10 breakout players to target in fantasy baseball drafts
Breakout players transform every fantasy baseball season. It can be a highly rated prospect exceeding expectations or a veteran producing at career-best level due to an offseason tweak.
Fantasy players are all looking to nail the breakout picks for a given season. We all want to land on the 2025 equivalent of Jurickson Profar’s 2024 at the plate or Garrett Crochet’s improbable All-Star campaign.
Here are 10 high-ceiling breakout candidates (ADP courtesy of Fantasy Pros) who could alter the course of your fantasy baseball season:
Junior Caminero
The 105 OPS+ in 43 games in the second half of last season was just a taster of what Junior Caminero can be in the big leagues. With high bat speed and massive exit velocities, Caminero could be an All-Star this year and has the potential to be a 130 wRC+ hitter at the heart of the Tampa Bay Rays’ lineup.
A fun outsider bet to win AL MVP, Caminero is the upside play if you’re looking to take a chance at third base in your fantasy baseball drafts.
His average draft position is currently just behind Jordan Westburg. There’s no question Caminero – who was briefly baseball’s top prospect last season – has the higher upside of the two. ZiPS projects the Rays young star to have a 113 wRC+, which could end up looking very conservative.
James Wood
It’s not hard to envisage the post-breakout version of James Wood. Standing 6’7 with a 52% hard-hit rate, 85th percentile sprint speed, and 11.6% walk rate, Wood has all the tools to be a walk-heavy version of Elly de la Cruz. That’s an MVP-caliber hitter.
Wood had nine homers and 14 stolen bases in 336 plate appearances last season. His swing-and-miss and a lack of MLB track record is all that’s keeping him down in 67th in average draft position.
With the ability to work counts, we would certainly take Wood over Oneil Cruz, who is three places above him. Wood gives you a bit of everything from a fantasy perspective, and could easily be a 30-30 guy in 2025.
Parker Meadows
Does Parker Meadows really deserve to be in the same draft range as the oft-injured Carlos Correa and playing time-threatened Cedric Mullins? Meadows had nine homers and nine stolen bags in fewer than 300 plate appearances.
He then lit up the playoffs. His career walk rate is an impressive 9.5%, giving us a high floor to work with, and his speed is elite. The glove is one of the big leagues, which helps to guarantee playing time in center field.
A career 8.1% barrel rate isn’t going to make Meadows into a 140 wRC+ slugger, but it’s enough to put him in the 20-20 ballpark.
Erik Miller
The San Francisco Giants are leaning on Erik Miller as their top lefty reliever. Taylor Rogers was traded to the Cincinnati Reds, opening the door for Miller as a late-inning guy.
Possessing a high-nineties fastball and high whiff rates on his slider and changeup, Miller is going to get plenty of hold opportunities. After pitching 67.1 innings last season, and often being used as an opener, Bob Melvin will go to Miller often if he builds on his 51.9% groundball rate and 3.14 xERA from 2024.
Miller is a sneaky candidate to get saves if the matchup is in his favor, particularly if Camilo Doval fails to bounce-back after losing the closer’s job to Ryan Walker.
Nick Lodolo
A first-round pick in 2019, Nick Lodolo is yet to convert his unquestioned potential into major-league production. Lodolo has never pitched a fully healthy season in the big leagues and has a career 4.52 ERA.
The stuff is there for Lodolo to contend for a Cy Young, however. All four of his pitches – four seamer, sinker, curve, change – have wicked movement. He doesn’t have command issues (career 7.8% walk rate).
Previously ranked the 36th-best prospect in baseball by Baseball America, a fully healthy Lodolo in 2025 could become an ace out of nowhere and follow Hunter Greene’s path to a first All-Star nod.
He’s certainly worth a late flyer with an ADP in the 240s.
Michael Toglia
Michael Toglia posted some eye-catching numbers at the plate in college. The Colorado Rockies selected the switch-hitting first baseman in the first round in 2019 as a result. He topped out as a quad-A player until 2024 when he posted a 103 OPS+ with 54 walks in 116 games.
The strikeout rate (32.1%) is higher than we’d like for a breakout candidate. All it takes is that to drop a bit and Toglia could put up big counting stats with half his games in the friendly confines of Coors Field.
He was 90th percentile in xwOBA, 92nd percentile in walk rate, 98th percentile in barrel rate, and finished the year with 25-10.
The Rockies aren’t going to be winning many games, but Toglia is poised for a big year.
Jesús Sánchez
Former top-40 prospect Jesús Sánchez hasn’t managed to put it all together in the big leagues. He’s amassed four bWAR across over 1400 plate appearances. His career 98 OPS+ is nothing to get excited about.
The raw power remains, exhibited in his 95th percentile hard-hit rate in 2024. His bat speed slotted in at the 90th percentile. Added aggression on the bases helped his fantasy value with 16 stolen bags last season.
The center field experiment in spring training might protect Sánchez further against being benched if he can prove to be reliable. A career-high hard-hit rate gives us something to believe in for 2025, especially for a player with an ADP of 350.
Shane Baz
Shane Baz had a wipeout slider as a prospect and in his early MLB starts. On his return from injury last season, he had lost his confidence in the pitch and it was crushed.
The Rays are masters at pitching development, so we are taking Baz’s showing in the second half of 2024 with a grain of salt. Baz struck out 10.7 hitters per nine innings in the minors – he’s rarely given up hard contact and has kept walks to a reasonable level in the big leagues.
If he can get back to having a deep arsenal and get his strikeout rate above 28%, there’s All-Star upside here. We would take him over Jose Berrios and Robbie Ray at similar ADPs.
Spencer Horwitz
A .790 OPS in 2024 earned Spencer Horwitz a trade to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Horwitz was on pace for around 20 homers.
The control of the strike zone is what makes Horwitz such an impressive hitter. He’s well above league average in chase rate, whiffs, walks, and strikeouts. Rarely giving up easy outs, he can work counts in his favor and has enough power to do damage when he gets the pitch he wants.
Eligibility at first and second adds to Horwitz’s value in all leagues. Locked in as an every day player in the Steel City, we would take Horwitz over the hitters around him, which includes Mauricio Dubon, Jose Siri, and Edmundo Sosa.
It might not be the most dramatic of breakouts as his 2024 was more than solid, but Horwitz could easily be an .850 OPS hitter with 20+ homers.
Ryan Pepiot
Michael Kopech was the only pitcher with a higher whiff rate than Ryan Pepiot on his four-seamer last season. Exclusively starting, Pepiot set a career high with 130 regular season innings, putting him in position to pitch 150+ innings in 2025.
The volume should be there for Pepiot to be an asset in traditional leagues. His 29.9% whiff rate and 26.3% strikeout rate show his per inning stats should be stellar, too.
An average draft position of 196 is underrating Pepiot’s credentials for the 2025 season.
The 121 innings projected by ZiPS is far lower than we would expect. He’s also far more than a fastball-throwing machine, given that his changeup has often been regarded as his best pitch, and it conceded only a .274 xwOBA last season.
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