Everybody who plays fantasy baseball is interested in "breakout" candidates, players who elevate their games to a higher level and establish themselves as baseball stars. These are distinctly different than Rookie of the Year candidates as well as distinctly different than "sleepers." I will define breakout candidates as players who are no longer eligible for rookie of the year, and who are already well known enough that they are not "sleepers" which implies most people are not expecting much from them. Breakout candidates may or may not come with high expectations already.
C Matt Wieters, Orioles. Wieters was the #4 overall draft pick in 2007. He has hit OK, but not nearly as well as anticipated and has therefore been labeled a disappointment. He has, however, improved each year and with 2 full seasons under his belt may be poised for a breakout into full blown stardom. What may hold him back is the fact that he's a switch-hitter who struggles against RHP's. On the other hand, once he figures out RHP's he should put up monster numbers.
1B Eric Hosmer, Royals. The #2 overall pick in 2008. Hosmer was drafted out of HS. Last year was his MLB debut. He appeared in 128 games with a slash line of .293/.334/.465 with 19 HR and 11 SB. He has all the tools and skills to break out big time in 2012 if he can avoid the dreaded sophomore jinx.
1B Justin Smoak, Mariners. Also a first round draft choice in 2008 by the Texas Rangers. Some Giants fans would have preferred the Giants draft him over Buster Posey. He was traded to the Mariners for Cliff Lee in 2010. He's been a disappointment so far, but hit over .300 for the month of September last year.
2B Dustin Ackley, Mariners. Ackley is another highly touted prospect who has been labeled as a disappointment but may just not have had enough time to establish himself. He made his MLB debut last year and put up a line of .273/.348/.417, 16 2B, 7 3B, 6 HR, 6 SB in 333 AB's. You can approximately double all his counting stats to project to a full season which comes out pretty darn good for a 2B let alone a rookie 2B. It only takes a small improvement over the course of a full season and you have an All-Star level performer.
SS Dee Gordon, Dodgers. Sorry to say it, but all this guy has to do is hit about .250 and he may end up with 80 SB's. He seems to play pretty good D too, though not as good as Brandon Crawford. He should be able to prop his BA up with his speed as he has kept his K rate below 15% throughout the minors and his MLB debut. As for Crawford? I would consider him more of a sleeper than a breakout candidate.
3B Brett Lawrie, Blue Jays. Highly rated prospect traded from the BrewCrew to Toronto in the Shawn Marcum trade. He made his MLB debut last year and went .293/.373.,580 with 9 HR and 7 SB in 171 AB. His minor league record and pedigree suggest that those number just might be sustainable which would translate to a monster full season.
3B Mike Moustakas, Royals. Yet another high first round draft pick by the Royals, Moustakas put up a decent line last year in his MLB debut, .263/.309/367, but he hit .282 in August and .353 in September. Might not hit for a lot of power right away, but he looks like he's going to be a star, possibly as soon as 2012.
3B Pablo Sandoval, Giants. I suppose you could say Pablo has already broken out, but between his ongoing conditioning program and Lasik surgery to fix his eyes, I'm thinking we ain't seen nothin' yet. I don't think a .330 BA with 40 HR's is out of the question.
OF Dexter Fowler, Rockies. Fowler seems to have hit a plateau the last 3 years, but he seemed to shift into a higher gear after the All-Star break last year with a line of .288/.380/.498. He has the tools to do even better than that.
OF Desmond Jennings, Rays. Highly touted rookie who the Rays have developed slowly, too slowly for some fans taste. He put up a line of .259/.356/.449 with 10 HR and 20 SB in 247 AB in is MLB debut last year.
OF Colby Rasmus, Blue Jays. Last year was a disaster for the star-crossed young phenom. I think the Jays will give him a fair chance to bounce back and he certainly has the tools and skills to pull off a breakout.
OF Austin Jackson, Tigers. Another toolsy guy who has been so-so in his MLB career so far. Has the tools to break out at any time.
P Steven Strasburg Nationals. Hard to think of a guy hyped as much as Strasburg as having a breakout season, but that's exactly what I expect in his first full season back from TJ surgery.
Brandon Belt would be on this list if I thought he was going to be a starter for the Giants all season, but I expect to see him start out 2012 in Fresno.
Who do you think might "break out" in 2012?
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Weiters is with Orioles.
ReplyDeleteWashington? Baltimore? Anyway, thanks for catching that. Fixed!
DeleteNice list of guys who might breakout. I would normally do not include Pablo, but I agree with you that as good as his 2009 and 2011 were, he could bring things up a notch in 2012. I haveno one to add right now, maybe if I pore over Shandlers book.
ReplyDeleteI'm watching both the Weeks brothers. Older has the injury bug all the time and the younger is raw, but both can be good value and possible breakouts.
ReplyDeleteAlex Gordon may break out some more, yet another Royal. He was always the sleeper/breakout guy, now people are so disgusted he might provide good value.
I have to laugh, I had almost half these guys you listed on my team last year. I never seem to get a stud 1B so I'm always diving for guys - Smoak and Hosmer last year for example. at 2nd I had Ackley and Weeks (Brian Roberts was a big mistake - I passed on Phillips), and I snagged Jennings in search of some SBs, I bet he'll do just fine. Wieters was cheap last year, I bet he'll cost more. I bet Mauer can be snagged cheap this year. That could provide some re-break out material.
Carlos Pena back in the trop as a cheap buy low could pay some dividends if you're dumpster diving and can take the hit in BA.
I'm going to draft McCutch if he's available in the 2nd. I think that highly of him. I think he's taking the next step. And a good undervalued pirate is their 2b. Kinsler finally stopped being injured last year for the first time in a while.
Agreed on Jemile Weeks. I picked him up last year and he helped me a lot with BA and SB's. There are a lot worse 2B options out there. I think I'd rather have Jemile that what Chase Utley is bringing these days.
ReplyDeleteDr. B, you should do a fantasy baseball update more regularly if you can. The hardest thing for me is always finding out who the next closer is going to be with a team that doesn't have a set one or has an injury. I am always the last one to know for some reason whenever a new closer is on the WW. I hate drafting them too as they are expensive and really only give you 1 category.
ReplyDeleteJeff Kipnis and Lonnie Chisenhall are 2 more to add to your list. Rasmus is a bust I think, why else would LaRussa give him up for a song and a dance?
Question for you Dr. B and Shankbone and anyone else who has an opinion, I can keep 4 players out of the following: Hanley, Bautista, Stanton, Haren, Napoli, and Cruz. Who should I keep? I am pretty set on Hanley, Bautista, and Stanton but Napoli is making me think about him over Cruz and Haren has upside as well. I wish I could keep the whole team (Bourne, Jennings, Young, D. Gordon, Walker, Jemile, and Zobrist on offense with MadBum, Ubaldo, Cahill, Pineda, CJ Wilson, and Storen and Hanrahan as my only closers). Gonna be hard to draft a team that strong without getting some late value and keeping the right guys!
Pato - Rotoworld has a weekly summary of closer moves. In my league you have to take educated guesses on backups and pray. We have a fictional $100 budget on waivers but it doesn't stop heavy heavy action on the waiver wire.
DeleteYou and your Hanley love! I think he's going to be a bust, but I would hold onto him just in case. Bautista and Stanton are awesome. I'd take Napoli for the position scarcity over Cruz, who is awesome when he's not hurt but...
I would probably go with Bautista, Stanton, Haren and Napoli, but I don't think I'm that great of a fantasy manager, so I wouldn't take my recommendation with more than a grain of salt.
DeleteI'll try to do more fantasy stuff. It takes a lot of work though because you have to research players from all over baseball instead of just one team.
DeleteI don't have a good feel for what Chisenhall is going to do, but I know I've liked Kipnis since he as in college. I wanted the Giants to draft him! I agree I should add him in with Ackley for 2B breakout.
DeleteWhat? You're not going to keep Bumgarner? The shame, the shame... :^)
DeleteBautista, Stanton and Haren are definites.
Yahoo used to have a nice weekly columns as part of their fantasy baseball coverage, and he covered each team that looked like the closer was in danger and who might get the call. Found myself a lot of closer candidates, but it required you to keep track during lunch for changes on teams so that you can jump in quickly and grab the newly annointed closer before someone else did.
I'm sure other places also have great coverage too, but from my usage of Yahoo, even though I punted (intentionally and not) the Save category in the draft, I usually still ended up among the leaders in Saves by waiver wiring these closer changes before others do. If you have Twitter, I know that there is a feed on closers, that would help you keep abreast of new changes (I use Tweetdeck to monitor multiple accounts and handles, really great for baseball season, I feel).
I didn't play fantasy last season (first in like 5-6 seasons) so I don't know what the value of Napoli is, though I recall picking him up on waivers a lot when I needed a catcher. Is he really that much better than Jemile? I ask only to get people thinking, I don't know for certain, but that is the first thing to jump in my head.
Actually, the first is, why not Bumgarner? I think he's ready to break out in terms of strikeouts, and if you play in a sabermetric league, his K/BB ratio should be tops again. Is SP easy to pick up in your league? Then I could see it. But if not, I would think more about it (again, these are my thoughts). Pineda is another to think about, though if I remember the DrB discussion, he was down on Pineda as a keeper, due to the change to AL East
good input for sure, I have a huge mancrush on Hanley and not quite sure how to say goodbye to him just yet. Part of the strategy on the keepers is not only to keep top rated guys like Bautista and Stanton but also try to figure out where they would be drafted if I didn't keep them. Someone like Bumgarner will most likely be available in the 5th or 6th round if I want him then so doesn't make a whole lot of sense to keep him if I can draft him that late.
ReplyDeleteNapoli is the one that I can't figure out and it is killing me. Last season I had one of the worst trades imaginable to start the season and Napoli ended up saving my bacon. I traded VMart and Gonzo for CJ Wilson and Posey about 2 weeks before Posey took the dirt nap. Napoli was drafted fairly high by someone else but they dropped him after it was obvious that he would be on the DL for a few months. I picked him up just to have some depth at C after my trade blew up in my face and he ended up going off the second half.
Haren is another one I can't quite be certain on, between him and Napoli who will be drafted first if I didn't keep either? Maybe Haren but lots of starters tend to be available in mid to late rounds but clearly Haren is one of the top 15 starters in the league. Pineda isn't even on my team anymore because I dropped him in the finals after he was shut down to add RP to get me the victory.
I am on Rotoauthority frequently but never seem to catch the closers in time. I don't use twitter but if it makes sense I may have to join.
Rotoworld has constant updates. Last year I checked in just before going to bed and saw that some team was just announcing a closer change. Picked up the new one right there and went to bed knowing I was set at closer for at least another day or two. I've found Rotoworld is the best source of real time information.
DeleteI think Napoli is for real. He's always hit for power. The only question was whether he could maintain a decent BA. That, and Scioscia hated him for some reason. Last year he really improved his catching defense out from under Scioscia's dark shadow. I think it's pretty tough to find comparable offense from from someone with catcher eligibility. Some fantasy sites are even rating Napoli the top fantasy catcher in all of baseball! I'd keep him, personally.
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