Atlanta Braves promote third base prospect Austin Riley to the Mississippi Braves

Braves promoting Riley to Mississippi

The Atlanta Braves are expected to promote 20-year-old Austin Riley from the Florida Fire Frogs to the Mississippi Braves.  I say expected because nothing official has been announced yet, but instead we’ve come over a “Honeybaked Ham” situation again.

Riley’s girlfriend posted on Twitter 140 characters referring to a possible promotion and she used the hashtag “#doubleA”.  Riley responded to her saying thank you for all the support.  Okay, so sounds official unless both accounts got hacked…which isn’t too far fetched, but doubtful.

Here’s the original tweet from Miss Anna Harrington (Riley’s girlfriend) and then his response.

Riley has played the entire 2017 season with the Mississippi Braves, but it looks like the Braves are ready to promote this youngster.  He’s batting .252/.310/.408 with the MBraves with 10 doubles, one triple, 12 homers, 47 RBIs and 43 runs scored.

The Braves drafted Riley in the 1st round (41st overall) in the 2015 MLB draft.  He went to DeSoto Central High School in Mississippi.  So he’s going home and that’s why Anna is pretty excited.

Coming out of high school, he was a pitcher and a shortstop.  The Braves saw more from the big right-hander and moved him to strictly a power-hitting third baseman.

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The 6’3″ 220-pound third baseman looks to be slotted into the third base position slot as soon as Thursday.

Braves veteran Sean Rodriguez is currently playing third base for the MBraves, but will be either moved to Gwinnett or to Atlanta tomorrow.

Travis Demeritte, another top prospect — ranked 10th in the Braves system by MLB.com — has been playing third for Mississippi.  It’s going to be interesting to see what they do here.  He has played half the season and second base as well so it’s possible to slide him back there.

Demeritte hasn’t been hitting the ball that well this season, but he’s too talented.  Is current slash line is .216/.297/.390 with 15 doubles, three triples, 11 homers, and five stolen bases.

Mississippi also has Emerson Landoni, Luis Valenzuela and Omar Obregon (Obregon is currently on the 7-day DL) to play second base.

For the Braves to move Riley to Mississippi, I can’t image him sitting.

Going into the 2017 season, Riley was ranked #79 in the MLB by Baseball Prospectus.  In his three short years as a professional, the big righty has hit 44 homers.

Though still nothing official, we’re seeing Riley thank more folks on twitter…I’m going to go with this is as official as the sun rising tomorrow morning.

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