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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 20. He looks into Statcast data to identify hitter breakouts.
Welcome RotoBallers to our fantasy baseball breakout hitters article for Week 20. 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 3-5 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.
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 20!
Gleyber Torres, New York Yankees
New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres has broken out in the past, but he's doing it again in 2023. Torres had a promising rookie season in 2018, batting .271 with 24 home runs, 54 runs, 77 RBI, and six stolen bases in 123 games. The Yankees second baseman followed up with one of the best seasons from a middle infielder in recent memory. In 2019, Torres hit .278 with 38 home runs, 96 runs, 90 RBI, and five stolen bases. Torres appeared to be one of baseball's rising stars, but he regressed.
In the three years following his breakout 2019 season, Torres failed to hit over .260 and only hit 36 home runs in that span. The 26-year-old second baseman fell off a cliff in terms of production. Torres appeared to be a product of the juiced-ball era, but he has since proved those who doubted him wrong. Torres' Baseball Savant page shows how good he has been this year.
In 2023, the Yankee's second baseman has a batting average of .270, supported by his xBA of .282. Torres has 18 home runs, 64 runs, 48 RBI, and nine stolen bases through 114 games this season. The young slugger also has the lowest strikeout rate of his career by far at 13.9%. Though his 38 home runs in 2019 may be tough to eclipse, Torres has the highest xwOBA of his career and the lowest BABIP. Things are going well for Torres, and this should continue.
Zack Gelof, Oakland Athletics
Oakland Athletics second baseman Zack Gelof has only played 22 games with the team, but he has undoubtedly been one of the most impactful hitters for the A's. In 92 plate appearances, Gelof has slashed .250/.315/.560 with six home runs, 15 runs, 11 RBI, and six stolen bases. Despite his production, Gelof has a 29.3% strikeout rate. The young slugger had also posted strikeout rates north of 27% in 2022 and 2023 in the minors. There is room for improvement, but Gelof has been good in other areas.
The 23-year-old second baseman has been hitting well, and one of the reasons is how he hits the ball. Gelof has a 92.2 average hit velocity on his batted balls, which would be around the top players in baseball if he qualified. The second baseman also has a 45.6% HardHit%. Gelof's xBA of .242 leaves much to be desired, but his 28.1% line drive rate is excellent. Limiting ground balls and hitting the ball hard can be a recipe for success.
Fantasy managers who picked up Gelof should be impressed with his production level this season. Gelof has been one of the more excellent surprises this season. The young Athletics second baseman appears capable of collecting 20-home runs and 20-stolen bases a season in the future.
Wilmer Flores, San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Giants infielder Wilmer Flores is having one of the best seasons of his career at age 31. The long-time Mets infielder has been with the Giants since 2020 and has been serviceable but not great. This season's resurgence is even more surprising when you consider that Flores had arguably the worst season of his career in 2022.
In 2022, Flores slashed .229/.316/.394 with 103 strikeouts in 151 games. Flores had a strikeout rate of 17.1% in 2022, which was the highest of his career. The Giants infielder also had his lowest wOBA since 2015. The bright spot of last season was that Flores set a new career-high in home runs, runs, and RBI with 19, 72, and 71, respectively, but other than that, it was essentially a down year.
In 2023, Flores is slashing .307/.365/.545 with 15 home runs, 36 runs, and 39 RBI. While he may not reach his runs and RBI totals from last season, Flores could set a new career-high in home runs this year. The 31-year-old also has the highest wOBA of his career by a considerable margin. Flores has been an underrated fantasy asset this season and is only 56% rostered in Yahoo and 30% rostered in ESPN leagues. Flores is a solid veteran hitter, and I see no reason why he can't continue this production.
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