Breakout Hitters to Watch for Fantasy Baseball Week 4

Jon Anderson looks at fantasy baseball breakout hitters, risers and potential sleepers for Week 4. He looks into Statcast data to identify hitter breakouts.

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

The idea is to find hitters that have made changes and/or really improved this season to find start-worthy hitters for your fantasy teams, preferably on the cheap. We aren't constricting ourselves to players that are available on waivers or anything like that, just looking for some hitters that can may be having their breakout seasons that you should try to acquire.

For transparency's sake, we'll do a recap of each week's recommendation at the beginning of each post to track our results and see if we're on the right track.

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Fantasy Baseball Breakouts Recap

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

Soon I will just delete that "preseason" row because it's gone absolutely terribly. I get some forgiveness there for only having Spring Training data to go off of, right? Right!?!?

This Week's Fantasy Baseball Breakout Picks

Note: This week's edition turned out to be some hitters I think can be more "solid contributors" rather than "potential studs". None of the below names I think have top-twenty hitter upside or anything like that, but they are guys that I think can be worthy of a starting spot on fantasy rosters, and guys that are showing really encouraging signs early on.

Alec Bohm, Philadelphia Phillies

Bohm started off not in the every-day lineup as he ceded the position to Bryson Stott, but now Stott is back to the minors and it's Bohm's job to lose. He has certainly taken advantage of the playing time, let's look at the data.

This is a very good profile for a hitter. The contact rate is not elite (league leaders are in the high eighties), and neither is the barrel rate (league leaders typically in the twenties), but both numbers are above average, and putting both of those numbers together is a really encouraging sign.

What I mean by that is that it takes a pretty talented hitter to maintain a high barrel rate while making a good amount of contact as well. Barrels require bat speed, and with more bat speed comes a harder time making contact with the ball.

What is also great to see is the strikeout and walk rates there. He has as many strikeouts as walks, which is also pretty tough to do even over a short sample (which is true with Bohm; he has just 48 PAs this year). The other thing working in his favor is the previously known prospect status. He is just 25 years old and was a much-hyped player coming through the minor league season. What we saw from him early in his career was a decent batting average because of his contact ability, but hardly any pop. It seems like he's added some bat speed this year, already having hit a ball at 111 miles per hour (nearly matching his career maximum) and adding several points to his hard-hit rate early on.

So far he has crushed lefties to the tune of a 23% barrel rate and just an 11% strikeout rate, but he's held his weight against righties as well with a very strong 78% contact%, a 13.3% K%, and a 9.3% swing success mark. I don't think Bohm has stud-hitter upside, but it sure does seem like he's improved and he's worthy of being a starter on your fantasy team moving forward.

Santiago Espinal, Toronto Blue Jays

The 27-year-old Blue Jay wasn't on many people's radars coming into 2022, but he has quickly changed that. He didn't find much playing time with Toronto last year, but he did quietly put together a strong .311/.376/.405 slash-line in 246 plate appearances.

He has now taken over an everyday job from Cavan Biggio and he's been strong at the dish with a .268/.323/.464 slash-line. Here is the profile:

If we check the contact% vs. barrel% scatter plot, Espinal sits in a nice place relative to the rest of the league.

The dot color represents the hard-hit rate, and Espinal's dot is very red. He is doing the two most important things we want to see, making contact on a high percentage of his swings and hitting the ball hard a high percentage of the time when he makes contact.

Other nice things to see are the dual-position eligibility (2B/3B), and the ability to steal bases (two steals in two attempts so far in 63 plate appearances). He has enough power in the bat to not hurt your team in power, and the high contact rate suggests that he should maintain a batting average that is usable at worst.

Taylor Ward, Los Angeles Angels

Update: The following was written prior to Wednesday's game, where Ward went 3/4 with a grand slam

I had a fling with Taylor Ward last summer when I really thought he was breaking out after a few beautiful weeks in July. He did not turn out to be roster-worthy name then, but he's making the case once again this year. He has seen just 44 plate appearances, so we have to be careful here. But here's what he's done in his time:

He posted an above-average 10.3% barrel rate last season, so the power isn't unheard of from the 28-year-old here. The difference in 2022 may be more playing time, although he will continue to have to hit the ball to stay in the lineup. The Angels definitely want Brandon Marsh and Jo Adell to be every-day players, but neither of them have been able to take the opportunity and run with it, leaving more opportunities for Ward.

Another early positive is the launch angle distribution. Check out his launch angle histogram here thus far:

The sweet spot for launch angle is between 10 and 35 degrees, so you can see he's done that quite a bit. His GB% sits at 40% right now and he has yet to hit a pop-up, meaning 60% of his batted balls are line drives or fly-balls, a good sign. Ward also has recently been leading off for the Angels. I have my doubts about that continuing, but it's a vote of confidence from Joe Maddon if nothing else.

I hope nobody thinks that I'm calling all of these guys potential stud hitters because I don't think that's the case with most of these names. Ward isn't a guy that will be a top outfielder for your fantasy team, but it does seem like he can stick as a top 50 or so outfielder with consistent playing time.

Cristian Pache, Oakland Athletics

The Athletics acquired Pache from the Braves in the Matt Olson trade, a vote of confidence from their management. Pache was a highly-regarded prospect coming up, but he fell flat in his 72 career Major League plate appearances with the Braves, striking out near 40% of the time and hitting just .111/.152/.206 in 2021.

Things are looking much better for Pache in 2022, as he has dropped his strikeout rate down to 22% early on. That's one of the most important things for us to see with him.

The contact rate of 71% is below league average, but it's a big improvement from his 64% mark last season. One hurdle I want to see him clear is the batted ball profile. Last year, he posted a devastating 55% ground-ball rate. It's really, really hard to put up power numbers while hitting the ball on the ground that often. This number has not improved this year as he sits at 54.5% currently. That number is helped by the lower strikeout rate, to be sure, but it will still hold him back from the 30+ homer guy that he has the bat speed to be.

I'm not really excited about Pache right now, I wouldn't be adding him in ten or twelve-team leagues, but he's someone to keep an eye. If the strikeout rate stays in the low-twenties and he starts hitting more fly balls, he could put up some very usable homer and RBI numbers.

So there you have it, four more names to consider acquiring on your fantasy team. Thanks for being here and be sure to keep checking back for more great fantasy baseball content!

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