Last week I contemplated the Braves extending a young arm in Mike Soroka, which you can read here. In this article I will consider the merits of offering an extension to some less certain players, in Austin Riley, Johan Camargo, and Cristian Pache. Extending these young players now could help extend what should be a long championship window in Atlanta, but they all come with risk.
Austin Riley
Austin Riley was something of a tale of two halves last season after he started the season scorching hot in triple-A, hitting 15 homers in 44 games, slugging .626, and posting a WRC+ of 146. He was so impressive at the plate that he forced his way up to Atlanta, despite needing to play in the outfield, which was new to him. Riley continued to hit the cover off the ball in the majors through May and early June, hitting 16 homers in his first 49 games with a 186 WRC+ in May and a 116 WRC+ in the first half. Unfortunately, Riley ran into a metaphorical brick wall and posted a dreadful 22 WRC+ in the second half, while striking out over 40% of the time. Ivan wrote a piece on what caused and didn’t cause this slump, which you can read here, but the important part in this discussion is that it happened.
Riley has shown both his impressive offensive potential, and his very real struggles in his rookie season. This could allow the team to get him on a substantial discount, given the perceived risk that comes with guaranteeing him money on the back of his dreadful offensive slump in the second half. The Braves do have a similar precedent for this type of situation with the recent extension of Ozzie Albies who had a similar hot first half in 2018 followed by a 2nd half slump. It is worth considering that Albies both had a better prospect pedigree, had a larger sample size of good offensive production in the majors, has more carrying tools other than hitting and power, and had less drastic of a slump, but conceptually it is similar. The Albies extension shows that the Braves are willing to bet on a young talent with an extension. This all depends on the price, but given the need at third base, I would feel comfortable with offering Riley a deal similar to Albies, although they might want to wait to see a larger sample size of success first.
Johan Camargo
Camargo has had quite a chaotic career, starting as a prospect with very little hype. He came up to Atlanta in 2017 and played 82 games of good defense and average offensive production. After starting the 2018 season injured, he played 134 games of high caliber defense at third base, and a 116 WRC+. While the production was great, his batted ball profile would indicate that he may have been substantially lucky in 2018. After having his starting job given to Josh Donaldson, he struggled mightily at all aspects of the game in 2019, eventually being sent down to Gwinnett.
My perception of Camargo so far has been a player who is good but not great when starting, but struggles to perform when not starting nearly every day. He has the skill-set to be a useful utility player and a solid bench bat, but has seemed to struggle psychologically with filling any role other that everyday starter. That combined with the...less creative tendencies of Brian Snitker leads me to believe that it would be ill-advised to extend Camargo right now until he can prove that he can consistently and sustainable perform.
Cristian Pache
Cristian Pache is almost unanimously Atlanta’s top prospect right now, and is ranked in the top 20 prospects in all of baseball by most sources. He is known for elite level defense in center field, while being a fantastic overall athlete. He has the potential to be a true five-tool player, but has some work to do on his hit tool, converting his raw power to game power, and converting his speed to stolen bases. While still having lots of room to improve, it isn’t unreasonable to think that his floor at this stage in his development is an Ender Inciarte type of player, that is an elite center field defender with average to below average offensive production. Overall, that is a very useful player, and Pache has the potential to be a true star. That being said, he is only a prospect with limited experience at triple-A, so he comes with some inherent risk.
Extending top-level prospects near the majors has become a common occurrence in recent years. Something in the ballpark of $35 million over 6 years with two club options worth $10 million each would seem to fit the recent precedents, although all negotiations are different. I would make an attempt to extend Pache soon, since he has the floor that would make me comfortable guaranteeing him the kind of money that this would take, with the ceiling to make it a bargain.