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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 23. He looks into Statcast data to identify hitter breakouts.
Welcome RotoBallers to our fantasy baseball breakout hitters article for Week 23. 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 23!
William Contreras, Milwaukee Brewers
Milwaukee Brewers catcher William Contreras, younger brother of Willson Contreras, has been a professional baseball player since he was 17 years old. Since 2015, Contreras has done a lot of growing, and he is arguably having his best season this year.
Contreras broke out on the scene in 2022 with the Atlanta Braves. The Braves limited his playing time to 97 games, but Contreras showed his elite offensive upside from the catcher position in that time. The young catcher slashed .278/.354/.506 with 20 home runs, 51 runs, and 45 RBI in 2022. Contreras broke out in 2022, but he is having arguably a better season with the Brewers in 2023.
The 25-year-old catcher is slashing .279/.357/.458 with 14 home runs, 64 runs, and 65 RBI in 2023. The slugging is noticeably down, but the production has only increased. Contreras has significantly higher counting stats in only 15 more games this year. Another significant change has been the drop in strikeout rate from 27.7% in 2022 to 19.4% in 2023. This massive drop shows that Contreras is growing as a hitter. Contreras is only 25 years old and should continue to grow with each season.
DJ Stewart, New York Mets
New York Mets outfielder DJ Stewart has only been in the league since 2018 but was largely unimpressive in the extended run he was given back in 2021 with the Baltimore Orioles. In 100 games, Stewart slashed .204/.324/.374 with 12 home runs, 39 runs, and 33 RBI. Stewart also owned a 28% strikeout rate that season. This year with the Mets, Stewart is turning heads.
Stewart is displaying better quality of contact metrics across the board and seems like a new player. In his 36 games this season, Stewart has a 16.9% Barrel%, 92.6 mph average exit velocity, .266 xBA, .584 xSLG, .419 wOBA, .395 xwOBA, and 50.8% hard-hit%. Every statistic mentioned is far and away the highest mark of Stewart's career.
In the past two weeks, Stewart is slashing .349/.404/.907 with seven home runs, eight runs, and 13 RBI. The main thing to keep an eye on is his strikeout rate. On the season, the 29-year-old's strikeout rate is up over 28%, over 31% in the past two weeks. The strikeouts will not be an issue as long as the production is there, but his bat will not always be this hot. If Stewart can maintain this production level and drop his strikeout rate a few percentage points, he could be a valuable fantasy asset.
Dominic Canzone, Seattle Mariners
Seattle Mariners outfielder Dominic Canzone has been an exciting player this season. The former Diamondbacks prospect has played in 37 games this season and has slashed .235/.285/.391 with three home runs, 18 runs, and 11 RBI. Those numbers on the surface could be more impressive, but there is data to suggest that Canzone should be better.
In 2023, Canzone's quality of contact stats are respectable compared to the rest of the league. His .271 xBA would rank 50th among qualified hitters, and his .345 xwOBA would rank 71st. The large discrepancy between his BA and xBA would suggest that Canzone should be in for some positive regression in that category. Canzone has been a decent hitter, but he has also made his presence felt on the defensive side of the ball.
In the top of the sixth inning of Sunday's contest, Canzone made a terrific diving catch to steal extra bases from the Royals' second baseman, Michael Massey. Following the catch, some have dubbed the rookie "No Fly Canzone," a nickname that is well deserved. Making an impact on defense should only help Canzone's ability to remain in the Mariners lineup. Canzone strikes out less than 20% of the time and can be a decent contact hitter, as he displayed throughout the minor leagues.
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