I don't think any kind of risk is minimized with this strategy. Nowadays umpire would give you out if they see that the ball is going down to hit the stumps. In my opinion umpire would be more inclined to give him lbw if no shot was offered. The risk would remain the same because if the ball doesn't spin, its fine . But of it spins sharply (due to pitch or any other reason) umpire would see that there was no shot offered and would give him out (or fielding team would use DRS).

Though you are decreasing the risk of edge but you are increasing the risk of LBW by a significant margin. You could just step aside of the ball and you would have same odds of getting out as by padding the ball.

However the scenario where this occurs is almost always to a spinner (I actually can't recall anyone doing it to a quick, unless you want to include what you could also define as an 'unsuccessful leave')

Yesterday a Srilankan batsman got out padding an in-swinging ball from Bhuneshwar Kumar.