Austin Riley was the 44th overall pick of the 2015 draft, and by 2019 was the Brave’s #1 prospect and #22 best prospect in baseball. But plenty of highly rated players flop when they get to the big leagues, and it certainly looked like that could’ve been the case with Riley. In 2019 and 2020 he hit .232/.288/.448 with a 86 OPS+, which were not especially exciting numbers. Over that period he struck out 157 times in 462 at-bats, with only 32 walks. He had pop, hitting 26 HR, but probably not enough to justify the contact issues. Rough.
Then something clicked. Over the last two seasons, Riley has hit .288/.358/.530 with a 138 OPS+. He still strikes out a bunch, but he also hit 71 HR over the last two seasons…so you can live with the whiffs. In 2021 he was selected for his first Silver Slugger, and in 2022 got his first All-Star selection.