while Cody Miller got only $297,500 against a slot value of $796,000.
But all those savings, and then some, went to the two preps. Fourth-rounder LHP Briggs McKenzie (pick #127) got a $2.997M signing bonus against a slot value of just $588,900, valuing him as the 32nd pick in the draft. Fifth-round outfielder Conor Essenburg (pick #157) signed for $1.2M against a $438,600 slot value, being priced as the 69th pick in the draft.
If you use bonus amounts and the usual slot for that amount as a proxy for talent levels, Atlanta drafted two Top 50 talents in Southisene and McKenzie and two more Top 100 talents in Lodise and Essenburg despite only having picks 22, 60, and 96.
It’s a quantity over quality approach, one that makes sense when you’re picking so late in the first round and holding one of the smallest bonus pools in the entire league.
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Wentz is in the rotation now, apparently
Atlanta initially announced Spencer Strider and two TBAs for this weekend versus the Yankees. I did a radio hit on 92.9 The Game in Atlanta and explained to my guy Eric Slaughter that there was no reason for concern; they were probably just waiting to talk to Bryce Elder and Grant Holmes when they returned before officially submitting them as the starters for the weekend.
I was half right, because Holmes and Joey Wentz were named the starters as soon as everybody reported back to Atlanta on Thursday night.
For Wentz, it’s an “attaboy” for his fantastic Braves debut, where he pitched three innings against the Cardinals last Saturday and allowed just one walk in three innings, striking out six. And the credit goes to his cutter, which is actually two different pitches.
Despite it normally being his second pitch to his fastball, he led with 58% cutter usage in that game and did everything with it - weak contact, induced chase, got whiffs. It’s because he actually has two different versions, as you can kinda see by my surprisingly smooth-looking freehand line on the pitch plot below from his 2025 season:
He has a traditional cutter that has just minimal horizontal break and a bit more IVB, represented by the dots above the black curved line. The larger, faint brown circle represents what most lefty cutters look like, so you can see that this is a standard version of a cutter.
But below the line, he also has a cutter that works more like a traditional slider, featuring three inches more drop and three inches more horizontal movement. While I haven’t had enough time or a large enough sample to dive into the usage of each, I’m pretty confident that this is intentional and am eager to see what he can do with more runway to make starts.
Having another four years of control after this season means that, if this works out, Atlanta may have bolstered their future starting depth and/or their bullpen for almost nothing.
Is Iggy back?
Raisel Iglesias had a nightmare start to his season, sporting an ERA of 6.75 through his first 25 appearances while taking five losses and four blown saves. It was bad enough that the Braves both shelved his slider and took him out of the ninth inning role, sending him out in lower leverage situations and cycling through other backend options in save situations.
But the time out of the closing role appears to have worked - Iglesias hasn’t allowed a run in his last fifteen appearances, giving up just six hits and one walk while striking out eighteen. He’s picked up two holds, a win, and converted all three of his save situations during that stretch.
And that resurgence might pay dividends for the Braves. With an expiring contract and a history of excellent performance in his career, Iglesias might have worked his way back into the “veteran closer available to the highest bidder” conversation at the upcoming trade deadline. It’s a far cry from where the Braves were in early June, openly discussing whether or not he’d ever figure out out and with some fans suggesting he be designated for assignment.
The one concern that I have is that his slider hasn’t really returned. After giving up five homers on just that breaking ball, more than he allowed all of last season, he’s been reticient to bring it back. In this hot streak, the slider usage has cratered, with six outings seeing him not throw a single one and only once using it more than three times.
Without a slider in his mix, it’s an odd profile of changeup/sinker/four-seamer, all pitches that come in roughly adjacent on a pitch plot, and with nothing moving to the glove side. It might limit his appeal from analytically wise teams and/or model-heavy teams that tend to set bullpen matchups based on weaknesses of opposing lineups.
He should still fetch an asset at the deadline, though, which is more than we expected just two months ago.
Do these kids have agents ! It sounds like the Braves say take it or leave it ! What's the point for an agent ! And why did Miller sign so low !? It sounds like they draft players they can sign instead of better players $$$$$ Great story !