RADIO
Common wisdom used to suggest that a hitter’s true prime was his age-27 season, but in recent times that seems to have shifted to a younger age as more and more players break into the league earlier.
That said, we’ve still seen our fair share of late breakouts over the last number of years, with Tommy Pham’s 2017 outburst at age 28 ranking among the best in recent memory.
What 26 to 29-year-olds are in store for their big year in 2018? These four certainly have breakout written all over them.
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Better With Age?
Jose Martinez (1B/OF, STL) - 29
Jose Martinez is a popular breakout pick in 2018 and for good reason. All he did in 2017 was post a 135 wRC+ on the strength of a .309/.379/.518 slash line. In 307 plate appearances, Martinez swatted 14 home runs while striking out just 19.5% of the time and walking in 10.4% of his at-bats. The 6’6 first baseman posted a Barrels Per PA (Brls/PA) rate of 7.5, the exact same as Cody Bellinger and just a tick behind Bryce Harper’s 7.7 mark. His expected batting average (xBA) last season? A beautiful .327 mark, tops in the majors and higher than his actual BA of .309.
So we know he hits the ball hard and has a solid plate approach, but what about the batted ball profile? Having climbed through the minors with a significant propensity for hitting ground balls, Martinez flipped the script in 2017, decreasing his GB% to 42.1% while upping his FB% to 31.3% and his LD% to 26.6%. He also sprayed the ball around more, pulling just 34.9% of his balls in play. If he can manage to get regular ABs - Matt Carpenter is no lock to stay healthy, plus he could see time in LF or at DH in interleague contests - he could be 2018’s breakout star.
Eddie Rosario (OF, MIN) - 26
Up until the 2017 season, most people would say Eddie Rosario was a bust. Average pop and poor plate skills at the major league level were not valuable in any fantasy league, but something clicked last season. Rosario dropped his strikeout rate to 18.0% and his swinging strike rate to 11.9% while raising his walk rate to 5.9%, all career bests.
His selectivity paid dividends, leading to a career-high 78.3% contact rate and a slight uptick in hard contact (30.1% in 2016 to 31.7% in 2017). His GB/FB rate also moved in the right direction from 1.35 to 1.13, and all this resulted in a career-high 27 HR. He also threw in nine steals for good measure, though he was caught 8 times. Hitting high in a sneaky-good Twins lineup will afford him plenty of opportunities to add to his runs (79) and RBI (78) totals. A .280-30-90-90 line with a handful of steals does not seem out of the realm of possibility.
Cesar Hernandez (2B, PHI) - 27
It’s make-or-break time for Cesar Hernandez in 2018 despite his overall solid contributions the past two-plus seasons as a Phillies regular. We’ll get to that in a moment. First, the good: Hernandez put up a 4.3 WAR in 2016 followed by a 3.3 in just 128 games in 2017 and has shown remarkable consistency and also improvement along the way. Hernandez’s lines from 2016 and 2017 nearly match
exactly:
2016: .294/.371/.393, 10.6 BB%, 18.6 K%
2017: .294/.373/.421, 10.6 BB%, 18.0 K%
The key difference was his power and run scoring. Hernandez upped his HR output from 6 to 9 despite roughly 50 fewer PA and he managed to jump from 67 to 85 R at the same time. Though he’s never had gaudy SB totals, he hasn’t swiped fewer than 15 bags in each of his three full seasons. All he needs is more opportunity to run and he could easily be a 25-30 SB threat atop a potentially potent Phillies lineup.
The one caveat that we alluded to earlier is that he’s being pushed by Philadelphia’s super prospect Scott Kingery, who appears poised to start the season in the bigs. The Phillies are planning to use Kingery around the diamond, but his natural position is second base. The playing time battle bears watching, but it seems improbable that Hernandez loses many at-bats if he continues his solid play. Grab Hernandez late as a solid BA, SB and R source and bank on a high floor with the potential for even greater things as he hits his prime.
Lonnie Chisenhall (OF, CLE) - 29
Once a high-end prospect - he was drafted 29th overall in 2008 - Lonnie Chisenhall appeared to be long past the post-hype stage until just now. His best season came in 2014 when he played 142 games and hit .280/.343/.427 with 13 HR and 59 RBI but saw his role reduced the next two seasons. The breakout looked like it was happening in 2017 before injuries struck and ultimately ruined his season, but there’s a lot to like about the changes he made at the plate. His walk rate spiked to a career-high 9.3%, and although his K% also rose, it still landed at a manageable 20.4%, just a couple of ticks above his career average.
With the improved approach came better quality contact to the tune of a 33.7% hard contact rate - his previous best was just 26.4%. Chisenhall also appeared to become a new member of the fly ball club, raising his FB% to 45.7% and continuing a four-year upward trend. Playing time is the key variable for the 29-year-old in 2018, but he’ll nonetheless begin the season as the Indians’ starting right-fielder. He also seemed to figure out lefties last year, hitting .340/.456/.511 in 47 AB with a 10/9 K/BB ratio. If the improvements stick and the playing time is there, Chisenhall could return major value for what is likely a risk-free endgame pick.
