March 26, 2016

Nick Mariano profiles three first basemen who are likely to be fantasy baseball breakouts and sleepers in 2016.

First base is the perennial powerhouse for baseball teams, real and fantasy alike. You want to get bombs out of the 1B slot. There are plenty of established options heading into 2016, with one of these names already creeping towards that territory but with room for more growth. The other two should see their first action in the majors in 2016, and could elevate your team to great heights out of the CI slot if you play your cards right. We all like breakouts, so let's dig in.

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Three Breakout First Basemen for 2016

Byung-ho Park

Park has been a beast over in Korea since 2012, but his last two seasons have seen him exceed 50 homers in each year (52 and 53). While the competition level is not the same here in the MLB, there is no doubting that Park’s power is true. Park’s got a strong right-handed swing that can play well in Target Field, where righties really don’t have a daunting task in front of them as lefties do in Minnesota.

Park will strike out a lot, those of you in points leagues may want to take a closer look at things and bump him down a bit. His 161 Ks in the KBO were a lot even by their standards, and coming here and adjusting to MLB pitchers, as well as a bit of a different strike zone (little narrower, but taller), is going to have him pushing 200 Ks. Fangraphs’ David Laurila said he spoke to Park about Korea’s fastballs being straight compared to American-born pitchers having movement on their fastballs. Be aware, but it’s good that he’s already on top of this.

It isn’t much, but Park’s spring training stats so far are 9-for-25 (.360) with three home runs. Considering that several people would not have been surprised to see him struggle out of the gate, myself included, it’s only encouraging to see the swing translating early. Adjustments will be made by pitchers and by Park, the chess match is a career-long meta-game, but if he can stick with it then it appears he could certainly meet his projections. Steamer pegs him for 29 HRs in 542 PAs, while ZiPS says 27 HRs in 613 PAs.

So those PAs are tied to that pesky notion of playing time, and how the Twins will use him. As of now, the hope is that Joe Mauer can man first base effectively while Trevor Plouffe stands guard at third base, pushing Miguel Sano into the outfield so that Park can DH. If Park can prove himself defensively, he might be able to give Mauer some rest and switch in at 1B for those with eligibility hopes in leagues where he’s only UTIL. For now, 550-600 PAs look like a good bet. He’ll turn 30 on July 10^th, so you’re not getting a young buck here, but that’s still well within his years as a prime power hitter. Enjoy.

Brandon Belt

Belt heads into his age-28 season this year with aspirations of durability carrying him into the upper ranks of first basemen. After making a name for himself in 2013, where he played in 150 games with 571 PAs, Belt only managed 235 PAs in 2014. Last year he played in 137 games, tallying 556 PAs, and responded with 73 runs, 18 homers, 68 RBIs, nine steals, and a .280 average. He has sneaky speed out of the first base position, not at a Paul Goldschmidt clip, but it’s there.

Belt’s pop is real, as his last three seasons have seen him post ISOs of .193, .206, and .197. Belt’s 2015 was intriguing, as he swung at less pitches out of the zone (33.7% to 29.1%) but also made less contact on pitches he swung at in the zone (83.0% to 80.7%). The swinging strike rate took a small step back from 13.8% to 12.7%, and his K-rate went from 27.2% to 26.4% while the walk rate went from 7.7% to 10.1%. So that’s nice to see, even if they were only modest gains.

His fly ball rate dropped from 44.0% to 37.9%, but the line drive rate soared from 19.0% to 28.7%! This was linked with a growth in the hard-hit rate, going from 29.8% to 39.5%. His fly ball distance in 2015 was 291.20 feet, good for 65^th best, and this encourages me past the fact that half of his homers from last year were classified as “just enough or lucky” by the ESPN Home Run Tracker.

People might look at the .363 BABIP and blindly call for regression, but in 2012 and 2013 his BABIP was .351, backed with similar (but lesser) line-drive and hard-hit rates. He took a nice step forward with putting the bat on the ball last year, and if he can get towards 600 PAs this year then there’s little reason to think he can’t put up an 80-24-75-10-.275 line. That'll do.

A.J. Reed

This could very well be the last piece that puts the Astros over the top in 2016, as their lineup is stacked outside of Luis Valbuena, Jason Castro, and Jon Singleton (and those first two names are still serviceable). There’s a reason that Singleton hasn’t gotten the keys to the job before, as he really could never make the jump and prove that he deserved to stay.

Enter A.J. Reed, who hit 34 homers with 127 RBIs and a .340 average last year between A+ and AA ball in Houston’s system. His numbers really didn’t take a hit going to AA ball, with his OPS only dropping from 1.088 to .976. So you might be wondering how reasonable it is to expect Reed to have a shot at playing in the bigs when he’s only logged 237 PAs in AA and never sniffed AAA. Well Astros’ GM Jeff Luhnow told ESPN’s Jim Bowden that Reed could very well make the team depending on the health of Evan Gattis.

Now color me highly skeptical that this happens, as I think he’ll spend a few weeks in the minors and then get called up after a few weeks, but if Luhnow is already speaking on this then you’ve got to be taking this seriously. Or maybe he’s just trying to light a fire under Singleton’s hindparts. Yes, Singleton is only 24, but he’s failed to hit above .200 in over 400 PAs in the bigs, and is really looking like that “AAAA” player destined for minor league greatness.

Reed himself is a big guy, standing at 6’4” and 240 pounds, and combines his strength with a solid approach at the plate that has led to a double-digit walk rate alongside that ~20% K rate that we’re used to seeing from young sluggers. Even if the Astros insist on seeing him succeed against AA or AAA pitching before calling him up, the opportunity for the breakout should be coming by midseason at the latest. The Astros’ window for serious contention has opened, and there’s no reason to mess around and bury Reed when he can provide the best chance at good numbers from 1B versus a black hole in Singleton or shifting around Valbuena now that Chris Carter is gone. When he joins the party, you’ll want to be on the invite list by having him rostered.

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