Are 2021’s Breakouts This Season’s Busts?

It has seemingly been a couple of years since I have published this post, so let’s get back to analyzing some of last season’s biggest breakouts. Four years ago during Fantasy Baseball Week at The Hardball Times, I researched whether last season’s breakouts were solid investments the following year. Spoiler alert: they are actually terrible investments. Of course, that’s as a group. So while in aggregate last season’s breakouts are a bad investment the following year, not every breakout from the previous season is going to fall flat the next season. So let’s discuss some of the big breakouts from 2021 and decide which turn out to be poor investment busts and which end up holding onto their gains.

I excluded pitchers from this analysis, since we could more easily discern between those who were the beneficiaries of excellent fortune (Chris Flexen 플렉센, Wade Miley) and those whose skills surged, supporting the breakout (Dylan Cease). I also excluded hitters who were injured in 2020 and bounced back in 2021, those that have shown this kind of performance in the past (you can’t break out more than once!), hitters whose fantasy breakout was primarily driven by an increase in playing time, rather than performance per plate appearance, and hitters who were already really good, but took things up another notch (Marcus Semien). Last, in order to avoid overly punishing a hitter for being awful, as opposed to simply bad, I changed any hitter’s end of season (EOS) $$ value to $0 if it was negative.

For this exercise, I’m defining a 2022 bust as a hitter I expect to suffer at least a $10 decline in EOS dollar value. Note that I am completely ignoring ADP and any average auction values available, as those are very league dependent. Obviously, if your entire league is factoring in a $10 decline in EOS dollar value versus 2021, then the player might not end up a bust relative to his cost in your league. Since it’s impossible to account for league differences, I’m strictly focusing on the hitter’s performance and the fantasy value of his actual 2021 and projected 2022 stats.

There are a whole lot more breakouts than this, of course, but we’re going to discuss six of the biggest.

Shohei Ohtani

I often ask how someone could be so talented as to become a “triple threat”. Ya know, those gifted people who act, dance, and sing? I can’t even do one of those! Well maybe I could act, I’ve never actually tried to. Then there’s Shohei Ohtani. I don’t know what other talents he might possess, but right now, he is showing off his Babe Ruthian double threat skills, and it’s incredible. It’s hard enough to be a good baseball player specializing in either hitting or pitching. So it just baffles me how someone could be so good in both roles. Ohtani debuted in 2018 and was really good as a hitter, posting a .390 wOBA over a partial season’s worth of PAs. His offense rapidly declined from there though until last year’s insane turnaround. Last season, he didn’t bump his HR/FB rate rate up much further than his previous career high, but his FB% skyrocketed, directly leading to more home runs. He also decided that stealing bases was a ton of fun and joined the thrilling 40/20 club.

He’s a different call as a potential bust than normal because of what drove this breakout. It wasn’t a HR/FB rate surge, a spike in BABIP, a big dip in strikeout rate, or something clearly skill based. Instead, it was the increased FB% that resulted in 40+ homers, plus a higher stolen base attempt rate. Those two changes are far more difficult to predict repeatability. I think it’s pretty obvious that a hitter posting a 30% HR/FB rate should absolutely be posting a 40% FB%, but I don’t think it’s as easy as knowing that and doing it. On the other hand, do the Angels hold their breath every time he attempts a steal? An injury wouldn’t just lose them an elite hitter, but also an excellent pitcher.

If I were an Ohtani owner, I would be nervous simply because he has more opportunity to get injured and miss time, or for a minor injury from pitching to affect his hitting. However, given his four category contributions, there’s still a cushion assuming the regression monster does bite a bit. I think a $10 decline is a bit too large of a dropoff here and his skills do fully support his performance level.

Verdict: REAL

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Guerrero went from somewhat disappointing over his first two seasons to skipping the interim improvement step and enjoying a massive breakout to become one of the best hitters in baseball. That’s kind of what all fantasy owners had been expecting given his ADPs the last couple of years! Guerrero reversed his declining FB% and increased that mark to a career high close to the league average. In addition, his HR/FB rate jumped into the mid-20% range as both his Barrel FB% and standard deviation of fly balls and line drives rose. Those are two key variables of my xHR/FB rate equation. While he did outperform the equation by a bit, there was clearly significant improvement over 2019 and 2020.

So far, the surprising thing to me is that he has only been striking out at a mid-teens rate despite a league average swinging strike rate. Yet, my hitter xK% equation mostly validates his low mark, though does suggest he was a bit fortunate last year. Given his consistently strong minor league strikeout rates, I wouldn’t expect a jump in strikeout rate that would seemingly more align with his swinging strike rate. That’s because his swings at pitches inside the zone far more often than the league average, resulting in a lower rate of called strikes, and therefore fewer strikeouts.

While I figure the standard regression across the board after a monster year, and his lack of steals does require him to continue hitting .300 with 40 or so homers, I think earning at least $27 this season should be worst case scenario assuming good health. This is what we all expected when he was still a prospect and there’s little here to suggest there’s any flukiness to his breakout.

Verdict: REAL

Cedric Mullins II

Mullins is the first name on this list that was truly out of nowhere and may have won leagues. He had never shown this type of power in the minors, as his HR/FB rate and ISO shot up, while his FB% increased above 40%. He also showed off the wheels, recording an exact 30/30 season. The first question is whether his power was real. His xHR/FB rate actually matched his actual mark exactly which doesn’t happen too often! He was generally league average across the variables, except the big difference was a spike in Pull FB%. That’s a clear change in approach as he likely decided to try hitting for more power by pulling his flies more frequently. That’s something that’s difficult to guess if he’ll do that again, but at least it doesn’t require him to hit the ball further or harder, as it’s a bit more choice-based than skill-based.

The elephant in the room now is the changes to Oriole Park. Home runs by left-handed hitters figure to be impacted more than righties, so Mullins figures to take a hit from the park change, plus you still have to consider any standard regression you were going to apply before those changes. It’s still just a guess though, but it dropped my home run projection into the low-mid 20s.

A $10 decline in value would drop him to just below $16. If I look at my projection, it looks slightly better than what Trevor Story did in 2021, and that earned him more than $17. So once again, I’m projecting toward the bottom end of that $10 buffer, but probably closer to a $20 projection given the additional steals compared to Story. I think his value will be linked to how often he runs, as whether he hits 20 homers or 25 isn’t going to determine whether he’s a bust or not. Like I said for Ohtani, given that he contributes in both power and speed, there’s a downside cushion, making it more difficult to call him a bust.

Verdict: REAL

Jorge Polanco

It was really easy to miss that Jorge Polanco exploded for 33 homers last season. His breakout is pretty easy to analyze as it was almost entirely driven by a career best HR/FB rate that hit double digits for the first time. In fact, it almost tripled versus 2020. What does xHR/FB rate say? Not only was it real, but he actually underperformed slightly! However, he has had a history of underperforming, so it’s possible he’s doing or not doing something that’s being missed by my equation.

There were lots of significant changes in the variables driving that xHR/FB rate. His standard deviation skyrocketed, which means he was alternating bombs with his weaker flies far more frequently than ever before. His barrel rates increased, but oddly his average distance did not. But perhaps the biggest change is he became pull-happy. Just like Mullins, this may have been a deliberate change in approach to tap into his power more. It’s anyone’s guess if he’ll be able to sustain those pull rates again. If he can’t, he’ll probably also have a tough time sustaining the increases elsewhere as well.

He’s currently slated to hit in the middle of the twins order, which should help him offset any regression in power. However, if the power does decline, he could move to a less desirable spot in the lineup, affecting all his counting stats. Comparing my projections to similar lines from 2021 would put him right around that $10 decline value. Given his history and reliance on pulling his flies without any increase in distance, I’ll tiptoe over to the bust call.

Verdict: BUST

Tyler O’Neill

Finally O’Neill got the playing time, his HR/FB rate rebounded, and he added stolen bases to his contribution set. We have a number of metrics to analyze to determine how real his performance was. A .366 BABIP?! Surely that can’t be real, can it? In 2021, it apparently was, as his Statcast xBABIP was an impressive .354, while my adjusted version was .355. While he posted massive BABIP marks over small samples in 2018 and 2019 as well, those were flukes according to xBABIP. It’s difficult to figure out how he was capable of such a high BABIP given his high FB% and league average IFFB%, so I’m still figuring some major regression, regardless of whether his 2021 mark was real or not.

His HR/FB rate versus xHR/FB rate was very similar to Guerrero’s discussed above, where his xHR/FB rate did jump from his 2019 and 2020 marks, but he still outperformed it marginally. His standard deviation and barrel rates both improved. Given his minor league history, he should remain in the 20% HR/FB rate range.

What about the steals? Well, I had no idea that O’Neil was so fast, as his Sprint Speed ranked 13th among hitters last year! So he certainly has the speed to keep stealing bases. The question just is whether he will actually continue to do so. We often see power hitters slow down their running game to avoid risking injury.

For the most part, it would seem that last year’s performance was mostly real. The biggest reversal I see is from his BABIP and resulting batting average, as I’m projecting about a .30 point drop in average, which is significant. That said, his across the board contributions in the other categories, plus an expected increase in plate appearances, should guarantee he earns more than $13.07.

Verdict: REAL

Austin Riley

Riley ignited a FAAB frenzy when he debuted in 2019, but ultimately didn’t deliver a whole lot of fantasy value due to his poor batting average. Last year, he suddenly became a .300 hitter, as his BABIP zoomed by a massive degree. That was about the only change, as his other underlying metrics remained relatively stable.

So what does xBABIP say about his actual BABIP? That he was quite unlucky in 2019 and 2020, and while his xBABIP did jump in 2021, he still handily outperformed it. He does have the batted ball profile to post a high BABIP, given his high LD%, but it’s hard to believe he’s going to be consistently posting marks above .350. My xBABIP says .335, and that’s with his 25.1% LD%, which is difficult to repeat.

That said, I don’t expect him to be much different from players like Nelson Cruz or Hunter Renfroe in 2021, and they both earned a couple of bucks more than that $13.34 bottom line. The issue here is that with potentially only power contributions and a big potential decline in batting average, the downside is more significant than if he had some stolen base cushion. So I think that makes him riskier than other names on this list.

Verdict: BUST