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Joshua Costello looks at fantasy baseball breakout hitters, risers, and potential sleepers for the rest of the season, written in Week 25. He looks into Statcast data to identify hitter breakouts.
Welcome RotoBallers to our fantasy baseball breakout hitters article for Week 25. As always, we are here to bring you a few MLB hitters whose advanced metrics are popping out.
My name is Joshua Costello, and I will be giving you 3-4 hitter names that seem to have sustainable improved production this season. Most of these names will be young hitters because that is the nature of a breakout. There will be exceptions from time to time as well as I give you more well-known and well-established names that seem to have made a change to their profile this year. As the season draws to a close, it becomes increasingly difficult to find new breakouts, but that's what this series is here for.
For full transparency, I also track the picks every week, so you can go back and see who I picked. There will be some misses, but hopefully, we'll have enough hits to make this a worthwhile endeavor. I'll give you the tracker first, and then we'll get into the three names we're picking for this week.
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2023 Breakout Picks Tracker
Let's get to the picks for Week 25!
Royce Lewis, Minnesota Twins
Minnesota Twins infielder Royce Lewis has been a highly-touted prospect for several years and has finally shown his talent at the major league level for an extended run. Starting his professional career in rookie ball as an 18-year-old, Lewis has demonstrated his ability as a contact hitter at every level.
Lewis made his major league debut in 2022, but his introduction to the league lasted only 12 games. The young hitter made the most of his opportunity in those 12 games, slashing .300/.317/.550 with two home runs, five runs, and five RBI in 41 plate appearances. While Lewis has never been a standout in the power department, his .550 SLG and .250 ISO were career highs in the limited sample size. That power trend has continued into his 2023 season.
In 2023, Lewis has played 53 games and slashed .300/.355/.530 with 13 home runs, 32 runs, and 46 RBI. His SLG and ISO numbers are lower this year (.530 SLG and .230 ISO, respectively), but they are not significantly lower than his 2022 season while being sustained over a larger sample size. Lewis' 13 home runs in the majors this season is his highest home run total at any level in his professional career. The 24-year-old appears to be only scratching the surface of what he can accomplish.
Mitch Garver, Texas Rangers
Texas Rangers catcher and designated hitter Mitch Garver is having one of the best seasons of his career in 2023. The oft-injured slugger has been one of the best-hitting catchers in baseball on a per-game basis for several years now. This season, he is stringing together some of his best performances.
Garver's breakout season came with the Minnesota Twins in 2019 when he hit 31 home runs and slashed .273/.365/.630. His 2019 season was impressive, but it also came during the peak of the juiced ball era. Garver's production fell in the years following. He had an awful 2020 season, batting .167 and striking out over 45% of the time in 23 games of the short season. The former Twins catcher bounced back in 2o21, batting .256 with 13 home runs in 68 games and a nearly 30% strikeout rate.
Garver saw his production drop again in 2022 as he batted .207 with 10 home runs in 54 games, but 2023 is his comeback season. The 32-year-old is having arguably his best season, slashing .280/.383/.533 with 17 home runs, 39 runs, and 45 RBI. Garver has made plate discipline improvements this season. In 2023, he has a career-high 13.5% walk rate and the second-lowest strikeout rate of his career at 23.6%. When it seemed like Garver was declining, he showed he had much more left in the tank.
Nolan Jones, Colorado Rockies
Colorado Rockies outfielder and first baseman Nolan Jones burst onto the scene this season and has not looked back since. The Rockies rookie has been among the most productive hitters in the lineup since his 2023 debut and has solidified himself as one of the most promising young hitters on the team.
The 25-year-old is slashing .275/.355/.511 with 16 home runs, 46 runs, 52 RBI, and 13 stolen bases. Jones' combination of power and speed are attributes of his game that have developed relatively recently. The young hitter is slugging .511 this season, which is the highest of his professional career outside of his short Triple-A stint earlier this year. Jones' 13 stolen bases are the most he has collected at any level.
If there is one area of Jones' game that needs work, it is his strikeout rate. The Rockies rookie has a strikeout rate of 31.8% this season to go along with an above-average 10.6% walk rate. As Jones ages, he will likely continue to develop his attractive power-speed combination and continue to be one of the best hitters for the Rockies. If Jones can bring his strikeout rate down below 30%, he could be one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball.
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