FYI: I won’t be chatting on Wednesday, February 23rd. There will be a Top 100 Prospects chat in that timeslot!

First things first, what’s the difference between a breakout and sleeper? Breakouts are about a new level of performance while sleepers are about where a player is drafted. I started my Sleeper series (Vol. 1) and identified the 21st round as the beginning of the sleeper pool. That first edition focused on 15-teamers so I started at pick-300 (I’ll have 10- and 12-team iterations coming, too). A breakout can come from the 2nd round if they ascend to a top 3-5 player, but I am looking for breakouts outside of the first 4 rounds so pick-60 in 15-teamers, 48 in 12s (which will be today’s focus), and 40 in 10s.

• Volume 1: 15-team Breakouts

Daulton Varsho | Arizona Diamondbacks, C/OF | 94 ADP

A catcher who runs and doesn’t always have to play behind the dish to get on the field is what fantasy darlings are made of and Varsho certainly has many proponents. A sharp second half (.879 OPS, 10 HR, 5 SB in 219 PA) has his biggest fans buying in completely while also bringing aboard some new fans. The real beauty with Varsho is the fact that he will likely spend most of his time in the outfield which gives him a potentially huge edge in volume over many other star catchers. That hasn’t been reflected in the projections with a high of 112 games, but if Carson Kelly stays healthy and holds the full-time catcher role, then Varsho could log north of 125 games with 100+ coming in the outfield. He has a great shot to deliver double-digit stolen bases, too, something that has been done just four times by a catcher since 2010 (J.T. Realmuto 2x in ’16 and ’21, Yadier Molina in ’12, and Jason Kendall in ’10).

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First things first, what’s the difference between a breakout and sleeper? Breakouts are about a new level of performance while sleepers are about where a player is drafted. I started my Sleeper series last week (Vol. 1) and identified the 21st round as the beginning of the sleeper pool. That first edition focused on 15-teamers so I started at pick-300 (I’ll have 10- and 12-team iterations coming, too). A breakout can come from the 2nd round if they ascend to a top 5 player next year, but I am looking for breakouts outside of the first 4 rounds so pick-60 in 15-teamers (which will be today’s focus), 48 in 12s, and 40 in 10s.

Max Fried | Atlanta Braves, SP | 71 ADP

If Fried hadn’t gotten hurt last year, he would’ve set a new high in innings and if his ratios had held (3.04 ERA/1.09 WHIP), it would’ve been the breakout. Instead, he matched his 2019 IP total (165.7) so I can still finagle him into a breakout situation with the idea being he pushes 185+ IP of equal or better ratios and perhaps even more strikeouts. We are only going into Fried’s third full season so there is still development happening here.

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