Breakout Hitters Watch for Fantasy Baseball - Jarred Kelenic, Luis Garcia, Brent Rooker, more

April 21, 2023

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

We are back for the second week of the breakout hitter watch. Every week, I look into the data to find some hitters that really seem to be improving.

There will be different player profiles included in all of this. I try to keep the majority of the names as hitters that are available on waivers or at the very least might be players you could trade for before the breakout really hits. However, sometimes I just want to highlight already highly regarded hitters that seem to be going to the next level. These would be considered "buy highs" that you could still try to pry away from their owner with a fair offer.

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 five names we're picking for this week.

2023 Breakout Picks Tracker

Jarred Kelenic, Seattle Mariners

We'll start it off with some low-hanging fruit. Very few people are going to be unaware of what Kelenic is doing this year, but I would be remiss if I didn't throw in my vote of confidence in the kid.

From 2021-2022, Kelenic slashed .302/.372/.574 in the minor leagues with a 19.4% K% and a 9.3% BB%. That got his arrival to the majors a ton of hype, but he fell flat when he got there, to say the least. In 558 MLB PAs prior to 2023, Kelenic slashed just .168/.251/.338 with a 29.9% K% and a 9.3% BB %.

The problem was pretty clear -- it was all about the strikeout. So far this year, he has shown improvements in all of the categories you really wanted to see improvement in.

The strikeout rate is still up there, and it wouldn't take too many PAs to see that get above 33% again since we're very early on. However, the improvements he's made in what pitches he's swinging at are clear, and those granular stats are much more believable even with just a few weeks of data.

We know that Kelenic can hit the long ball, and he can steal some bags as well. With those things being there, we can live with a 26-28% strikeout rate and be just fine. The power and speed will still make him a good outfielder for fantasy purposes.

The issue is that he's probably not available in your league right now, and the person who has him isn't going to be overly excited to get rid of him. But maybe you can get someone who isn't a real believer in him to sell high. The upside is certainly worth the risk if these skill improvements sustain.

Ian Happ, Chicago Cubs

This is another example of a hitter that is certainly already rostered in your league. However, he just might be someone you can buy high on for a reasonable price. The whole Cubs lineup is off to a ripping start as their team batting average is hovering right around .290. In that light, Happ might even be going a little bit overlooked.

So far this season, he is slashing .321/.426/.536 with two homers and three stolen bases. That's a really strong line, but it does make him a guy that just might be flying under the radar. Some key numbers from Happ so far this year:

Happ is hitting extremely well while putting the ball in play at an above-average rate. The key here is that Happ seems to be one of these players that is set on crushing his previous best in the stolen base category. His previous career-best steals effort was nine (he did that each of the last two seasons). Less than three weeks into the season and he's already a third of the way there.

The Cubs currently lead the league in stolen base attempt rate, showing that they have come into the season with the mindset of being very aggressive on the basepaths. We have long known that Happ can hit for good power without punting batting averages. If he even just sticks to his career averages in those categories, he is primed for a breakout on the increased steals alone.

But I think Happ has a good chance to have a career-best season in more than just steals. He has looked fantastic early on. The ceiling is a 30-20 season, and now is the time to get him if you don't have any shares.

Luis Garcia, Washington Nationals

Garcia was a trendy breakout pick in drafts this year, and so far he's been rewarding those who made the pick.

The Nationals' middle infielder currently leads the league in contact rate (the percentage of times you make contact on your swings) with a rate of 92%. That's beating even Luis Arraez -- not an easy thing to do for any amount of time!

The way he seems to have accomplished it is by making much better swing decisions. He had a very poor 41% chase% last year (the percentage of pitches out of the zone that you swing at). This year, it has improved massively to 24%. A crucial note -- this change has not been driven by him just swinging less overall, his swing rate has stayed steady at 53% from 2022 to 2023. This is a real sign of improvement.

Contact rate only takes you so far. To really turn that into a fantasy asset, you have to have some power along with it -- and Garcia checks that box. So far, he has a league average of 8% Brl%. We don't really want league-average players in the fantasy game. If you're putting that many balls in play, a league-average barrel rate plays just fine.

Say you swing 100 times and have a league-average 8% barrel rate. With a 90% contact rate, that turns into seven barrels (we're ignoring foul balls for the sake of the example). If you are down at a 75% contact rate (league average), you only get six barrels out of that. That's an extra barrel every 100 swings -- significant!

Garcia is super young (22) and has good bat speed, that's never been in question. The improvements in chase rate and contact rate are really exciting happenings for him and I think he's due for a really solid fantasy season even on a bad Nationals team.

Kerry Carpenter, Detroit Tigers

Young players on bad teams tend to go overlooked. Carpenter is one of those players.

Carpenter was a nightmare on minor league pitching in 2022, and that got him promoted to the majors about halfway through the season.

2022 AA-AAA OPS Leaders

Predictably, he didn't set the world on fire in the majors. He also wasn't a bad hitter by any means with a .252/.310/.485 slash line in 113 PA.

The exciting part of his 2022 profile was an 11.1% Brl% and a 7.1% Brl/PA -- both well above the league average. The downside was the team context and the 28% K%.

So far in 2023, the power has only been more obvious. He has seven barrels in 37 PAs and two homers already. He has also dropped his strikeout rate down to 24% (it's still quite early to trust a K%, but you'd obviously rather see a good start than a bad one).

His walk rate is up three points, and his chase rate is down eight points to 25%. In this case, that improved chase rate is a consequence of a lower overall swing rate (that's down 10 points to 43%). It's good to see power hitters being more selective, though. It's especially good to see him striking out less while also swinging less. Oftentimes, a lower swing rate turns into more strikeouts as hitters find their way into more two-strike counts.

The 25-year-old is checking plenty of boxes and could be one of the better power options in the league this year if these trends continue. He's still widely available in leagues of all sizes.

Brent Rooker, Oakland Athletics

The theme of this week seems to be power hitters on bad teams. I don't love talking about a 28-year-old who has spent most of his career in the minor leagues, but what Rooker has done so far this year cannot be ignored.

Here is one of my favorite scatter plots, which compares the strikeout rate to the barrel rate and shows you the Brl/PA estimate as well.

We are looking for hitters surging toward the top-right of the plot. That would mean they have high barrel rates and low strikeout rates. That means they are barreling the ball often, and barrels are how you hit homers.

If Rooker were just some random guy that was popping up here in the early weeks, I would ignore him. However, we already showed you above what he was able to do in AAA last season with that 1.045 OPS. Only three hitters outdid him in home run rate in the minors as he homered once every 13.4 PAs.

That plus the Athletics' pathetic roster got him into a starting job in the majors. So far, he has capitalized with four homers in just 42 PAs with an elite 16.7% Brl/PA and a really strong 16.7% K%. Only eight hitters have managed a Brl/PA above 15% with 40+ PAs.

Rooker offers you the least upside (by far) of the breakouts this week, but it also serves to make him the most widely available. If your fantasy team is falling behind in homers, Rooker just might be your guy.

That's it for the second edition of 2023 hitter breakouts. I hope we have uncovered some gems this week. Happy hunting, RotoBallers!

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