2024 Fantasy Baseball xwOBA Breakouts, Real or Mirage?

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  • By Anthony Kates

    Last Updated on July 3, 2025 9:42 pm by Anthony Kates | Published: January 27, 2025

    Determining which break outs are real and which are not, is a time honored tradition across all fantasy sports. How each individual analyst and fantasy manager determines the realness of a breakout will vary in a million different ways. I’ve decided to use xwOBA to determine whether or not the forthcoming players who broke out (in some form or another) in 2024 are real or just a mirage.

    Before we dive into that though, let’s talk about two stats: wOBA and xwOBA.

    wOBA or weighted on-base average, is, according to MLB.com: “a version of on-base percentage that accounts for how a player reached base — instead of simply considering whether a player reached base. The value for each method of reaching base is determined by how much that event is worth in relation to projected runs scored (example: a double is worth more than a single).” Before wOBA, fantasy players and analysts alike had used the traditional OBP (on-base percentage) and OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) to determine how well a player got on base and how well they produced overall when getting on base. wOBA does that while also “assigning value to each method of reaching base, in terms of its impact on scoring runs.”

    xwOBA (expected wOBA), then, expands on that, by “using exit velocity, launch angle and, on certain types of batted balls, Sprint Speed. In the same way that each batted ball is assigned an expected batting average, every batted ball is given a single, double, triple and home run probability based on the results of comparable batted balls since Statcast was implemented Major League wide in 2015.”

    So, why do I prefer to determine if breakout hitters are real or not using their gains in xwOBA? I use it because it is more indicative of a player’s skill than wOBA because it takes defense out of the equation. Once a batter hits the ball, whatever happens after that is out of their control, so a more accurate reading of a hitter’s ability comes from the aspects that they can control – namely launch angle, exit velocity and bat speed.

    So let’s take a look at the table below, where I have a group of seven players who saw a significant gain in xwOBA (19 points or more) from 2023 to 2024 and determine whether or not the gains are real or not.

    WordPress Data Table Plugin

    Joey Bart – C – Pittsburgh – 2024 stats: 282 PA, 38-13-45-0-.269, 121 wRC+

    I know, I know, we are talking about a few small sample sizes here. But Bart has never had more than 291 plate appearances (PA) in a season (that was 2022) and 2024 was far and away the best season of his career. In 2020, with no PA’s above Double-A, he had 111 PA in the big leagues and posted a .248 xwOBA, in 2022 with over 300 PA at Triple-A under his belt, he posted a .296 xwOBA in the big leagues and then we see his 2023.

    2024 stands out so much not just because he set career bests in nearly every single statistical category, but because he changed as a hitter. He made better swing decisions, like a career low 26% chase rate, the first time it has been under 30% in his big league career, a career high 75.7% contact rate and 86.1% in-zone contact rate, career low 10.5% swinging-strike rate and the second lowest swing rate of his career, 43.5%. Combine those with the second best set of statcast data in his career (88.1 MPH average exit velo (avgEV), 9.4% barrel rate and 38.7% hard-hit rate) and it is no wonder that he walked more, struck out less and reached base more often, while hitting for more power than ever before.

    He missed just over a month with a broken finger, but, from the time he returned to the lineup on June 30th until the end of the year, he had the eighth highest wRC+ (114) out of all catchers with 200 or more plate appearances (and he had the second lowest PA of all catchers in the top eight over that time frame; only Willson Contreras had less due to injury).

    I’m not saying he will be a top 10 catcher in 2025. He will spend plenty of time behind the plate for the Pirates, though he will share time with Endy Rodriguez, catcher of the future, taking a seat when Rodriguez is not playing first base. Projections are treating Bart rather harshly, projecting the same or less power even though they predict him to get at least 100 more plate appearances than he did in 2024. I predict he will be a serviceable number two catcher in two catcher leagues and will be able to start in one catcher leagues for stretches at a time.

    Real or Mirage? Real. Buying as a C2 in two catchers leagues and streaming him in one-catcher leagues if my starter gets hurt/falters.

     

    Jurickson Profar – OF – Free Agent – 2024 stats: 668 PA, 94-24-85-10-.280, 139 wRC+

    Who could have expected the career year out of the 31 year old who hadn’t hit more than 15 home runs in five years and who had been alternating good seasons with bad seasons for most of his career? That’s right, no one. But a career year Profar did have, setting career bests in nearly every single statistical category.

    How did he have a career year at 31? Elevated the ball more than he ever has (though it was only 0.7% higher than in 2023) and hit it harder, more often and more on the barrel than he ever has in his career. His 44.2% hard-hit rate is the highest of his career by 9.9%. His 7.2% barrel rate, while not amazing, is a full percentage point higher than his second highest and nearly three percentage points higher than his third highest barrel rate. His 91.1 MPH avgEV is 3.6 MPH faster than any other season’s avgEV in his career. And he did all that while continuing to make elite swing decisions – his contact rate has been between 81.1% and 84.4% from 2016 through 2024, he had the second lowest chase rate of his career (22.4%), the best whiff rate of his career (17%), the lowest swinging-strike rate of his career (7%) and had an insane 89.6% in-zone contact rate, all while swinging the bat only 45.3% of the time.

    There is some concern here, though, especially if you split the season into two halves, before July and after July (I feel it’s a little bit better if you split the season there, as the PA totals for both halves are much closer together). In the first half of 2024 (March 28th though June 30th), he posted an .884 OPS, .385 wOBA and a 153 wRC+ (in 347 PA). From July 1st through the end of the year, though, that dropped to a .790 OPS, .343 wOBA and 124 wRC+. He went from elite (tied for fifth in wRC+ among outfielders) to merely very good (21st in wRC+). What’s this mean? He’s probably a top 25 to 30 fantasy OF in 2025, with his ceiling capped by where ever he lands (smart money is on him returning to San Diego, where he has had his best seasons).

    Real or Mirage? Real…sort of. He won’t be the elite, top 20 offensive player that he was over the course of the first three plus months of the season, but I think he can be nearly the guy he was in the second half, when he was the 52nd best hitter by wRC+.

    Masyn Winn – SS – St. Louis – 2024 stats: 637 PA, 85-15-57-11-.267, 103 wRC+

    After his 2022 and 2023 seasons in the minor leagues, Winn’s 2024 rookie season was a bit of a let down. He failed to reach the same kind of steals totals as he did at any stop in the minor leagues (he has well above average speed, landing in the 87th percentile in the big leagues) and didn’t deliver as much on the power as we would have liked. Though he is more of a hit-over-power hitter, he failed to display the bat-to-ball skills he showed off in 2022 and 2023.

    Obviously, his first foray into the big leagues was both short and terrible, in 2023. He struggled to make quality contact (barrel rate of just 2%), didn’t hit the ball very hard (86 MPH avgEV, 35.6% hard-hit rate) and was either burying balls in the ground (46.9% ground ball rate) or hitting them straight up (20.5% infield fly-ball rate – IFFB%). He had an ugly 13.3% line-drive rate and was extremely passive for someone who saw so many pitches in the zone (57.4%) and as first-pitch strikes (59.1%), resulting in a called-strike rate of 21.5%. He’s lucky he has elite contact rates (81.7% in 2023) or else he would have posted a much worse strikeout rate (19%).

    2024 was different though. He walked less, but also struck out less (17.1% K-rate in 2024), he had much more batted-ball luck (.303 BABIP in 2024; .196 in 2023), drastically reduced his ground ball rate (40.6%) and IFFB% (11.2%), gaining 8.7% in line drive rate, taking him up to 22%. He still struggled to make quality contact (3.7% barrel rate) and actually hit the ball hard less in his rookie season (32.7%) even though he hit it harder (87 MPH avgEV) than he had before. He also swung the bat more, up from 42.8% in 2023 to 46.6% in 2024, making contact on 1.5% more balls, though he still has far too many called strikes (18.9%) because pitchers attack Wynn (62% first-pitch strike rate) and the zone (54% strike rate).

    He is a starting SS in 15 team leagues, but should be relegated to a middle infield spot or coming off the bench in shallower leagues. The ceiling is limited by the hit-tool and lack aggressiveness on the bases (some of this can be attributed to the Cardinals).

    Real or Mirage? Real, but I don’t think there is much room left in the ceiling. He has been reluctant to run in the big leagues (St. Louis ranked 23rd with only 120 stolen base attempts in 2024) and there is only a little room for power growth. For Winn to break out and enter that realm of the elite offensive shortstop, he needs to hone his bat-to-ball skills and get on base more often. 

    Kerry Carpenter – OF – Detroit – 2024 stats: 296 PA, 37-18-57-0-.284, 160 wRC+

    We were robbed of an elite Carpenter season, all thanks to some lumbar spine inflammation that caused him to miss about two-and-a-half months in the middle of his season.

    Before he was placed on the IL with the inflammation, from the beginning of the season until May 26th, among OF with 160 or more PA, Carpenter had the 6th highest wRC+ of 154. From August 13th, the day he came off the IL and returned to the lineup, until the end of the season, he had the 4th highest wRC+ among OF with 130 or more PAs of 167.

    And the numbers (and his productive history) support the power and the elite production. Though he only hit 20 home runs in 459 PAs in 2023, with a .194 ISO, Carpenter has a history, at all levels, of having an ISO (isolated power, which is slugging minus batting average) of .233 or higher (it’s only been lower his first year in Double-A, in two small Triple-A samples of 40 PAs or less and then in 2023 in the majors). He hit 30 home runs in 400 PAs between Double-A and Triple-A in 2022, then hit 6 in 113 in the big leagues to finish out the season.

    All of his statcast numbers were up, even if just slightly so. His avgEV was 90.4 MPH, up from 90.1 MPH in 2023; his barrel rate 16.9%, up from 10.2%; and his hard-hit rate 45.1%, up from 43.1%. He also hit more fly balls in 2024 than in 2023 (44.8% to 35.5%) while only seeing a 2.4% gain in home run to fly ball rate (HR/FB). He performed above average against nearly every pitch type, struggling only with the occasional cutter and knuckle curve, with a runs above average of 2.2 or higher against four different pitches. He also made big swing decision changes, chasing less (from 36% to 31.3%), swinging less (52.4% to 50.4%), but also making less contact (72.2%, down from 76.2%) and raising his swinging-strike rate (from 12.4% to 14%).

    He is projected to gain just four additional home runs in 2025, even though he is projected to have 200 more plate appearances than in 2024, and this is where I diverge from the projections. He has shown that he has plus power and can get to 30 or more home runs in a season and probably would have hit 30 plus home runs in 2024 if not for his spinal problems. I believe he will hit closer to 30 home runs this year, not the 22 he is projected. Which means…..

    Real or Mirage? Very real. All of the statcast data went in the right direction, he corrected his ground ball to fly ball rate (more fly balls than ground balls means more home runs), maintained his walk and strikeout rates even though he lost a little bit of contact and had elite expected numbers. If he is able to stay healthy and does indeed have 500 or more PA in 2025, I expect Carpenter to be one of the 10 or 12 best fantasy OF.

    Trevor Larnach – OF – Minnesota – 2024 stats: 59-12-52-4-.259, 121 wRC+

    2024 was Larnach’s fourth in the major leagues, though he spent 301 or less plate appearances in the majors in his previous three seasons. The Twins outfield has been a bit clogged in the past, but mainstay Max Kepler left for Philadelphia this off-season, Alex Kirilloff retired and Manuel Margot had his optioned turned down, opening up an opportunity for Larnach (and Matt Wallner) to man one of the corner outfield positions.

    Why am I excited for Larnach to take a swing at being a full time player, just take a look:

    In everything but Whiff rate and strikeout rate, Larnach is in the 69th percentile or better. Even though his barrel rate and hard-hit rate both dropped from 2023 to 2024, it was still his third season in a row with a barrel rate of 10% or higher and a hard-hit rate of 43.8% or higher and his 92 MPH avgEV was a career high, though it has been 90-90.1 MPH every season he’s been in the big leagues.

    Like many players, he struggles to elevate the ball, with just a 37.3% fly-ball rate, but it was 47.8% and 39% the previous two seasons, so a better rate is achievable.

    More importantly, Larnach made better swing decisions. Though he did chase more outside pitches (26.4%, up from 23.1% in 2023), he made far more contact with said pitches (44.7%, up 9.6% from 2023), while swinging at more pitches overall (44.1% swing rate) and raising his contact rate to 74.1% and his zone contact to 86.7%, both career highs. He also posted a career low swinging-strike rate of 11.5%, while seeing more pitches in the zone than ever before.

    He demonstrated his above-average power in the past, hitting 23 home runs in 535 plate appearances across Triple-A and MLB in 2023, with an ISO of .175 or higher for three consecutive seasons. Though the early projection systems are limiting him to just around 511 or so PA, I have a feeling he can and will get closer to 600 and will hit 23 to 25 home runs, with decent counting stats and a could-be-worse batting average.

    Real or Mirage? Real. He’s not an elite player, but will be an above-average offensive performer with 25 to 30 home run upside whose runs and RBI production will only be limited by the healthy of the elite players around him in the lineup. A wRC+ in the 115 to 125 range would land him in the top 30 to 40 fantasy outfielders, which is a heck of a return on the currently being drafted as the 80th OF.

    Ivan Herrera – C – St. Louis – 2024 stats: 259 PA, 37-5-27-5-.301, 127 wRC+

    Herrera received cups of tea at the big league level in 2022 and 2023, but spent nearly half of the 2024 season on the field for the Cardinals, though it was at the expense of Willson Contreras (he the victim of a broken forearm after getting hit by a swing and a fractured middle finger when he was hit by a pitch).

    There is good news for 2025 in those injuries though: Contreras will be moved to 1B full time and Herrera will get to spend the season behind the plate (and split time with Pedro Pages). He has an above average hit-tool, above-average power and a very good eye at the plate, with enough upside that he could be a top eight to ten fantasy producer at the position.

    Herrera has above average strikeout and walk rates, his xwOBA would have been in the 90th percentile if he qualified for leaderboards in 2024 and his xBA in the 96th percentile. Though his statcast numbers are not elite, they are still above average, with an 89.3 MPH avgEV, 8.9% barrel rate and 41.9% hard-hit rate. Though he has struggled with elevating the ball in the major leagues, he does have a 25.6% career line-drive rate and showed improvement in his ground ball to fly ball rate, dropping it to a 1.45, though, like many young hitters, elevating the ball has been a problem for most of his young career.

    Something that is not a problem and what makes me optimistic is that he can have a true breakout year and finish as a C1 instead of a C2 – his swing decisions. Though he did chase 25.9% of the time (tied for 7th lowest among catchers with 250 or more PA) and had a 24.8% whiff rate, he had a 78.6% contact rate, 86.5% zone contact rate and just a 9.4% swinging strike rate. He succeeded while pitchers absolutely attacked him at the plate, throwing first-pitch strikes 64.1% of the time and throwing strikes 52.3% of the time.

    Real or Mirage? Very real. In a very limited part-time role in 2024 he produced 2.1 WAR, 15th best at the position, and everyone ahead of him had at least 80 or more plate appearances than he had. He’s a worthwhile C2 with the upside to be a top 10 catcher (and we didn’t even mention that he might chip in 10 steals while doing everything else).

    JJ Bleday – OF – Athletics – 2024 Stats: 74-20-60-2-.243, 120 wRC+

    The final member of my list, Bleday had sort of flown below my fantasy radar for much of 2024, until, at the end of the season, I was looking at extra base hits leaders, for some reason, and noticed a name on the doubles leader board that threw me for a loop: #6, 43 2B, Bleday, JJ.

    So I made sure I looked into him this off-season and, needless to say, I liked what I saw. A double-digit walk rate (10.4%), decent strikeout rate (19.5%), incredible fly-ball rate (47.8%) and really solid swing decisions (27.2% chase rate is a bit high, but he does make contact on over 50% of pitches outside the zone for his career and he raised his contact rate to 76.4% in 2024, while his swinging strike rate was only 10.6%).

    My only hesitation? The not so great statcast data. Though he did hit 43 doubles and 20 home runs in 2024, the uninspiring statcast data (and the power he demonstrated in the minor leagues) makes me think there is another level he can take his production to, if he continues to make incremental improvements in his hard-hit rate (has raised two years in a row, but only from 33.8% to 36.2%), can maintain or raise his barrel rate (8.3%) while getting to a bit more of the power he has demonstrated in the past (only an 88.5 MPH avgEV in 2024, but his maxEV of 113.3 MPH was a big league career high).

    He will get to call a minor league stadium home for potentially the next three seasons, though the park’s dimensions are nearly the same as the A’s Coliseum, without the deep foul territory though, so that should mean more balls landing in foul territory instead of the opponents gloves.

    Real or Mirage? Real, with the potential to be even better. If he can tap into more of his power and elevate the ball more, he could be a top 30 to 35 fantasy outfielder. I expect the A’s lineup to be better than it was in 2024 as well, so his counting stats will get a boost, bump the home runs up to 25 or so and I see a path to Taylor Ward or Riley Greene 2024 season for Bleday and you can grab him around pick 272, the 66th outfielder being drafted, as we speak.

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    January 27, 2025, 10:00 am