Back in the spring of 2017, I let my co-workers talk me out of including Giancarlo Stanton in my breakouts column. How could he be a breakout, they argued, when he's already been a first-rounder? Well … ask his MVP trophy how! Relatedly, I remain a staunch advocate for Stanton, who is one of my sleeper picks for 2020.
The lesson from that fiasco was clear: It doesn't matter how established a player is if I think he's got a chance to reach a new level, I'm going to make the case for why Stanton will be a breakout. And that's what I'm going for with my final breakouts column of the 2020 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep season ahead of next week's MLB opener: Players who can force their way into early-round consideration in 2021.
That includes one of 2019's biggest breakout pitchers, who is going to do it for a full season this time. It also includes one of 2018's biggest out-of-nowhere stars, who is going to prove he belongs among the elite after injuries sapped him of his strength in 2019.
And it includes one of last year's biggest prospect stars, because this is your last chance to draft him outside of the first round for the next five years or so.
2020 Draft Prep
Breakouts
Early-Round Targets
Projections powered by
Sportsline
When scouts talk about the "hit" tool, it refers to the ability to make contact as much as anything else, but Hiura is a prime example of how much quality of contact matters too. He was surprisingly strikeout prone in his first taste of the majors, but did so much damage when he made contact that it didn't matter all that much. He was fifth in MLB in wOBA on contact and was 12th in expected wOBA on contact, so the underlying numbers back it up. Hiura looked like an elite hitter as a rookie, despite the uncharacteristic contact issues. Oh, and he stole 16 bases on a 76% clip between the majors and minors, so he's got that in his tool kit, too. If he can cut the strikeout rate to 25% — he was at 26.3% in Triple-A — he's probably a first-round player. If he can get it down to the 20% range he was in for most of his minor-league career, he might be a top-five pick.
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It's hard to be better than Glasnow was in 2019, so now it's all about staying healthy. I had my concerns about that in a full season, but it's going to be a lot easier to manage over the course of two months. Don't expect another sub-2.00 ERA from Glasnow, but his combination of elite swing-and-miss skills and and some of the best results in the majors even when hitters did manage to make contact gives Glasnow an incredible ceiling. Like, best-pitcher-in-baseball ceiling. If he can keep the walks in check as he did in 2019, all bets are off for how good he can be.
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Hey, if Tyler Glasnow can stay healthy in a two-month season, maybe Dahl can manage it, too. I am, admittedly, typically a huge fan of Dahl, a strikeout-prone player who routinely posts pretty pedestrian quality of contact numbers. But I also have to remind myself that doesn't really matter when you play half your games at Coors Field. You can pretty much pencil Dahl in for a high batting average and an OPS in the .870 range, with room for more if he can avoid injuries. But what pushes him into breakout territory is the expectation that he'll bat leadoff for the Rockies. Dahl's profile isn't that different from Charlie Blackmon's, who has been an elite Fantasy option for the last half-decade while racking up huge run totals at the top of that Rockies lineup. Add in that Dahl has talked about wanting to run more — he averaged 28 steals per-150 games in the minors — and Blackmon could end up a second- or third-round pick when it's all said and done.
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Gallen has received plenty of hype, but I'm not sure it's been enough. His 2.81 ERA and 10.8 K/9 as a rookie should speak for themselves, but there's at least a little bit of skepticism that it was for real -- the peripherals don't quite back it up, you see. But it's worth remembering just how dominant Gallen had been in the minors before getting called up: He had a 2.87 ERA overall in the minors, with a 1.77 mark in the Pacific Coast League in 2019, with a 33.6% strikeout rate. It was the most dominant pitching performance in professional baseball in 2019 when you take into account the hitter-friendly PCL, where the league average ERA was 5.48. His ERA- (a mark that adjusts for league average, with 100 being average) was 33, a better mark than any major-league pitcher has managed in a full season. It was historic stuff, and then he came up and pitched very effectively in the majors. The only blemish on his mark record was an elevated walk rate, but given that 15 of his 36 walks came in just three starts, even that isn't really a concern for me. Gallen has four pitches he can throw in any count, and he showed just how good he could be in his final 10 starts after overcoming some of the control issues, posting a 2.50 ERA with a 29.8% strikeout rate and 1.127 WHIP. That's ace stuff, and he could get there in 2020.
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Jimenez and Guerrero will always be linked, as the two top prospects debuted the same season and had remarkably similar rookie seasons — largely disappointing, but with incredibly impressive flashes. In Guerrero's case, it was more speculative than concrete — a monster show at the Home Run Derby and an MLB-high eight batted balls hit over 115 mph. As for Jimenez, he did finally live up to the potential as the season wore on, hitting nine homers in September. A taste of what's to come, in each case. Guerrero is as talented a hitter as we've seen, and with a renewed focus this offseason on elevating the ball, he could become a true four-category stud; Jimenez isn't quite the same kind of talent, but he can be one of the best power hitters in the game, and one of the rare ones who could be a plus in batting average, to boot. There's no guarantee it comes in 2020 for either, but given how high the upside is, it's worth betting to find out if it will.
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Seager hasn't turned into the superstar hitter we hoped he would when he broke into the majors, but rest assured, the skills are still there for it. He's still a plus contact hitter, and after a rough start to 2019, he was on a 25-homer, 200-plus runs and RBI pace with an average right around .280 from May on. But there's even more promising news below the surface. Seager's average exit velocity was well below career norms in the first four months of the season, which is hard to hold against him, given that he was coming back from hip and elbow surgeries that basically cost him the entirety of the 2018 season. And especially given that he bumped that average exit velocity up to the 90 mph range in August and September, a sign that the power was coming back. He had an expected batting average of .289 and an expected slugging percentage of .526 in August and September. If that was a sign of the now-26-year-old getting back to full strength, then expectations should be very high for 2020 and beyond. I could see a Freddie Freeman-esque leap here.
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Speaking of betting on upside, Robert certainly has plenty of his own. In fact, he might have a profile that is more conducive to Fantasy production than even Guerrero at their respective peaks, because Robert could be a true five-category stud. There are risks, of course. Injuries have been a big issue for Robert, but he also doesn't have great plate discipline and the White Sox have a history of slowing their best base runners down once they get to the majors. However, Robert looks an awful lot like Fernando Tatis did at this point last year, with numbers between three levels that would have made him a top-five Fantasy option if he replicated them in the majors. I was initially skeptical that I would want Robert much at the start of draft season, but given the shortened season and the fact that Robert's ADP didn't rise as much as I suspected it might, he's another one who's worth the risk.
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I'm sure Luke Voit doesn't care about his ADP in Fantasy Baseball, so allow me to take offense on his behalf: I am offended! To a certain extent, it's probably colored by the fact that Voit's final numbers in 2019 look so much worse than his short stint in 2018, but there's important context to consider: When Voit went on the IL at the end of June with an abdominal injury, he was hitting .280/.393/.509 with a 36-homer, 215-runs-plus-RBI pace. He spent the next three months trying to play through it, hitting .228 with a 17-homer pace. Was Voit "exposed" or was he hurt? The answer seems clear to me, which is why Voit has ended up my starting first baseman on more teams than not. He'll give you what Jose Abreu or Josh Bell will for a fraction of the cost, and he'll be drafted in the first five rounds next season just like them.
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If you listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast — and if you don't … why not?! — you might get the feeling Frank Stampfl and I expect Oscar Marin, the new Pirates pitching coach to be a miracle worker. But that's not why we both love Keller and teammate Joe Musgrove as breakout candidates. It's that the Pirates previous regime was living in the past, with a fastball-heavy, contact-oriented approach that smart teams have abandoned in this era of prodigious homers. Keller has spoken this offseason about how that approach made him too predictable in his rookie season, helping lead to that hideous ERA. Keller has a great fastball, with plenty of velocity and a high spin rate, but his slider and curve looked like real weapons, and he knows he needs to use them more. That's only going to help the fastball play up, and Keller could make a huge leap if he does. The tools are all there, and now it's time to put them to use in the most efficient way possible — just as Glasnow did once he left Pittsburgh.
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Mid-Round Targets
Projections powered by
Sportsline
2019 was just about a worst-case scenario for Smith. He hit just .227 and actually earned a brief trip back to the minors at one point. And yet, he still led the majors in stolen bases. There's your floor. We saw the ceiling in 2018, when he cut his strikeout rate and hit .296 as a result. There's your ceiling. Smith is a volatile player, but so are Adalberto Mondesi and Jonathan Villar, and they're going off the board more than 100 picks before him. Are the five home runs you're hoping to get from them really worth that? In Roto, snagging Smith in the 11th round is the best value on stolen bases available.
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Ramos took a big step back in 2019, but let's not overstate it — he hit .288 with 14 homers and 72 RBI. That's a must-start catcher, one you never had to worry about. And there are reasons to think Ramos will be even better in 2020. He struggled to generate much power, but it wasn't because his bat slowed down, because Ramos ranked fourth among catchers in hard-hit rate and sixth in average exit velocity. The problem is, he had the lowest average launch angle among all hitters. He was hitting the ball into the ground way too much, and extra-base hits don't happen on the ground. Ramos spent the offseason working on getting the ball in the air more often, and if he succeeds in that while maintaining his contact rate and keeps hitting the ball with authority, he's going to be significantly better in 2020. Ramos isn't far off from Willson Contreras in my eyes, and he's going off the board four rounds later.
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Even for those of us who were skeptical about Marquez's breakthrough in 2018, 2019 was a big disappointment. Coors Field is, as they say, undefeated. But Marquez didn't do himself many favors, either. He prioritized his sinker in response to getting hit hard, which had the exact opposite effect as intended, which isn't much of a surprise — the sinker is his worst pitch. It gets the fewest swings and misses and doesn't do the intended job of limiting hard contact. The good news is, there's a fix for that, and if it's obvious to me, it's probably obvious to the professionals. And if it's not, Marquez is still a must-start pitcher on the road, and the way the Rockies schedule lines up, if Marquez starts on Opening Day, he would make his first two starts in the more spacious new Rangers ball park and then in Oakland, a terrific pitching environment. He would then line up to face the light-hitting Giants at home and the Mariners Seattle. Marquez might not face a scary matchup until his fifth start, and he might be a must-start guy in five of the first seven. Marquez may be a mid-round cheat code given that.
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Late-Round Targets
Projections powered by
Sportsline
If you want steals, you'll either have to pay a hefty price, or accept some warts, particularly when it comes to power and run production. And then there's Myers, available in the 25th round in many drafts. Myers, of course, is not without warts of his own, but even during a pretty disastrous last two seasons, he's paced for 20 homers and 20 steals in that time. Myers will never be a batting average help, but his profile doesn't look dissimilar to Scott Kingery's, who is going off the board some 80 picks earlier. With the addition of the DH to the National League, Myers is going to be in the lineup somewhere, and he's someone you'll want on your team in a Roto league.
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Tommy La Stella was an All-Star last year. Remember that? He was a bona fide must-start Fantasy option until a leg injury effectively ended his season. He's expected to be the Angels regular second baseman, with David Fletcher transitioning to a super-utility role. That doesn't mean he'll play every single day, but playing time doesn't really seem like it will be much of an issue. So, it comes down to whether he can sustain the improvements he made a year ago, when he emerged as a legitimate power hitter after years of being the very definition of a slap hitter. It was backed up by an increase in his exit velocity and launch angle, and came along with a change in his batting stance and swing. There's reason to be skeptical, but if last year was for real at all, we're talking about a premium batting average guy who might hit at the top of a very good lineup who won't be a zero in steals. This could be a very fruitful situation.
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It's not yet clear if Madrigal will be on the White Sox roster on Opening Day, but it's starting to look more and more likely. He's not yet on the Sox 40-man roster, but with Yoan Moncada testing positive for COVID-19, it seems like there's a chance they'll start the season with him, which would be very exciting for Fantasy. You may not know until after you draft, but that's all the more reason to make Madrigal one of your key late-round targets, because he could be a true difference maker in Roto leagues. Madrigal hit .311/.377/.414 between three levels in the minors, with 16 strikeouts in 120 games. That's not a typo. Madrigal could be a premium source of batting average, and he swiped 35 bases, too. Madrigal could be the next Dee Gordon, and you're getting him with maybe your last pick this weekend. How can you beat that?
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