Every year, you have your hot starts that end up fizzling out. Last year, Matt Chapman, Jarred Kelenic and LaMonte Wade Jr. were all top-10 hitters in April. They didn’t end up there when the season was said and done.
But Yandy Díaz and Brandon Marsh were also in that grouping, and both had their versions of breakout seasons. A big part of why they improved is that they showed better Barrel rates. They were hitting the ball hard at the right angles and producing Barrels, which are more predictive of future power than most other available statistics. The fun thing is, we start to get signal within 50 balls in play, and most players with more than 80 plate appearances have managed 50 balls in play — just a few extreme three-true-outcomes guys have not quite made that benchmark yet.
These hitters have added the most Barrels on their balls in play so far.
This is the science of the matter, but there’s art to it too. There’s signal in these numbers, but noise as well. You’ll expect some of these batters to regress to career norms. But maybe if we highlight five of these bats in particular we can find some breakouts that are happening in front of our eyes. (There are also some breakouts on here, like Elly De La Cruz, that seem too obvious to delve into. He’s good. Let’s dig deeper.)
Though he wouldn’t cop to having changed any of his training methods or mechanics to chase batted-ball quality, Cronenworth did admit earlier this month that he was aware that he’s hit a ball harder this year than he had since 2021. That probably means he’s noticed that his quality of contact is up across the board, as his hard-hit and Barrel numbers have followed suit. He looks like he’s on pace for the best power year of his career, and he’s done so without any impact on his strikeout rate.
Over at FanGraphs, Michael Baumann pointed out that Cronenworth’s hands are higher this year and his plate discipline a little better, but that his ability to spray the ball all over the field was to his detriment. The slugging percentage on pulled fly balls was 1.471 last year. It was .543 to center and .329 to the opposite field. Here’s how Cronenworth has been distributing his balls in play this year.
If more of those blue hits were to the pull side, they might be homers. Cronenworth could also trade a few strikeouts for pull power if he wanted to; his line could afford it. But this version of the Crone Zone is likely to hit .260 with a good on-base percentage and 20 homers — vintage work for him.
Riley Greene hits a two-run homer against the Rays on April 23. (Jonathan Dyer / USA Today)
We’re focusing on batted ball quality here, but this is truly a breakout in all regards for the 23-year-old outfielder in Detroit. Consider that, so far this season, he has:
• Reduced his whiff rate by a larger margin than all but 16 players in the bigs
• Reduced his strikeout rate by 2.4 percentage points
• Reduced his chase rate by a larger margin than all but 18 players in the bigs
• Increased his walk rate threefold (the biggest improvement in the bigs)
• Reduced his ground-ball rate
• Increased his fly-ball rate by a larger margin than all but five players in the bigs
• Improved his range defensively
Often across-the-board improvement like this is due to a player settling into his approach, and that seems like the case here.
“It’s been a lot of nibbling to get me to chase,” he recently told the Detroit Free Press. “The more that I don’t chase, the more they’ll come back in the zone and hopefully try to challenge me.”
Players generally see more pitches, chase less and lift the ball better as they age, but this is a more aggressive version of that natural improvement. This is a player coming into his own. He may not be stealing bags like he did last season, but Greene seems likely to be able to hit .250-plus with 25 homers this year, with the type of defense and base running that could make him an All-Star.
At first glance, it may look like the lefty-hitting García is putting up the same low-power, high-contact performance he showed throughout the first 1,000 plate appearances of his career. That approach has left him below league average so far, and he only has one homer this year. That seems like more of the same.
Not quite. Of the 66 balls he’s hit into play so far this season, 32 have been over 95 mph. Using his previous percentages, that’s 10 more than you’d expect so far. He’s also on the list of Barrel improvers above, showing us that not all his hard contact is on the ground despite his propensity for the ground ball. Is that enough to call it a breakout? Especially since he’s pulling the ball less than ever? Maybe. Take a look at his spray charts from last year to this year.
One thing that looks different here is that García’s hardest-hit balls are to the pull and opposite field power alleys — last year they were down the line and to center. There’s a hint of change there. If this is real, we may see the Nationals infielder hit for his customary good average, but also add 15 homers and 15 steals, making him both a better option going forward for the Nationals as well as fantasy-relevant in deeper leagues.
De La Cruz has his flaws. His poor defense has made him a corner outfielder and put more pressure on his bat, which has just been league-average so far. Even with his increased Barrel rate this season, he’s still just 2 percent above league-average overall because of his iffy plate discipline and only league-average contact rates. This year, he’s whiffing more, striking out more, and pulling the ball for more power. There’s always a trade-off, and it’s worth wondering if that’s the trade he should be making.
In short, yes. His contact and chase rates aren’t good enough for him to fit for a spray-the-ball-and-get-on-base strategy. If he’s a corner outfielder with an iffy glove (he’s been 112th out of 123 qualified outfielders in Statcast’s Outs Above Average defensive metric), power will be what’s expected of him. What’s encouraging for De La Cruz is not so much the spray angle side to side, but the angles at which he’s hitting the ball. On the left is 2023, on the right is 2024 and pictured is the launch angle and exit velocity of his batted balls.
As you can see, De La Cruz is hitting very few balls above that 45-degree line (where it’s mostly all popups) and also fewer balls under that zero-degree line (where it’s all ground balls). He’s focusing his batted balls more in the productive angles and velocities — and this is something that has been shown in the past to be predictive of power in the future. His home park will reduce some of his power potential, but De La Cruz seems headed to a 25-homer season that should help cement his playing time going forward.
Rosario, as he headed into the free-agency portion of his career, decided this offseason to go to work on his swing. He used weighted bats to improve his bat speed and also attacked his mechanics.
It might be better if Rosario was pulling more, but having a Barrel rate that’s almost twice his career rate (and a hard-hit rate that would be his career best) is good news no matter what. He won’t hit .320 all year, but if he has more like the 10-to-15 home run power that he did in his better years at the plate, the Rays will be happy with their short-term signing. Rosario doesn’t have quite the glove that Manny Margot had, but his bat looks like it will be superior and he’s playing much more often than the player he replaced. He seems likely to finish the season with close to 600 plate appearances, 10 homers, and 15 stolen bases while providing above-average offense in the corner outfield.
All that for $1.5 million!
(Top photo of Jake Cronenworth hitting a single against the Blue Jays on April 21: Denis Poroy / Getty Images)
