Szymborski’s 2021 Breakout Candidates: Hitters

One of my favorite yearly preseason pieces is also my most dreaded: the breakout list. I’ve been doing this exercise since 2014, and while I’ve had the occasional triumph (hello, Christian Yelich), the low-probability nature of trying to project who will beat expectations means that every time you look smart, you’re also bound to look dumb for some other reason. Looking back at last season’s breakout list, there were a number of selections I was happy with once the season ended — Eloy Jiménez, Dinelson Lamet, Dansby Swanson, Dylan Bundy — but then I remember Mitch Keller’s walkalicious 2020 and Victor Robles dropping 27 points of wRC+ and my cringe-sense starts to tingle. Since I’m doing separate lists of hitters and pitchers this year, let’s waste no more time with the opening spiel. To the hitters!

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays

Perhaps not the gutsiest call, but it feels to me like people have soured way too much on Vladito. A 112 wRC+ won’t win any Silver Sluggers, but we have to remember he was just 21 last season. Let’s imagine that Guerrero Jr. wasn’t part of the imperial-Vlad bloodline and was just a guy in Triple-A in 2020 (in an alternate universe where the minor league season existed). If we translate Guerrero’s actual major league performance into a Triple-A Buffalo line, ZiPS estimates that he would’ve been hitting .288/.370/.526 as a 21-year-old in the International League. Would anyone be disappointed with this line? There would be cries of Free Vlad! echoing through the streets by June. I think players like Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. have spoiled us for normal awesome prospects.

While I don’t usually fall for the whole “best shape of his life” stories in spring, I think I’ve fallen for it this time. Guerrero was carrying a lot of weight for a 21-year-old; I weighed less at 21, and my main aerobic exercise was hauling cases of beer into my house. He dropped a lot of weight this winter, so I take this one more seriously than the usual stories, which involve a guy losing 10 pounds or having some secret abs that people gush about.

Alex Kirilloff, Minnesota Twins

The projection systems are low on Kirilloff, generally speaking, and it’s something I think is a mistake. From working with ZiPS over the years, I’m aware that there are certain things a projection system is going to struggle with, one of which is playing through nagging injuries. If Kirilloff had missed 100 games in 2019 with his wrist injury, the projection system would have understood that to an extent. But rather than a dramatic season-ending tear, the injury was more of the nagging type, and I think his poor Double-A numbers have a lot to do with him swinging at less than 100%.

The 2018 season is the only time Kirilloff has been healthy in a full season professionally, and he absolutely torched the ball in environments not conducive to offense. Given that he missed 2017 with Tommy John surgery, I was disappointed that the Twins didn’t get him into a game in 2020 until the playoffs. He’s too low on the ZiPS Top 100, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he hit 30 homers in 2021. ZiPS only says 3.6% for that, but I think it’s closer to 25%.

Kyle Schwarber, Washington Nationals

Schwarber has had some decent offensive seasons, but nothing that’s matched the crazy power potential we thought was possible after his major league debut in 2015. He’s regularly among the league leaders in exit velocity, and while he hasn’t made any great strides in terms of plate discipline, he also didn’t fall into any new bad habits while he struggled in 2020. That was a weird season for Schwarber, as pitchers had a lot of success facing him by throwing hard down in the zone. That’s an almost retro failing at this point: The league slugged .418 in 2020 against balls in the low “shadow zone” as defined by StatCast, but he only slugged .161. In fact, he’s never match that .418 slugging percentage against those pitches!

The Nats are quite aware of this problem, and given that they’re trying to address a specific weakness, this might be the best year for Schwarber to hit his upside. They should go with the reverse Willie Mays Hayes regimen and extract 100 pushups from him every time he hits a grounder.

Gary Sánchez, New York Yankees

I swear I’m not just trolling Yankees fans. While he technically had a breakout already in the past, Sánchez has been down in the depths enough the last couple of seasons that I think I can justify predicting a re-breakout. What it comes down to for me is that no hitter in the majors is a .159 BABIP “true talent” hitter, and most pitchers aren’t, either. On that last point, 712 pitchers have made 200 plate appearances in the majors since 1950, and 672 of them had a career BABIP better than Sánchez’s .159 from 2020.

ZiPS sees Sánchez as one of the biggest outliers in Statcast data versus reality for both batting average and slugging percentage and feels that someone with his level of power has a BABIP upside higher than his career .256. The defense will be unexciting, but I think offensively, there’s still hope that he can get back to where he was in 2017. Amusingly, Sánchez had his career-best season at avoiding swinging at bad pitches in his miserable 2020!

J.P. Crawford, Seattle Mariners

Crawford’s one of those tweeners who is now far too experienced to be called a prospect, but it still doesn’t feel like he’s hit anywhere near his peak in the majors. His contact numbers continue to improve year-after-year, and the 2020 gain is probably even bigger than it looked: He hit for more contact despite offering at a higher percentage of out-of-zone pitches but a lower percentage of zone pitches. I think he’s someone who could benefit from being more aggressive at the plate; he’s as good a bad-ball hitter as Tim Anderson. ZiPS might also be underrating Crawford’s defense, which has improved considerably since the Mariners just left him at short — a better situation than when the Phillies seemed more concerned with playing Scott Kingery at the position. I still think Crawford can be the three to four-win player that ZiPS saw his peak back when he was a prospect. At 26, he’s in his prime, and I think there’s another gear remaining.

Nate Lowe, Texas Rangers

The move to Texas is beneficial for Lowe: While the Rangers’ new park doesn’t appear to be anywhere near as hitter-friendly as the old one, it’s likely to be a better one than the Trop. He also has a much easier path to playing time with Texas, a team with a poor recent track record at developing hitters; only Ronald Guzmán provides likely competition.

Lowe has power, but it’s still inconsistent at this point. His sweet spot percentage, as measured by Statcast based on balls hit between eight and 32 degrees, is considerably higher than league-average, but he still hits way too many grounders for a guy who can get loft from his swing. When he does hit that sweet spot, he’s been one of the best in baseball, hitting .732 and slugging 1.446, the former number the ninth-best for players with 50 balls hit into play in 2019 and ’20.

Ryan McMahon, Colorado Rockies

McMahon was a legitimately solid prospect a few years ago who was ill-served by the Rockies, who jerked him up and down from the minors and from position to position, resulting in him getting spotty playing time during two key developmental seasons. In fact, his plate discipline has gone in the wrong direction, and he’s been much more of a groundball hitter in the majors than he was in the minors. Now, thanks to the Nolan Arenado trade, the Rockies have the opportunity to stick McMahon at third and leave him there, at least until Chris Owings has a hot week or something.

Going into 2018, ZiPS saw McMahon as a 115–120 wRC+ hitter in his prime — highly useful if he could play a respectable second or third base in the majors. ZiPS has completely soured on him, but I’m an optimist about players who have had to work against their team’s efforts in trying to succeed. I actually think the 90th-percentile projection is still obtainable.

Luis Urías, Milwaukee Brewers

Urías already made my list in 2020 and put up one of the worst results of any of last year’s breakout picks, hitting .238/.308/.294 in 41 games for the Brewers. Since I’m clearly not afraid of being aggressively wrong about a young player over and over again — I had Nomar Mazara on my list for three consecutive seasons — I don’t mind sticking up for him one more time.

As lackluster as Urías’ performance in the majors has been, we’re also talking about a middle infielder with a .397 on-base percentage in the minors, a number earned while regularly playing at a high level for his age. Given the short 2020 season — preparation for which was interrupted by a positive COVID-19 diagnosis — and his recovery from a broken wrist from winter ball, I’m willing to give him a mulligan for the season. The Brewers are also prioritizing getting him playing time at short, the position where has the most upside value.

This spring, the Brewers are going back to their original plan for Urias and put him at shortstop while Arcia, who accepted a pay cut to remain with the team over the winter, will get a look at third base.

“We need to see it,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said of Urias’ ability at shortstop. “We traded for him, and it’s something we want to do.”

Unlike with McMahon, ZiPS is mostly on board with this idea.