Austin Riley extension had major impact on Braves deadline plans

Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley was extended with a huge contract. In turn, this impacted the club’s deadline plans.

The Atlanta Braves extended Austin Riley to a 10-year, $212 million contract. This is the largest contract in franchise history, so Atlanta had a lot to consider before making any major trades this season.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos spoke to The Athletic and explained how the Riley deal affected what they planned to do before Tuesday’s trade deadline.

“Part of (the importance of) getting Austin’s extension, knowing whether we were going to get it done or not — we had a lot of deals that we were exploring that had commitments of (multiple) years that would impact us going forward,” Anthopoulos said.

Atlanta stuck to low-key trades, including landing Jake Odorizzi, Robbie Grossman and Ehire Adrianza until they extended Riley and were certain of who they could take on the roster for veterans.

Because of Riley’s difficult extension taking a lot of time to figure out, they traded for closing pitcher Raisel Iglesias just a few minutes before the deadline.

Austin Riley extension caused the Braves to make a big trade right before the deadline

Atlanta waited until the last minute to make any major decisions, which was a smart move considering they still have Riley, the rest of their young core, and now have Iglesias too.

This season, Riley is hitting .300/.360/.599 for an OPS of .959 and has been a legitimate NL MVP candidate this season, making him well worth every penny.

Iglesias was also a worthy deal. So far this season, he’s produced an ERA of 4.04, opposing batting average against of .216 and WHIP of 1.07.

The Braves are certainly contenders again this year with 99.2 percent FanGraphs playoff odds. They’re making great decisions in terms of players.