ST. LOUIS -- Austin Riley quietly made his way to the locker assigned to him in the visitors clubhouse here Saturday, trailed by a couple of members of the media, and when he started to answer questions about his remarkable first days in the big leagues, his voice was hushed.
Teammates were all around the room, but Riley kept his responses so low that there's no way other members of the Atlanta Braves could hear him. In the midst of the interview, a member of the Braves' support staff walked over to grab something from the locker adjacent to Riley's, and Riley quickly asked him, "Need me to move?"
He carries himself like a guest who doesn't want to bother anybody, or accidentally offend with anything he says or does, or leave the impression that he's trying to call attention to himself.
But that politeness disappears when Riley's in the batter's box, when he's swinging a bat and wrecking opponents. In his first 11 games since being summoned from the minors, Riley is hitting .341 with two doubles, five homers and 13 RBIs. In San Francisco on Thursday, he clubbed a game-tying two-run homer in the eighth inning, and then beat the Giants with a 13th-inning single to the opposite field. Riley was promoted to the big leagues after Ender Inciarte went on the injured list, but he figures to stay even after Inciarte returns because of the power and the right-handed balance he provides for the Atlanta lineup. The Braves play the Cardinals on Sunday Night Baseball, having won eight of the 11 games since Riley's promotion.
For Atlanta, it's payoff for its evaluation of Riley when he was a high school senior. He had played shortstop and pitched for coach Mark Monaghan at DeSoto Central High School in Southaven, Mississippi, not far from Memphis. But Riley was big and there was sentiment among a lot of scouts that he had a better future as a pitcher.
DeSoto played a tournament in North Carolina during Riley's senior year, and not long before a game, a Braves scout stopped Monaghan, introduced him to one of his bosses, who immediately got down to business. "You've got to tell me," the Braves official said to Monaghan. "One or the other, if you had to put your name on the line -- hitter or pitcher?"
The scout knew how Monaghan felt, and encouraged him to speak frankly. "Tell him."
"Hitter," Monaghan said, and he walked away. A couple of months later, the Braves drafted Riley 41st overall as a third baseman.
Monaghan had always been struck by how Riley responded under pressure, how he maintained an equilibrium through the best and worst moments, through the home runs and the hitless days. "He handles everything," Monaghan said. "The reasons why he's so successful are that he slows the game down better than anybody, and he fails better than anybody."
On the evening of May 14, Riley phoned Monaghan with the news that he had been summoned to the big leagues. The next night, DeSoto Central was set to begin the championship round for Mississippi's 6A state title -- which it would win again -- and as the Jaguars went through their pregame work, there was suddenly a burst of cheers from the stands.
"I was wondering why everybody was cheering during our pregame warm-ups," Monaghan recalled. "The crowd kind of erupted."
Monaghan's daughters told him: Austin Riley had homered in his second plate appearance in the big leagues. Monaghan went to the dugout to grab his phone, and see for himself.
Austin Riley was a hitter, for sure, at the highest level.
• Chipper Jones was in the broadcast booth for Riley's debut and said that Riley reminded him of former slugger Troy Glaus. Catcher Brian McCann, who once played with Glaus on the Braves and returned to Atlanta for the 2019 season, said he heard Jones' comparison and thought: Perfect. The same kind of swing, the same kind of power, the same type of game-changing impact.
News from around the major leagues
Not long after Jack Flaherty's successful rookie season in the big leagues, he went to dinner at a California Pizza Kitchen with his high school coach, Ethan Katz, now the assistant pitching coordinator in the Giants' organization. Bearing the pitching notebook that he keeps, Flaherty wanted to review his 2018 season and plan his work for the offseason and 2019.
As Flaherty and Katz sat down, the third inning of Game 3 of the World Series between the Red Sox and Dodgers played on a nearby television. The two friends talked pitching, as Game 3 continued -- and they were still talking pitching about five hours later, when Game 3 finally ended, after 18 innings. In the midst of that evening, Katz posted a picture of Flaherty on Twitter:
While the #WorldSeries is still going, late night planning for the offseason w @Jack9Flaherty. Pretty impressive for someone his age and after having a great rookie season! Wants to learn and get better. #preparation #puttinginwork cc: @Cardinals pic.twitter.com/T5Bt66K1vI
— Ethan Katz (@ethankatz) October 27, 2018
Years before, at Harvard-Westlake High, Katz had strongly encouraged Flaherty to pursue pitching at a time when Flaherty thought of himself as a position player. In a phone conversation last week, Katz recalled that he made a point of telling Flaherty every day that he was a pitcher. Pitching first, pitching first, Katz would say.
Flaherty heard him, but didn't buy it initially. "Every time it came around to hitting, he'd always joke, 'You don't need that,'" Flaherty recalled. "'Put that bat down, you're a pitcher, anyway.' I'd look at him and tell him, 'I'm not. I'm not. I don't care what you say, I'm not a pitcher.'
"And he ended up being right."
• As Katz recalled, Flaherty loved basketball and had been torn by the question of whether he should play baseball or basketball. Flaherty is 6-foot-4 and a phenomenal athlete and still believes he could have excelled at basketball had he focused on it. "It would've been one of those things that I would've had to work a little harder at," he said, through a smile. "But I'd never doubt myself. I feel like whatever sport I picked, I could've been pretty good at it."
Flaherty -- a high school teammate of the Braves' Max Fried and the White Sox's Lucas Giolito -- pitches for the Cardinals on Sunday Night Baseball, with Fried in the opposing dugout.
• The Twins lead the majors in home runs, remarkable not only because of the club's transformation but also because of the club's early-season playing conditions -- a lot of their April games are in the cold. But the Twins' hitters also have the third-fewest strikeouts of any team, behind the Angels and Astros, and if you were looking for a common denominator among championship teams in recent years, it might be that ability to put the ball in play (with the '16 Cubs as an exception):
2018 Red Sox: fifth-fewest strikeouts
2017 Astros: fewest strikeouts
2016 Cubs: 22nd
2015 Royals: fewest strikeouts
• The expectation among executives is that because of the cemented July 31 trade deadline -- there will not be a time in August when trades can be made through the use of waivers -- more teams will look to make more moves in June.
For contenders looking for rotation help, it appears as if the market volume will work in their favor. For starters, lefty Dallas Keuchel is still available in free agency for any contender that would prefer to pay cash than give up prospects. The Blue Jays would talk about Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez right now, as will the Giants about Madison Bumgarner.
The Indians talked extensively about dealing right-hander Trevor Bauer over the winter and into the spring, and rival evaluators speculate that the sizable gap between Cleveland and first-place Minnesota will increase the likelihood that Bauer will move. If the surprising Rangers drift in the AL wild-card standings, they could dangle left-hander Mike Minor, who is off to a good start -- although Texas may choose to keep him because he'll pitch under a very affordable rate of $9.5 million next season.
• There has been a lot of speculation about the possibility that the Nationals might dangle Stephen Strasburg, but keep in mind that any team acquiring him would do so amid some uncertainty about his future: Strasburg will have the right to opt out of his contract after the 2019 season. He turns 31 in July, and would be paid $100 million over the next four years if he does not opt out of his deal.
Along the same lines, the Nationals could theoretically weigh offers for Max Scherzer, who will gain 10-and-5 rights to veto trades after this season. Scherzer has two years remaining on his heavily back-loaded contract after 2019 -- he's making $42.1 million this year and for each of the next two seasons, after making much less than that from 2015 to '18. A lot of his salary is deferred.
At the very least, a Strasburg or Scherzer trade would be complicated for the Nationals, depending on their priority. If dumping salary becomes the goal over reshaping the team to compete in 2020, that would increase the chances of the two aces moving.
• The most interesting speculation heard about Anthony Rendon's future beyond 2019: The Rangers have a lot of payroll flexibility after 2020, and Rendon, a native Texan, would be a great signing for a team looking to draw folks to a new ballpark next season.
• Paul Hembekides sent this along: Among the 329 elected members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, 68 are military veterans.
Veterans in the Baseball Hall of Fame
Civil War: 1
World War I: 27
World War II: 36
Korean War: 6
Ted Williams and Larry MacPhail served in multiple wars, which is why the numbers above add up to 70, not 68.
• Some evaluators who have seen Buster Posey lately are concerned that he may never fully bounce back after having hip surgery last fall. Posey has always been a model of balance at the plate, consistently taking fastballs to right field and pulling breaking stuff, but he has really struggled against off-speed pitches this year.
Posey vs. off-speed pitches
2017 .356 average, .513 slugging percentage
2018 .190 average, .255 SLG
2019 .161 average, .242 SLG
Posey will be an interesting candidate for the Hall of Fame, similar to that of Chase Utley, because like Utley, he has checked so many boxes while not necessarily reaching some of the benchmarks that inductees have typically achieved. Posey was a core part of three San Francisco championships, won the Rookie of the Year Award in 2010 and the NL MVP in 2012, has played in five All-Star Games, and had outstanding peak seasons. His Adjusted OPS+ of 131 puts him in the same neighborhood as Rod Carew and Wade Boggs, and from 2010 to 2018, only Mike Trout rated higher in fWAR.
For all of that, he'd be a slam-dunk candidate for me, but I suspect some voters might hold his traditional counting stats against him -- just 1,309 hits, 135 homers and 650 RBIs so far.
Baseball Tonight Podcast
Friday: Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro Leagues Museum, talks about a terrible act of vandalism and the incredible outpouring of support that it spurred; Karl Ravech takes a look at what the Home Run Derby field might look like; Jake Kaplan of The Athletic checks in to talk about the Astros and what they might prioritize as we get closer to the trade deadline.
Thursday: A conversation with the Pirates' Josh Bell about his transformation; Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game, with great stuff on Max Scherzer and others; Boog Sciambi talks about the Orioles' brutal season.
Wednesday: Keith Law discusses the possible implications of a collegian bypassing the MLB draft, and the loophole it exposes; Paul Hembekides brings the numbers; Mandy Bell of MLB.com discusses the Indians' plans and whether they'll look to deal Trevor Bauer. (The answer is yes.)
Tuesday: Tyler Kepner of the New York Times discusses the most Mets of Mets days; Tim Kurkjian reveals a controversial decision with Vlad Jr.; Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game.
Monday: Conversations with Kris Bryant and Kyle Hendricks; Todd Radom's weekly quiz and cap talk; David Schoenfield talks about Anthony Rendon and how he'll be the most-discussed player in the majors over the next eight months.
• Gerry Fraley, who passed away Saturday morning, represented what a journalist should aspire to be -- someone who asked hard questions and spoke hard truths, and was not tethered to the kind of quid pro quo relationships that bend and rot the truth. And man, was he funny; his humor will be missed.