2024 MLB Breakout Candidates - Hitter Edition
It is the end of January, spring is starting to be sprung, and pitchers and catchers will be reporting before you know it. Among me and my baseball fanatic friends, it has been a tradition for each of us to send in our group chat a personal selection of a couple players in the league that we think will really have a good showing in the upcoming season. However, this is much easier said than done. Picking breakout candidates in MLB is like picking individual stocks: if it was easy, everyone would do it. Luckily for you readers, I like to do the hard things, as nothing worth doing is ever easy. These three players I selected below stood out to me for a number of reasons, and I hope you all can see it too by the end of this article. If you disagree, I encourage you to call me out.
Jose Caballero, SS, Tampa Bay Rays
A relative unknown, Jose Caballero only has 280 career plate appearances to his name going into the 2024 season. However, he looks to be a big part of a good Rays team in 2024 after they acquired him in a trade with the Seattle Mariners at the beginning of the calendar year. He will most likely be the everyday starter at shortstop. Caballero fits the classic Rays mold of elite defensive infielder with questions from scouts about his ability at the plate, culminating in FanGraphs rating him as only a 40-grade overall prospect. For 2024, ZiPS projects Caballero to slash just .234/.344/.351 with 5 home runs, 22 stolen bases and +4.2 Def in 89 games and 294 plate appearances, but some signs point to him greatly outperforming these numbers. Caballero’s underlying metrics fit his new environment much better than his old one. While in his so far short career Caballero has carried a wOBA just about right at his xwOBA, his spray chart tells me he will outperform it in 2024. Caballero loves to pull fly balls down the left field line. This makes his career spray chart match up very favorably with his new teammate Isaac Paredes, who experienced a power breakout and consistent xwOBA outperformance when he joined the Rays from the Detroit Tigers in 2022. This is thanks to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg (727 stand up!) having much shorter dimensions in left field than Comerica Park in Detroit, and similarly Safeco Field in Seattle. Additionally, given a full season of playing time of 150 games instead of the ZiPS projected 89, Caballero’s Def will look much better, and he should contend for a Gold Glove. Caballero has potential to slash .240/.350/.440 with 20 home runs, 40 stolen bases and +10.0 Def while playing every day for a playoff team. ZiPS projects him for 1.7 WAR, but I think as high as 5.0 is attainable. Erik Neander has done it again.
Pavin Smith, OF/1B/DH, Arizona Diamondbacks
2023 was not a banner year for Pavin Smith, but I think that 2024 just might be. A left handed hitting bat first prospect that went in the first round of the 2017 draft out of the University of Virginia, Smith has yet to find his footing in the big leagues, despite showing flashes of promise in his four seasons. Power was supposed to be his calling card as FanGraphs gave him a 60-grade for the tool as a prospect, but it has not shown through yet…or has it? In 2023, Smith hit the ball harder than ever, but was not rewarded with good results. He posted an xwOBA of .329, yet this only produced a wOBA of .293. Extremely unlucky. Appearing in most of his games at designated hitter led to Smith having a negative WAR in 2023 and being sent down to the minor leagues at one point. Luckily, this is all in the past now. Despite being more productive in 2022, Smith’s 2023 hard-hit rate climbed 5.6% and he saw an increase in average exit velo of 2.0 MPH from the year before. If Smith can maintain these underlying metrics and not be stricken with terrible batted ball luck again, I foresee Smith being a key part of a Diamondbacks lineup that looks to get back to the World Series, even if only as the strong side of a platoon. ZiPS sees Smith regressing in 2024 and slashing slashing .251/.330/.389 with 12 home runs, 2 stolen bases and -7.0 Def, giving him 0.6 WAR. I think this projection is about right except for the power, and at .250/.330/.450 with 20 home runs and 2 stolen bases, he would have around 1.5 WAR if seeing most of his time at designated hitter with a smattering of appearances at first base and in corner outfield spots. I see Smith having a full WAR more than his ZiPS projection in 2024.
Fernando Tatis Jr., OF, San Diego Padres
Is it really a breakout if the player is already awesome? I vote yes because Fernando Tatis Jr. is about to find an extra gear in 2024. By his standards, Tatis Jr. had a down year in 2023, producing 4.4 WAR while undershooting his xwOBA by 36 points. This was expected though, as he was coming off a lengthy suspension. Tatis Jr. was finally moved off of shortstop to be a full-time outfielder in 2023, which actually helped his Def thanks to his purely elite defensive performance in right field for the Padres last year. ZiPS projects Tatis Jr. to slash .268/.342/.528 with 36 home runs, 26 stolen bases and +2.3 Def in a full season in 2024, good for 5.4 WAR. However, I fully expect him to return to his pre suspension offensive baseline of .290/.370/.600 with 40 home runs and 30 stolen bases. If he can regain that form at the plate while continuing to play some of the best right field defense on the planet and put up a Def of +10.0, I see no reason 8.0 WAR and a National League MVP award are not in Tatis Jr.’s future. The only question is if his early career numbers were a result of the substance that caused his 2022 suspension (I highly doubt it, the dude is just good).
I want to revisit this piece at the midway point in the season, and then again at the end of the season. My goal is for these players to produce more than the 7.7 WAR that ZiPS has projected for them combined. Should this happen, I will claim victory, but if it does not then I will admit defeat. I hope everyone remembers article this as well as I will, because I want to be held accountable if I am wrong. After all, how can I improve my picks next year if I do not review the mistakes I made this year? However, I suspect I will be correct and these three will have sensational years, and I wish them the best of luck along the way.
All statistics pulled from FanGraphs.com and baseballsavant.com