Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball - MLB Batters Rising for Week 17

Jon Anderson looks at fantasy baseball breakout hitters, risers and potential sleepers for the rest of the fantasy baseball season, written in week 17 of the season. He looks into Statcast data to identify hitter breakouts.

Welcome back to another edition of my "Breakout Hitters To Watch" series. What we're doing here is taking a good, close look at the hitting data each week to see which hitters are standing out the most.

At times this year, I have gone away from the "breakout" term to just highlight hitters that have been seeing boosts in their production in recent weeks. We have highlighted some established stud hitters, and that can certainly be strange to see in a "breakout hitters" piece. So I'll try to stick to the true "breakout" candidates this week as we find some interesting hitters to buy in on for the stretch run.

Before we get to the names this week, I've included a brief intro and also a recap of all the names we've talked about throughout the year in this weekly piece.

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Fantasy Baseball Breakouts Recap

Here are all of the names I've recommended so far.

Breakout Picks for the Week 17

Jose Miranda, Minnesota Twins

The rookie has really improved since starting his Major League career off pretty poorly. He has eight homers in those 159 plate appearances since June began, good for a really strong 19.9 PA/HR. He has made a lot of contact (76%) and really has optimized his launch angle (37% GB%, 29% FB%) to fit a power profile.

That seems to be the main way he's sustained a good homer total despite an average-ish barrel rate. The hard-hit rate is high at 46.6% and he's never been one to struggle with the strikeout.

I believe the home run rate to be a bit bloated right now since it's really rare to find a guy with a barrel rate below 10% putting up a PA/HR under 25 or so, but it's not impossible to do either. No matter what happens with his homer total in the future, he should provide decent batting average and plenty of RBI in a good Minnesota lineup.

Nelson Velasquez, Chicago Cubs

Here's someone you may not have heard of. He is a 23-year-old rookie outfielder for the Cubs who debuted on May 30th for a double-header but then went back to the minors until June 20th when he re-joined the team and he's stuck ever since. Here's what he's done this year:

Velasquez is a bit of a boom-or-bust hitter with a 31% K% in the Majors as we write this, and the contact rate of 61.6% doesn't give us much hope for improvement there.

What he has done is hit the ball very hard when making contact, with a 15.7% Brl%, a 9.8% Blast5, a 41.2% hard-hit rate, and a .343 xwOBA. That is a Patrick Wisdom type profile, but that can play in fantasy leagues – especially for someone who can steal some bases, which you can see above that Velasquez can do.

Matt Carpenter, New York Yankees

Alright, I couldn't help myself. Carpenter is way past the age to be a "breakout", but would anybody have believed me if I said he would put up a league-leading OPS in the big leagues over more than 140 plate appearances this year? I don't think so.

He has mashed 15 homers in less than 150 plate appearances, which is also good for the best PA/HR rate in the league – just ahead of his teammate Aaron Judge. He has managed the strikeouts at 24%, and walked a lot at 12%.

When he's putting the ball in play – there's been a commitment to get the ball into the air (26% GB%) and pull it (56% pull%). Yankees Stadium has treated him spectacularly, and the underlying metrics suggest that the homer number is legitimate (14 expected homers).

If you have Carpenter right now, you got him for free and he's been one of the better fantasy bats in the league since the calendar turned to June. Everything looks so impressive that I don't think I would consider him a "sell high" despite how bad my gut instinct would want me to do it.

There might be some playing time issues with the Yankees adding Andrew Benintendi at the deadline, but as long as he's still hitting these homers, I'm sure they'll find playing time for him.

Anthony Santander, Baltimore Orioles

Here's a list of players with 100+ PA, a barrel rate above 10%, and a contact rate above 80% since July 1st.

Santander has been flirting with us for a few years now, occasionally having these streaks where he just tears the cover off of the ball. Well, he's just done that again – and it's at least somewhat possible that this time it's going to stick around for a bit. Going that long with a double-digit barrel rate and a contact rate above 80% is really, really impressive – and it's something we can't ignore.

For the year, Santander has a .260/.340/.458 slash line with 19 bombs, a 9.8% Brl%, and a 78.8% contact rate. Those are pretty darn good numbers over 406 plate appearances, and if it weren't for the brutal offense around him, I think he'd be standing out a lot more on people's fantasy radars.

His 21.4 PA/HR this season is 29th best in the league, and that's with being in a pretty tough ballpark to homer in.

Unfortunately for us, Santander stayed put with the Orioles after the deadline, so we'll have to continue to deal with the tough situation he's in. That said, he's been a fine fantasy option this year and he's been even better recently.

Lars Nootbaar, St. Louis Cardinals

I've been waiting years to put this guy in an article because it's one of the best names in fantasy sports. He has finally earned it, so here we go!

He has been up and down from the minors for the last two seasons, and it had been until recently for him to find any consistent starts in the Majors. He's been in the lineup more often than not since July began, and he's slashing .364/.463/.636 in that time (54 PA) with three homers, a 14.3% Brl%, and an 18.5% K%. Those are awesome numbers, but we have to keep the salt out because of the short sample on it.

We know that Nootbaar has talent, and the Cardinals appear to think he could be a part of their future plans given their willingness to play him here and the fact that they just sent Harrison Bader packing. In 2021, Nootbaar slashed .308/.404/.496 in AAA Memphis with six homers and just 19 strikeouts over 136 plate appearances.

He has plenty of raw power with a maximum exit velocity of 114 miles per hour this year, and we know that the Cardinals often seem to get the most out of their young players. Nootbaar has a starting job for right now with the Cardinals, and I'm excited to see what he can do with it.

Carson Kelly, Arizona Diamondbacks

Kelly was a highly touted prospect with the Cardinals years ago, but hasn't done much at the plate in his career to back up that hype. He was one of the worst hitters in the league in April (.276 OPS) and May (.250 OPS), but since he returned from a brief IL stint, he's been absolutely mashing.

Only 18 hitters in the entire league have outdone Kelly in OPS since he returned from the IL. He has hit six homers (19.5 PA/HR) with a 9.0% Brl% and a strong 81% contact rate in that time. He has been Arizona's lead-off hitter against left-handed pitchers, and has played a ton as his bat has woken up.

Given his long history of mediocrity and the fact that he plays catcher, Kelly might just still be available in your league – and over the last two months he's been the game's best hitting catcher.  You should probably go get him if you need some offensive production from that tough catcher slot.

And that's it for this week's breakout picks, hope this helps. Good luck this week, RotoBallers!

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