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NBC Sports
06-03-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Breakout hitters for 2025 fantasy baseball: Why Dylan Crews, Kyle Manzardo could be ready to thrive
Last year, I started this column to find the next Josh Lowe. The idea was to prevent us from having 'The One Who Got Away' when we give up on a player we like too early. Josh Lowe was one of my favorite young breakout hitter picks in 2022, but he struggled to start the year and was demoted a few times, so I was tentative about drafting him in 2023. Of course, that year he hit .292 with 20 home runs and 32 steals, and I was crying into my pint of ice cream at the end of the night. I figured that if we looked at highly regarded prospects who failed to live up to expectations in their MLB debuts but had solid underlying metrics, we might be able to more easily identify which players not to give up on. Last year's article brought me to Lawrence Butler, Zach Neto, Brenton Doyle, and Jordan Westburg. Unfortunately, my choice for the 'next Josh Lowe' was Parker Meadows. Still, the exercise proved useful, so we're going to do it again. Rotoworld Staff, The criteria for what makes somebody the 'Next Josh Lowe' is that they made their debut in the previous season, had at least 100 MLB plate appearances, and had an offensive WAR under 1.0. That means no Jasson Dominguez, who had only 67 MLB at-bats, or Coby Mayo, who had 46 at-bats last year. That also means no Heston Kjerstad or Tyler Soderstrom, who had offensive WARs over 1.0. I also looked for players who were legitimate prospects, either making top 100 lists or featured inside their own team's top 100. The next step was my personal sorting. I looked beyond the surface-level stats (since the point is that they would have been bad), and ooked at barrel rate, max exit velocity, swinging strike rate, chase rates, and overall contact to get a sense of who has a workable approach at the plate and who was able to make solid contact overall contact. Even in Lowe's bad 2023 call-up, he had an O-Swing% under 30%, a slightly above league average SwStr%, a 5.2% barrel rate, and good minor league batted ball data, so there were hints at a viable fantasy profile (especially since we knew his scouting report). When all that was done, I had six players who could be the 'next Josh Lowe,' two players who won't start out of spring training, and one player who technically fit the criteria but is being drafted far too high right now. For me, part of being 'the next Josh Lowe' is about somebody drastically outperforming their ADP value after a tough rookie season, so I guess ADP is the final component. We'll go through the case for each of these hitters, and then I'll anoint the next breakout hitter at the end of the article. (All ADP information is taken from NFBC Online Championship 12-team drafts from February 12th to March 5th - 36 drafts) Potential Young Hitter Breakouts Name Team Ben Rice NYY Dylan Crews WSN Kyle Manzardo CLE José Tena Addison Barger TOR Junior Caminero TBR Jackson Holliday BAL Colt Keith DET Evan Carter TEX That's 11 names who, mostly, passed the benchmarks I put in place. I will admit that both Junior Caminero and Jackson Holliday were well below average in swinging strike rate and overall contact rate, but they are also far and away the two highest-profile prospects on this list, so I felt it was warranted to keep them in the article to discuss them in more detail. However, I will not discuss José Tena, since it seems Paul DeJong will be the starting third baseman in Washington, and I won't discuss Addison Barger because he's not expected to make the Blue Jays opening day roster after their off-season additions. Both of them are names to keep in the back of your head if they get a chance. That leaves... As I mentioned above, I'm writing about Caminero here because he's worth a discussion, but he won't be my choice because part of the criteria is 'outperforming their ADP value after a tough rookie season.' I just can't see Caminero surpassing this aggressive ADP. In fact, if we're going just by surface-level stats, Caminero failed to qualify in three of the five criteria areas based on last year's numbers. His swinging strike rate (SwStr%) was higher than the league average, as was his 38.6% chase rate, and his 70.3% contact rate was below league average. Still, we know how good Caminero is, and we know he was battling injuries last year, so it seemed necessary to keep him on here. In 2024, Caminero battled through multiple leg injuries to hit .274/.337/.521 with 16 home runs in 59 games at Triple-A. When he finally did get a chance to get consistent MLB at-bats, he was far more aggressive than he had been in the minors and posted a 14% SwStr%. We should expect that to correct itself, but he has been about a 12% SwStr% hitter in the minors, so it wouldn't be a shock if that settles around 13% or higher in the big leagues. While that's below average, it's not below average for somebody that hits the ball as hard as Caminero does. He only pulled the ball 37% in his MLB sample size last year, but he's been about a 43% pull rate guy in the minors, and we know the Rays loved pulled fly balls, so I expect Caminero to get back to that rate in 2025. That means there is real power upside if he can dial back his 50% groundball rate. In spring training he is currently sporting a 79% fly ball rate, which is comically high, but I do think shows us that he is working to try and put the ball in the air more than he did last year. The Rays figure to start him regularly at third base, where he has a baseline as a .260 hitter with 25-30 home run power in their minor league stadium in 2025. That alone would make him worthy of being considered for this 'title,' but the lineup around him isn't great, and he;s unlikely to steal more than about five bases this season, which means it's hard to see him really out-producing an ADP that already has him going as essentially a top 70 player. I don't have any issues with Caminero; I just don't think he's going to be a major draft value for us in 2025. Holliday is the other massive name on this list, given that he came into 2024 as the number one prospect in baseball. However, his ADP is far more likely to result in draft you believe in Jackson Holliday for 2025. Holliday made his MLB debut in 2024, but things didn't go as well as many hoped for the top prospect in baseball. He hit .059/.111/.059 in his first 36 plate appearances with a 50% strikeout rate and was demoted to Triple-A early in the season. While he was slightly better in the second half after being called back up, he only hit .218/.285/.365 with five home runs and a 30% strikeout rate in his final 172 plate appearances. It should be noted that he didn't exactly tear up Triple-A either, hitting a solid .271/.431/.477 with 10 home runs and eight steals in 73 games. The high walk rate was great to see, and he's never run high swinging strike rates in the minors, so I don't think the MLB strikeout rate is sticky, but he didn't really do anything last year that makes me think he's going to be a well above-average MLB player in 2025 as a 21-year-old. He only checked the boxes in one criteria based on last year, his chase rate. His barrel rates and max exit velocities weren't bad, but he also posted a 55% groundball rate in his MLB at-bats and a 48% rate in Triple-A, so that will severely cap his power ceiling if his average exit velocities are around 89 mph. The future is likely bright for Holliday, but he'll be 21 years old this season and looked overmatched against MLB pitching for much of last year. The Orioles are also a team with World Series aspirations and plenty of talented infield prospects, so Holliday, who has only played 92 career games at Triple-A, could still run the risk of being demoted if he starts the season struggling again. I'm just not sure I feel good enough about his prospects in 2025 to predict a real breakout. Crews was third on the list of players above, surpassing the criteria in three of the five categories. All of his swinging strike rate, chase rate, and contact rate were above league average last year despite his underwhelming .218/.288/.353 slash line. Additionally, the only criteria where Crews missed was with a 6.4% barrel rate; however, the league average was 6.9%, and Crews only had 132 plate appearances, so it's not as if he displayed a skill that was clearly below the league average. Crews' 34% hard-hit rate in Triple-A last year suggests that quality contact is well within his range of outcomes, and his overall Process stats were above average for almost the entirety of his MLB action. I like that he doesn't chase out of the zone, with just a 29.5% O-Swing%, and his poor average had nothing to do with swinging and missing, since his SwStr% was just 9.9%. His overall contact rate of 77.6% is appealing for a rookie in his first taste of MLB pitching, and I appreciate that his pull rate stayed consistent with what he showed in the minors. His fly ball rate was also fairly consistent with what we've seen in the minors, but his groundball rate jumped while his line drive rate plummeted to just 10%. The difference in squaring up a baseball to be a line drive versus a groundball is so minuscule, and I think that's an adjustment that Crews can make in another big league season. I also love that he plays for a Washington team that is embracing their young talent, so there really isn't a scenario where Crews is taken out of the starting lineup this season. I think he has the potential to hit about .250-.260 with 18 home runs, 140 Runs+RBI, and 30 steals while getting over 600 plate appearances in Washington, and that could make him solid value at pick 115, but his ADP has been rising of late, so I'm not sure just how much he'll 'outproduce' that. Keith had far and away the most opportunities of anybody on this list last year, getting 556 plate appearances for the Tigers while hitting .260/.309/.380 with 13 home runs and seven steals. All of which led to a -1.9 offensive WAR. For the vast majority of the season, Keith's process was above average. That makes sense for a hitter who had just a 10.5% SwStr% with a 78.5% contact rate in his rookie season. He does chase out of the zone a bit more than we'd like, but he did that in the minors, and that's mainly him chasing pitches on the fringe of the strike zone that he can make contact with. I'd love him to be a little more selective to unlock some more power, but it's not a bad approach. You can just see him falling off over the final four to six weeks of the season, which makes sense, considering he had played over 70 games in a pro season just once, and it was the 126 games he played in 2023. Playing 148 games is a major grind, and we see plenty of young guys wear down. Before that slump at the end, his barrel rate was just under the league average, and he was pulling and lifting the ball at a similar rate to what he did in the minors. His strikeout rate was also over 2% lower, and his walk rate was up a bit, even though the season-long numbers there don't concern us. His 109.4 max exit velocity suggests there is some power in his profile, but even in Triple-A, when he posted a 35% hard hit rate, his average exit velocity was just 88.7 mph. Given that his fly ball rates are usually around 40%, and he plays in Comerica Park, which suppresses power, it's hard to see Keith emerging as more than a 15-homer bat at the big league level. He should post a solid batting average and good on-base percentage, but he also has never stolen more than seven bases in a season, so is that the profile of a hitter who can drastically outperform this ADP and be a major fantasy value for us? Carter has taken a roundabout way onto this list because he looked like a major stud in his 23-game sample in 2023 before hitting just .188/.272/.361 in 45 games in 2024 before having surgery to fix a stress reaction in his back. Anytime you see a back injury that requires surgery, you have to worry about the long-term outlook of a hitter, given how rotational the activity is. Yet, in his 68-game MLB sample, Carter has checked the box in four criteria for this article that make him a good candidate for the 'Next Josh Lowe.' In that sample, Carter has a 7.1% barrel rate, 9% SwStr%, 16.4% chase rate, and 75.4% zone contact rate. All of those are league average or better. The only place where he lags behind is his 108.7 mph max exit velocity, which suggests there may be some limit to his power ceiling. He also posted just a 21.8% hard-hit rate in 530 plate appearances in the minor leagues in 2023, so it's not as if he has a long minor league track record of hitting the cover off the ball. The other issue is that, in his small 40 plate appearance MLB sample size, he's hitting just .111/.172/.111 against left-handed pitching with a 34.5% strikeout rate. Josh Lowe had similar issues with platoon splits, so Evan Carter could still be the winner here even if he only hits against right-handed pitching, but it does make it a bit harder for him. We also need to see that he'll continue to run despite the back surgery. If his ceiling is as a 15 home run hitter, then we need him to retain that 25 stolen base speed to really give us fantasy value. Considering the Rangers are likely to platoon him, Carter could easily hit .260 this season with 15 home runs, so if the speed is there and he can get 20+ steals in over 500 plate appearances against mainly right-handed pitching, that's a compelling case to be our choice at the end of the article. I spent some time with Manzardo in spring training this year and talked to him a bit about the adjustments he made last year that led to his solid September and October performance. In 83 Triple-A games in 2024, Manzardo hit .267/.398/.548 with 20 home runs, an 18.4% strikeout rate, and a 16.8% walk rate. While his first stint in the big leagues didn't go well, slashing .270/.333/.540 with five home runs in 23 games in September to end the regular season. Both Manzardo and Guardians manager Stephen Vogt talked openly about the team putting Manzardo in a difficult decision of going from playing the field every day in the minors to only DHing and pinch-hitting in the big leagues. I think we have to account for that adjustment period when evaluating why Manzardo became more successful in his second stint with the big club. In his 156 plate appearance MLB sample size, Manzardo posted a 9.5% barrel rate, 11.1% SwStr%, and 29.3% chase rate. That cleared three of our five criteria for this article, and his 73.4% contact rate was just under the mark we were looking for. We should note that, even in his strong month of September, that contact rate was just 72.7%, so he was under the league average mark in both MLB stints. What I do like about that second MLB stint is that Manzardo's walk rate improved to nearly 9%, which is closer to the hitter he was in the minors. His average exit velocity increased only slightly to 89.2 mph, but his barrel rate rose to 11.1% in part because he reduced his fly ball rate a bit and increased his pull rate to 49%, which seemed to suggest that he was getting more comfortable in the batter's box and looking to turn on the ball a little bit more. In that sense, I think Manzardo could be a good value at this draft cost. Vogt has openly mentioned that Carlos Santana will get most of the work at first base, which means Manzardo might not pick up that eligibility in most league types for a long time. However, he should start against all right-handed pitchers and is a good bet to hit .260-.270 with 20+ home runs and 120 Runs+RBI hitting in the middle of that lineup. He doesn't steal bases, so the question we have to ask ourselves is, just how much upside does he truly have as a UT-only with those stats? Is it a value at pick 360? Yes, I believe so, but I'm not sure it will meaningfully impact your team in the same way Josh Lowe did in 2023. Surprisingly, Ben Rice met the threshold in four of the five potential criteria here and didn't fall below the MLB average in any of them. Despite his pedestrian .171/.264/.349 slash line and 27% strikeout rate in his 178 MLB plate appearances, he had a 15.6% barrel rate, which was well above the 6.9% MLB average. He also posted a 10.5% SwStr% and 29.5% chase rate, which were both better than the league averages there, and a 77.2% contact rate that is not only better than league average but the third-best of any player on this list. His xBA of .235 was also WELL above his actual .171 batting average, if you're into that sort of thing. Rice also had a great 2024 season in the minors, hitting .273/.400/.567 with 24 home runs and 10 steals in 79 games between Double-A and Triple-A. After just 30 games at Triple-A, the Yankees promoted him to the majors due to the injuries to Anthony Rizzo. While that may have been a step too far too quickly for Rice, we already established that his baseline production wasn't as bad as we might have thought. The 25-year-old has always had great plate discipline and pulled the ball 49% of the time in the minors, so that approach should work for him in Yankee Stadium. Even during his struggles in 2024, he still pulled and lifted the ball at the same rate as he did in the minors, and it's nice to see a young player not change who they are when they get to the big leagues. He may have just needed more time to see his process pay off. So Rice is my choice then, right? Well, not so fast. With Giancarlo Stanton on the injured list with tennis elbow in both elbows, we could see Rice get more time at DH. However, in spring, the Yankees have been using that spot to rotate rest for players. On Thursday, they are running out a lineup that looks a lot like an Opening Day lineup, and it has Trent Grisham in center field with Aaron Judge at DH. Allowing Judge to DH would be a huge help for his health and a boon for the Yankees' defense since Grisham has warts as a hitter but remains a really strong defender. All of that, plus the impending return of Stanton at one point, makes it hard to project plate appearances for Rice and makes it tough to predict him as the Josh Lowe-type of breakout. Who is the breakout hitter choice? So the 'finalists' for this award are Dylan Crews, Evan Carter, and Ben Rice. I will admit that I also really want to make Ben Rice the final answer, and if the Yankees were willing to play him regularly against righties at DH, then he would likely be my choice. So far this spring, he has only started five games, and three of them have been at catcher, where he is not going to make the roster as a backup catcher. If we get any indication in the coming weeks that Rice is going to play regularly, then I will be drafting him on as many teams as I can, so keep an eye on that. That leaves Crews and Evan Carter, and I will say that Crews is one of my most-drafted players this year. I think he's going to have a strong year and a big bounce back in his second season. However, as I mentioned above, his ADP is already 115 in recent drafts, so I can't sit at this keyboard with confidence and tell you that he's going to finish as a top 70 player and outproduce that ADP by a lot. Which is why the answer here is Evan Carter. I believe Carter is going to play every day against right-handed pitching if his body holds up. I believe he can produce a 20/20 season in that role with a good batting average, and so I believe he could easily outproduce his ADP by over 100 picks, which gives him the edge over Crews here in the finals.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Breakout hitters for 2025 using exit velocity
It's time to take a break from writing about pitchers to check and see which hitters might be undervalued or in for breakout seasons based on last year's quality of contact. While we sometimes use barrel rates to put together a list like that, today we're going to use a Statcast stat called EV50. For a batter, "EV50 is an average of the hardest 50% of his batted balls." That means instead of looking at just their max exit velocity or their barrel rates, we want to see how hard they CONSISTENTLY hit the ball, regardless of launch angle. EV50 tells that half of a hitter's outcomes will be at this exit velocity, which allows us to see not only who has power but who has power that will play because they can get to it regularly. For the leaderboard below, even though I sorted by EV50, I also included average exit velocity for a comparison's sake and exit velocity on fly balls and line drives because we do want to see who makes the most out of their hard contact when it's in the air. I also wanted to show the percentage of batted balls each player has over 95 mph and their rate of barrels per plate appearance so we get a fuller picture of just how good their quality of contact is. After deleting anybody who was under the MLB average in any of those categories, we got the following list. So let's dive in. 2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Rankings, strategy, sleepers, mock draft results Your one-stop-shop for Rotoworld's preseason fantasy baseball content. Rotoworld Staff, Rotoworld Staff, All ADP is from NFBC Online Championship (12-team) drafts from February 14th to March 3rd (30 drafts) RANK NAME AVG EV EV50 FB/LD % 95mph+ Brls/PA% 1 Stanton, Giancarlo 94.6 108.2 100.4 55.3 12.4 2 Judge, Aaron 96.2 107.2 99.9 61 14.9 3 Cruz, Oneil 95.5 107.2 98.5 54.9 9.5 4 Ohtani, Shohei 95.8 106.7 99.7 60.1 14.1 5 Soto, Juan 94.2 105.7 99.5 57 12.8 6 Guerrero Jr., Vladimir 93.8 105.7 97.1 54.9 10.3 7 Encarnacion, Jerar 95 105.6 99.3 58.8 10.1 8 Schwarber, Kyle 93.6 105.2 98.2 55.5 8.7 9 Wood, James 92.8 104.7 96.9 52 6.3 10 Wallner, Matt 92.8 104.6 96.6 53.2 8.4 11 Devers, Rafael 93.2 104.6 96.9 52.6 8.3 12 Sánchez, Jesús 92.5 104.6 97.1 51.3 8 13 Tatis Jr., Fernando 93.5 104.4 97.6 55.8 10 14 Chapman, Matt 93.2 104.4 96.8 48.3 8.2 15 Alvarez, Yordan 93.1 104.1 95.5 49.7 10.6 The top 15 is filled with hitters that you know hit the ball consistently hard, so I'm not going to talk about most of these guys. However, I did want to highlight a few below that I think could still be values based on where they're being drafted. Encarnación is such an interesting story. His prodigious power made him an intriguing prospect for the Marlins, but he struggled to a .182/.210/.338 slash line in his 23-game MLB debut in 2022 and then continued to struggle in the minors in 2023 before the Marlins cut him. He had to play in the Mexican Independent League in 2024, but he hit .366 with 19 home runs in 26 games, so the Giants took a gamble and signed him to a minor league contract. In 33 games in Triple-A for the Giants, Encarnación hit .352/.438/.616 with 10 home runs and 33 RBI, so the Giants gave him 35 games at the big league level to end the season. With all of that, Encarnación is just 27 years old. That EV50 number put him up around some of the premiere sluggers in baseball, and his 24% strikeout rate at Triple-A suggests that he could keep his MLB strikeout rate below 30%. Almost all of his contact is loud, as his percentage of baseballs hit over 95 mph is third behind only Aaron Judge and Shoehi Ohtani. Now, we know we're dealing with a small sample size here, but the point is that Encarnación has tons of power and is getting a chance to be the starting designated hitter in San Francisco. He has no minor league options left, so he can't be demoted, and he's gone 8-for-18 so far this spring with one home run and 10 RBI. He's the perfect flyer to take at the end of drafts because if he makes enough contact, he's going to be a major asset for you, and if he doesn't, he's losing his spot in the starting lineup, and you can cut him without stress after a few weeks. James Wood had a solid MLB debut and is going inside the first 55 picks, so he's certainly nowhere close to a sleeper. However, he had nine home runs in his 79 MB games and just 19 home runs in total last year, so I wanted to highlight him here because his quality of contact last year was really good. The 29% strikeout rate is something we're going to want to monitor, especially because his strikeout rate was over 33% in Double-A in 2023, which is a bit of a worry. However, when it comes to authoritative contact, he's up there with some of the best, and he also has 20 stolen base upside since the Nationals are going to play him every day. I'm more than fine with drafting Wood at this cost. Matt Wallner is another player you don't need to be told hits the ball hard, but it's nice to see it in the context of some of these elite power producers. His EV50 numbers are impressive, he carries strong exit velocities even on fly balls, and his percentage of baseballs hit 95 mph and over is essentially the same as Vladimir Guerrero Jr and Oneil Cruz, who are two players we view as making some of the loudest contact in baseball. What's also interesting about Wallner is that he's been leading off this spring. We know that the Twins are going to bench him against left-handed pitchers, but if Wallner leads off against righties, which they have said they are hoping he can do, then he should get an extra at-bat in most games, and that could bring his plate appearance total up to comfortably over 500. We also can't forget the massive contact gains he made in 2024 after his demotion, hitting .272/.376/.538 in 55 games in the second half of the season. While I don't believe he can sustain that for a full season, we could see him hit at least .240 with that elite power as the lead-off hitter for the Twins. That will make him a valuable pick at this price. I have always had a soft spot for Jesús Sánchez. It seems like every time I do a leaderboard that measures quality of contact, he is all over it. Last year, when I started breaking down the Statcast bat speed data and looked at the hitters with the fastest and shortest swings, Sánchez was on there (so was Eloy Jimenez, actually). Sánchez has posted a 12.2% barrel rat in each of his last two seasons and was more aggressive last year, which led to a slight decrease in contact rate but a bump in power production. The issues for Sánchez have been his groundball rate and his platoon splits. Last year, his groundball rate was over 50%, and increased as the season went on. That's not really what you want to see from a hitter who makes this kind of authoritative contact. You also don't want to see a .162/.228/.257 slash line against lefites. However, we should note that the Marlins started to play him against lefties more at the end of last season but just moved him farther down in the batting order. That likely won't continue if he keeps hitting .170 against them, but I think he'll get the chance to prove his worth at the start of the 2025 season, and given his power and 15+ stolen base upside, he's worth a gamble in drafts. However, he might not fully break out until he goes to another organization that can fix his groundball approach to maximize his power upside. Matt Chapman is a boring veteran who is being drafted too late. I know we remember his poor 2021 and 2022 seasons, but Chapman has always posted elite barrel rates, which give him strong power production, even in San Francisco. In fact, he hasn't posted a barrel rate under 11% since 2018 and hasn't gone below 12.6% since 2019. That elite quality of contact caused him to go through a stretch where he started to sell out for pull-side power, raising his pull rate to almost 48%. Those were some of his worst stretches of overall production. Last year, Chapman became less pull-happy and less passive at the plate, dropping his pull rate to 39% and swinging almost 2% more but often swinging at more pitches on the fringes of the strike zone. That led to a 6% increase in zone contact and a 7% increase in contact rate overall and got his batting average up near .250. That may have been an adaptation to playing games in San Francisco, which is one of the tougher parks for right-handed power; however, Chapman still had 27 home runs because he has the raw power to drive the ball out of any ballpark, even if he's not trying to on every swing. Pair all of that with a career-high 15 steals, and even if that number falls back near 10, you're looking at a consistent power producer with an improving batting average and chip-in steals. I think he's a real value in drafts. RANK NAME AVG EV EV50 FB/LD % 95mph+ Brls/PA% 27 Harris II, Michael 90.5 103.3 95.3 47 7.4 32 Jimenez, Eloy 92 103.2 95.8 49 5.7 37 Toglia, Michael 92.1 102.7 95.7 50.2 9.6 35 Adell, Jo 89.8 102.7 96.4 44.7 7.3 36 Ramos, Heliot 91.5 102.6 96.1 47.5 9.7 38 McMahon, Ryan 92.1 102.6 95.5 49.7 6.5 39 Soderstrom, Tyler 91.9 102.5 97.4 49.6 9.3 40 Vientos, Mark 91.2 102.5 96 46.6 8.8 42 Larnach, Trevor 92 102.4 94.5 45.1 6.8 43 Nootbaar, Lars 91.8 102.3 95.8 49.5 6.7 47 Conforto, Michael 90.2 102 95.4 46 7.8 49 Soler, Jorge 90.5 101.9 94.6 44.1 7.8 50 Goldschmidt, Paul 91.2 101.9 96.5 49.6 7 53 García, Adolis 91 101.8 95.5 48.2 8 A few of these guys are some of my favorite later-round gambles in drafts. I've already written about Trevor Larnach as my pick for our Rotoworld staff hitting sleeper, I discussed Eloy Jimenez as a late-round hitter to take a flyer on, and I covered Lars Nootbaar here. I did pick Michael Toglia as my hitter bust for our Rotoworld staff picks, but that has more to do with his draft cost. I think he's going to be a .220 hitter with a 33% strikeout rate, so I have a hard time drafting him around pick 180 in 12-team drafts. I do think both Paul Goldschmidt and Jorge Soler are being underdrafted because of their age, and I mentioned Goldschmidt as one of my favorite first base targets in one of my daily videos on NBC Sports. I just wanted to highlight Michael Harris II briefly because I know people think of him as more of a speed and defense guy, but he can swing the bat. Injuries really impacted his production last year, but I'm expecting big things this season. Adell finds himself in an interesting situation. On one hand, the Angels likely aren't going to be good, and the numbers above show that he has the power to make a meaningful impact at the big league level. On the other hand, he continues to strike out a ton and will have to play center field more this year since the Angels are moving Mike Trout to right field. Adell played just 34 innings in center field last year and is an inferior defender to Mickey Moniak, so Adell is going to need to hit to stay in the lineup while Trout is healthy. Another thing to notice from the numbers above is that Adell is the only player with an average exit velocity under 90 mph. That's in part because he has the second-lowest rate of batted balls over 95 mph, which means that his top-end exit velocities are consistently good, but he makes far more weak contact than anybody else on this list. That could be due to his 30% chase rate and huge jump in contact rate outside of the strike zone, which led to a lot of what Fangraphs classified as "medium" contact. Adell did meaningfully cut his swinging strike rate down and struck out under 28% of the time, but his approach still needs a lot of work, and he has yet to really show he can consistently hit MLB pitching, so I'm not getting many shares this year. Much like Adell, Soderstrom is a young hitter with tremendous raw power, who struggles to make consistent enough contact at the big league level. So far. Unlike Adell, Soderstrom has been able to find the barrel more consistently and makes elite contact more often than Adell does. Soderstrom also chases out of the strike zone less and makes more contact in the zone, so even though their swinging strike rates are basically the same, Soderstrom's contact profile is better. The other areas for concern with Soderstrom are that he had a 49% groundball rate last year, which is not something you want from a power hitter, and he pulled the ball just 33% of the time. He could change his approach now that the Athletics will be playing their games in a minor league park instead of the spacious Oakland Coliseum, but we need to see it before we can believe it. As it stands now, Soderstrom has tremendous raw power and will get regular playing time, but he hits the ball on the ground too much and has the contact profile of a .230 hitter. All of that should cap his potential upside, but he's going late round in drafts that it's worth a flyer. I wanted to end with García and McMahon because they are two names that stood out to me on this list as established veterans who are being undervalued after poor seasons. García is going much earlier in drafts, and that's understandable given his past performance. Even in his "bad" year last year, he hit 25 home runs and stole 11 bases. However, we know that he was battling a knee injury all of last season after ending the 2023 season dealing with injuries. He spent all off-season rehabing a sprained patella tendon, and reports from spring training are that he's clearly healthy and running back at full speed. We also pair that with a new swing that is making García quieter in his movement and more direct to the ball. He's also allegedly not trying to lift everything and accepting that he has the power to drive the ball out of the park even when he's not trying to. Given that García made this EV50 list in his down year, a shorter swing should help his overall contact and push him back towards 30 home runs. If his healthy knee also allows him to steal more than 15-20 bases again, you're looking at a major bargain where he's going in drafts. For years, Ryan McMahon has been one of the most consistent players in fantasy baseball. Every year since 2021, he has hit between .240 and .254 with between 20 and 23 home runs, between 4 and 7 steals, and between 67 and 80 runs scored. We should just be penciling him for the same thing in 2025, and that would make him a value going outside of the top 300 picks; however, we are using McMahon's odd 2024 season to impact our approach. Had he not hit .272/.350/.447 with 14 home runs in the first 95 games and been the subject of plenty of trade rumors, then he wouldn't be going this late in drafts. Because we all know what happened. The Rockies held onto him, and he proceeded to hit .188/.283/.309 with six home runs and a 29.5% strikeout rate in 58 games in the second half. Those second half numbers and the failed trade are what stand out to us instead of acknowledging the fact that McMahon remains the same hitter he has been for years.
NBC Sports
04-03-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Breakout hitters for 2025 using exit velocity
It's time to take a break from writing about pitchers to check and see which hitters might be undervalued or in for breakout seasons based on last year's quality of contact. While we sometimes use barrel rates to put together a list like that, today we're going to use a Statcast stat called EV50. For a batter, 'EV50 is an average of the hardest 50% of his batted balls.' That means instead of looking at just their max exit velocity or their barrel rates, we want to see how hard they CONSISTENTLY hit the ball, regardless of launch angle. EV50 tells that half of a hitter's outcomes will be at this exit velocity, which allows us to see not only who has power but who has power that will play because they can get to it regularly. For the leaderboard below, even though I sorted by EV50, I also included average exit velocity for a comparison's sake and exit velocity on fly balls and line drives because we do want to see who makes the most out of their hard contact when it's in the air. I also wanted to show the percentage of batted balls each player has over 95 mph and their rate of barrels per plate appearance so we get a fuller picture of just how good their quality of contact is. After deleting anybody who was under the MLB average in any of those categories, we got the following list. So let's dive in. Rotoworld Staff, All ADP is from NFBC Online Championship (12-team) drafts from February 14th to March 3rd (30 drafts) 2024 Exit Velocity Leaders RANK NAME AVG EV EV50 FB/LD % 95mph+ Brls/PA% 1 Stanton, Giancarlo 94.6 108.2 100.4 55.3 12.4 2 Judge, Aaron 96.2 107.2 99.9 61 14.9 3 Cruz, Oneil 95.5 98.5 54.9 9.5 4 Ohtani, Shohei 95.8 106.7 99.7 60.1 14.1 5 Soto, Juan 94.2 105.7 99.5 57 12.8 6 Guerrero Jr., Vladimir 93.8 97.1 10.3 7 Encarnacion, Jerar 95 105.6 99.3 58.8 10.1 8 Schwarber, Kyle 93.6 105.2 98.2 55.5 8.7 9 Wood, James 92.8 104.7 96.9 52 6.3 10 Wallner, Matt 104.6 96.6 53.2 8.4 11 Devers, Rafael 93.2 52.6 8.3 12 Sánchez, Jesús 92.5 51.3 13 Tatis Jr., Fernando 93.5 104.4 97.6 55.8 14 Chapman, Matt 96.8 48.3 8.2 15 Alvarez, Yordan 93.1 104.1 49.7 10.6 The top 15 is filled with hitters that you know hit the ball consistently hard, so I'm not going to talk about most of these guys. However, I did want to highlight a few below that I think could still be values based on where they're being drafted. Encarnación is such an interesting story. His prodigious power made him an intriguing prospect for the Marlins, but he struggled to a .182/.210/.338 slash line in his 23-game MLB debut in 2022 and then continued to struggle in the minors in 2023 before the Marlins cut him. He had to play in the Mexican Independent League in 2024, but he hit .366 with 19 home runs in 26 games, so the Giants took a gamble and signed him to a minor league contract. In 33 games in Triple-A for the Giants, Encarnación hit .352/.438/.616 with 10 home runs and 33 RBI, so the Giants gave him 35 games at the big league level to end the season. With all of that, Encarnación is just 27 years old. That EV50 number put him up around some of the premiere sluggers in baseball, and his 24% strikeout rate at Triple-A suggests that he could keep his MLB strikeout rate below 30%. Almost all of his contact is loud, as his percentage of baseballs hit over 95 mph is third behind only Aaron Judge and Shoehi Ohtani. Now, we know we're dealing with a small sample size here, but the point is that Encarnación has tons of power and is getting a chance to be the starting designated hitter in San Francisco. He has no minor league options left, so he can't be demoted, and he's gone 8-for-18 so far this spring with one home run and 10 RBI. He's the perfect flyer to take at the end of drafts because if he makes enough contact, he's going to be a major asset for you, and if he doesn't, he's losing his spot in the starting lineup, and you can cut him without stress after a few weeks. James Wood had a solid MLB debut and is going inside the first 55 picks, so he's certainly nowhere close to a sleeper. However, he had nine home runs in his 79 MB games and just 19 home runs in total last year, so I wanted to highlight him here because his quality of contact last year was really good. The 29% strikeout rate is something we're going to want to monitor, especially because his strikeout rate was over 33% in Double-A in 2023, which is a bit of a worry. However, when it comes to authoritative contact, he's up there with some of the best, and he also has 20 stolen base upside since the Nationals are going to play him every day. I'm more than fine with drafting Wood at this cost. Matt Wallner is another player you don't need to be told hits the ball hard, but it's nice to see it in the context of some of these elite power producers. His EV50 numbers are impressive, he carries strong exit velocities even on fly balls, and his percentage of baseballs hit 95 mph and over is essentially the same as Vladimir Guerrero Jr and Oneil Cruz, who are two players we view as making some of the loudest contact in baseball. What's also interesting about Wallner is that he's been leading off this spring. We know that the Twins are going to bench him against left-handed pitchers, but if Wallner leads off against righties, which they have said they are hoping he can do, then he should get an extra at-bat in most games, and that could bring his plate appearance total up to comfortably over 500. We also can't forget the massive contact gains he made in 2024 after his demotion, hitting .272/.376/.538 in 55 games in the second half of the season. While I don't believe he can sustain that for a full season, we could see him hit at least .240 with that elite power as the lead-off hitter for the Twins. That will make him a valuable pick at this price. I have always had a soft spot for Jesús Sánchez. It seems like every time I do a leaderboard that measures quality of contact, he is all over it. Last year, when I started breaking down the Statcast bat speed data and looked at the hitters with the fastest and shortest swings, Sánchez was on there (so was Eloy Jimenez, actually). Sánchez has posted a 12.2% barrel rat in each of his last two seasons and was more aggressive last year, which led to a slight decrease in contact rate but a bump in power production. The issues for Sánchez have been his groundball rate and his platoon splits. Last year, his groundball rate was over 50%, and increased as the season went on. That's not really what you want to see from a hitter who makes this kind of authoritative contact. You also don't want to see a .162/.228/.257 slash line against lefites. However, we should note that the Marlins started to play him against lefties more at the end of last season but just moved him farther down in the batting order. That likely won't continue if he keeps hitting .170 against them, but I think he'll get the chance to prove his worth at the start of the 2025 season, and given his power and 15+ stolen base upside, he's worth a gamble in drafts. However, he might not fully break out until he goes to another organization that can fix his groundball approach to maximize his power upside. Matt Chapman is a boring veteran who is being drafted too late. I know we remember his poor 2021 and 2022 seasons, but Chapman has always posted elite barrel rates, which give him strong power production, even in San Francisco. In fact, he hasn't posted a barrel rate under 11% since 2018 and hasn't gone below 12.6% since 2019. That elite quality of contact caused him to go through a stretch where he started to sell out for pull-side power, raising his pull rate to almost 48%. Those were some of his worst stretches of overall production. Last year, Chapman became less pull-happy and less passive at the plate, dropping his pull rate to 39% and swinging almost 2% more but often swinging at more pitches on the fringes of the strike zone. That led to a 6% increase in zone contact and a 7% increase in contact rate overall and got his batting average up near .250. That may have been an adaptation to playing games in San Francisco, which is one of the tougher parks for right-handed power; however, Chapman still had 27 home runs because he has the raw power to drive the ball out of any ballpark, even if he's not trying to on every swing. Pair all of that with a career-high 15 steals, and even if that number falls back near 10, you're looking at a consistent power producer with an improving batting average and chip-in steals. I think he's a real value in drafts. 27 Harris II, Michael 90.5 103.3 95.3 47 7.4 32 Jimenez, Eloy 92 103.2 49 5.7 37 Toglia, Michael 92.1 102.7 95.7 50.2 9.6 35 Adell, Jo 89.8 96.4 44.7 7.3 36 Ramos, Heliot 91.5 102.6 96.1 47.5 9.7 38 McMahon, Ryan 6.5 39 Soderstrom, Tyler 91.9 102.5 97.4 49.6 9.3 40 Vientos, Mark 91.2 96 46.6 8.8 42 Larnach, Trevor 102.4 94.5 45.1 6.8 43 Nootbaar, Lars 91.8 102.3 49.5 6.7 Conforto, Michael 90.2 102 95.4 46 7.8 Soler, Jorge 101.9 44.1 50 Goldschmidt, Paul 96.5 53 García, Adolis 91 101.8 48.2 A few of these guys are some of my favorite later-round gambles in drafts. I've already written about Trevor Larnach as my pick for our Rotoworld staff hitting sleeper, I discussed Eloy Jimenez as a late-round hitter to take a flyer on, and I covered Lars Nootbaar here. I did pick Michael Toglia as my hitter bust for our Rotoworld staff picks, but that has more to do with his draft cost. I think he's going to be a .220 hitter with a 33% strikeout rate, so I have a hard time drafting him around pick 180 in 12-team drafts. I do think both Paul Goldschmidt and Jorge Soler are being underdrafted because of their age, and I mentioned Goldschmidt as one of my favorite first base targets in one of my daily videos on NBC Sports. I just wanted to highlight Michael Harris II briefly because I know people think of him as more of a speed and defense guy, but he can swing the bat. Injuries really impacted his production last year, but I'm expecting big things this season. Adell finds himself in an interesting situation. On one hand, the Angels likely aren't going to be good, and the numbers above show that he has the power to make a meaningful impact at the big league level. On the other hand, he continues to strike out a ton and will have to play center field more this year since the Angels are moving Mike Trout to right field. Adell played just 34 innings in center field last year and is an inferior defender to Mickey Moniak, so Adell is going to need to hit to stay in the lineup while Trout is healthy. Another thing to notice from the numbers above is that Adell is the only player with an average exit velocity under 90 mph. That's in part because he has the second-lowest rate of batted balls over 95 mph, which means that his top-end exit velocities are consistently good, but he makes far more weak contact than anybody else on this list. That could be due to his 30% chase rate and huge jump in contact rate outside of the strike zone, which led to a lot of what Fangraphs classified as 'medium' contact. Adell did meaningfully cut his swinging strike rate down and struck out under 28% of the time, but his approach still needs a lot of work, and he has yet to really show he can consistently hit MLB pitching, so I'm not getting many shares this year. Much like Adell, Soderstrom is a young hitter with tremendous raw power, who struggles to make consistent enough contact at the big league level. So far. Unlike Adell, Soderstrom has been able to find the barrel more consistently and makes elite contact more often than Adell does. Soderstrom also chases out of the strike zone less and makes more contact in the zone, so even though their swinging strike rates are basically the same, Soderstrom's contact profile is better. The other areas for concern with Soderstrom are that he had a 49% groundball rate last year, which is not something you want from a power hitter, and he pulled the ball just 33% of the time. He could change his approach now that the Athletics will be playing their games in a minor league park instead of the spacious Oakland Coliseum, but we need to see it before we can believe it. As it stands now, Soderstrom has tremendous raw power and will get regular playing time, but he hits the ball on the ground too much and has the contact profile of a .230 hitter. All of that should cap his potential upside, but he's going late round in drafts that it's worth a flyer. I wanted to end with García and McMahon because they are two names that stood out to me on this list as established veterans who are being undervalued after poor seasons. García is going much earlier in drafts, and that's understandable given his past performance. Even in his 'bad' year last year, he hit 25 home runs and stole 11 bases. However, we know that he was battling a knee injury all of last season after ending the 2023 season dealing with injuries. He spent all off-season rehabing a sprained patella tendon, and reports from spring training are that he's clearly healthy and running back at full speed. We also pair that with a new swing that is making García quieter in his movement and more direct to the ball. He's also allegedly not trying to lift everything and accepting that he has the power to drive the ball out of the park even when he's not trying to. Given that García made this EV50 list in his down year, a shorter swing should help his overall contact and push him back towards 30 home runs. If his healthy knee also allows him to steal more than 15-20 bases again, you're looking at a major bargain where he's going in drafts. For years, Ryan McMahon has been one of the most consistent players in fantasy baseball. Every year since 2021, he has hit between .240 and .254 with between 20 and 23 home runs, between 4 and 7 steals, and between 67 and 80 runs scored. We should just be penciling him for the same thing in 2025, and that would make him a value going outside of the top 300 picks; however, we are using McMahon's odd 2024 season to impact our approach. Had he not hit .272/.350/.447 with 14 home runs in the first 95 games and been the subject of plenty of trade rumors, then he wouldn't be going this late in drafts. Because we all know what happened. The Rockies held onto him, and he proceeded to hit .188/.283/.309 with six home runs and a 29.5% strikeout rate in 58 games in the second half. Those second half numbers and the failed trade are what stand out to us instead of acknowledging the fact that McMahon remains the same hitter he has been for years.
