Prime-Age Infielders Set to Break Out for Fantasy Baseball

With baseball officially back, we can finally move on from worrying about whether the teams would actually be on the field and start worrying about the fake teams we're going to field this year in fantasy baseball.

This article is going to break down three infielders in the age 26-29 range who are on the precipice of a mid-to-late-20s breakout. Breakout is a relative term in this piece, as the ceiling is much higher for some players than others, which is reflected in their draft price.

ADP numbers are based on NFBC ADP and are current as of 3/13/2022.

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Nathaniel Lowe, 1B, TEX 

Lowe was something of a sleeper going into the 2021 season following his trade from Tampa Bay to Texas. Lowe was finally going to break free of the platoon shackles so many are confined by in Tampa and blossom into a slugging full-timer in Arlington. He got off to a hot start, posting a .845 OPS with six homers in April, but his performance quickly leveled out and he became a fantasy afterthought. As a result, Lowe can be had around pick 240 in NFBC drafts.

Lowe’s 18 home runs and .151 ISO seem pitiful by today’s standards, especially for a corner infielder, but there’s reason to believe more pop lurks within his bat. He posted an ISO of .200 or higher in 2018 and 2019 in the minors and had a blazing 113.9 MPH max exit velocity every season. In fact, Lowe has been in the 91^st percentile or higher in max exit velocity in each of his three big-league seasons. He was also in the top 25% of the league in terms of average exit velocity and hard-hit rate last season.

To truly unlock his potential, Lowe will need to elevate the ball more as his 54.5% groundball rate is untenable for a major league first baseman, though he never had a groundball rate above 48% at any level prior to last season, so Lowe certainly has the ability to lift the ball more frequently. 25 home runs are realistic for Lowe if the groundball pendulum swings the other way in 2022.

Along with untapped power potential, Lowe displayed an improved contact rate and plate discipline in 2021 as well. The ability to draw walks has long been one of Lowe’s strengths, and he posted an impressive 12.5% walk rate and .357 OBP last season. While the walks aren’t anything new for Lowe (he had a 17.7% walk rate at Triple-A in 2019), his 25.2% strikeout rate was a marked improvement from previous seasons. Lowe looked overmatched in Tampa with a 31.8% strikeout rate in 245 PAs, so a 25.2% strikeout rate is a huge step in the right direction for Lowe. Lowe is a player who improved his strikeout rate in the minors after spending some time at the level, so a reduction falls in line with his past progression and could be a sign of growth in a young hitter.

The 2021 Texas Rangers were an anemic offensive club. I think they might’ve literally been iron deficient. Their 625 runs and collective 84 wRC+ were the lowest in the American League by a relatively large margin. GM Jon Daniels broke out the checkbook to try and rectify the issue, spending half a billion dollars of Ray Davis’s money on a killer keystone combination of Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. The biggest beneficiary of these signings, besides the families of Seager and Semien, is Nate Lowe, who will be hitting directly behind the pair in 2022. Those are some big upgrades from Isaiah Kiner-Falefa and Charlie Culberson, and Lowe will undoubtedly see more RBI opportunities next season.

Lowe is in a position where improvements to his game and his team could coalesce into a quiet breakout season. Some corner infielders going just before Lowe are Jeimer Candelario, Brandon Belt, and Frank Schwindel; I’d roll the dice on Lowe over any of them.

Garrett Hampson, 2B/OF, COL

Garrett Hampson is among the fastest players in the league. He ranks in the 99^th percentile of sprint speed, and among fantasy-relevant players, only Byron Buxton and Trea Turner can claim to be faster. The man has no problem turning singles into doubles and doubles into triples, but the issue for him has always been turning plate appearances into base hits. Although it may not seem it from his surface stats (Hampson hit .236 with a .289 OBP last season), he seems to have taken a step forward in 2021. He posted a career-best 23.9% strikeout rate along with 17 stolen bases in 494 PA.

The improved strikeout rate is especially encouraging for a player like Hampson, as his elite speed and home ballpark are both conducive to producing hits on balls in play that would otherwise be outs. One might open Hampson’s Statcast page, see the exit velocity and expected stats, and assume this guy isn’t a special hitter. That would be a correct assumption, but between his speed and Coors Field, no one in baseball should get more cheap hits than Garrett Hampson should Hampson make contact, which is why the strikeout rate gains are so encouraging.

If Hampson can keep his strikeout rate below 25%, there’s a good chance his .291 BABIP improves to .330 or higher, as it was in previous seasons, and his batting average leaps by 30-40 points. Then, Hampson can run wild on a Rockies club that seems actively antagonistic to advanced metrics that suggest stolen bases aren’t always ideal. This is a player who swiped 36 or more bases in three separate minor league seasons, and given the chance 30 or more steals is quite likely for Hampson.

It's always difficult to say this with the Rockies, but for the first time, it looks like no one will be in Hampson’s way for playing time. The only viable middle infielders on Colorado’s roster are Hampson and Brendan Rodgers, and unless they sign a veteran or do some crazy configuration with Ryan McMahon at second and Ryan Vilade or Colton Welker at third (both possible given the organization), Hampson should be a full-time starter. He’s penciled in as the number nine hitter right now, which is less than ideal for raw ABs but should afford him plenty of steal opportunities at the bottom of the lineup. Plus, Hampson could find himself atop the lineup if Raimel Tapia comes crashing back to earth.

At pick 272, Hampson can be had awfully cheap, and while he’s far from an all-around contributor, he offers the rare possibility of 30 or 40 (in a perfect world) stolen base upside late in drafts. If you miss out on steals early or want to solidify the category late in drafts, look no further than Hampson. Depending on team makeup, I’d take Hampson over similarly priced infielders such as Nicky Lopez, Andres Gimenez, and Gio Urshela. Those players have value, but none of them offer the potential impact of Hampson.

Yoan Moncada, 3B, CWS

It wasn’t that long ago that Moncada was considered among the elite young players in the game. His status as the game’s top prospect and the key return piece in the Chris Sale trade meant expectations were lofty, and thus far Moncada has fallen short from a fantasy perspective. Sure, his 122 wRC+ and .375 OBP were great for the White Sox, but a .263 AVG, 14 home runs, and three lousy steals don’t do much for us 5x5 Roto players. Moncada did have a breakout-fake out in 2019 with a .315 AVG and 25 home runs, so even with such bleh surface stats the past two years, one can’t help but wonder if more potential lurks in this bat.

There were some positive signs for Moncada in 2021, chiefly a career-best 25.5% strikeout rate. Moncada has routinely posted a strikeout rate north of 30% as a big leaguer and has always struggled with Ks, so his 2021 strikeout reduction could signify a leap forward that went largely unnoticed due to lackluster results. Unlike other big strikeout players such as Javier Baez and Joey Gallo, Moncada was never swinging out of his shoes at the ball, and actually made decent contact all things considered. Don’t get it wrong, he’s not exactly Juan Soto up there, but his career 71.5% contact rate and 12.3% SwStr rate are lower than one would expect from someone who racks up strikeouts like Moncada.

Moncada is a selective hitter, thus a career 43.2% swing rate, and his issue with strikeouts have stemmed from an excessively cautious approach buoyed by poor pitch recognition and zone control. Basically, Moncada was letting too many good pitches whizz by and catching a lot of strikeouts looking or swinging after being forced to chase a bad pitch. He lowered his chase rate to 27.2% last season, his lowest since 2018, which is another sign that Moncada may be putting things together at the plate.

If Moncada’s pitch recognition and plate discipline are improving, fantasy players should be very excited about Moncada’s breakout chances. He makes stellar contact, with a 90.1 MPH average exit velocity, 113.8 MPH max exit velocity, and 41.2% hard-hit rate. What has this writer even more intrigued is Moncada’s 2019 Statcast numbers, where he posted a scorching 93.1 MPH average exit velocity, .474 xwOBAcon, and 47.9% hard-hit rate. Moncada is only 26 and should still possess the raw athleticism and strength to recapture those metrics, or at least come close. If he can combine his stronger pitch recognition with an even better quality of contact, then Moncada could be in for a big season.

Altogether, I could see Moncada following a similar path to that of Anthony Rendon. Rendon was a big prospect (though not as big as Moncada) who struggled when first called up, had a big season, took a step backward, and then at age 26, he began flourishing as a reliable source of batting average, mid-level power, and the occasional steal. Moncada doesn’t have the contact skills of Rendon, but he could put up similar statistics to mid-2010s Rendon, though probably nothing like Rendon’s monster 2019.

Moncada can currently be had around pick 150 in NFBC drafts, which seems fair given his last two seasons, but he presents a nice value opportunity at this price. He’s a better value than Ke’Bryan Hayes going 10 picks higher, and I’d take Moncada over fellow infielders Ty France and Gleyber Torres, who are going just ahead of him as well.

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