Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Breakout hitters for 2025 using exit velocity

It’s time to take a break from writing about pitchers to check and see which hitters might be undervalued or in for breakout seasons based on last year’s quality of contact. While we sometimes use barrel rates to put together a list like that, today we’re going to use a Statcast stat called EV50.

For a batter, “EV50 is an average of the hardest 50% of his batted balls.” That means instead of looking at just their max exit velocity or their barrel rates, we want to see how hard they CONSISTENTLY hit the ball, regardless of launch angle. EV50 tells that half of a hitter’s outcomes will be at this exit velocity, which allows us to see not only who has power but who has power that will play because they can get to it regularly.

For the leaderboard below, even though I sorted by EV50, I also included average exit velocity for a comparison’s sake and exit velocity on fly balls and line drives because we do want to see who makes the most out of their hard contact when it’s in the air. I also wanted to show the percentage of batted balls each player has over 95 mph and their rate of barrels per plate appearance so we get a fuller picture of just how good their quality of contact is. After deleting anybody who was under the MLB average in any of those categories, we got the following list.

So let’s dive in.

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All ADP is from NFBC Online Championship (12-team) drafts from February 14th to March 3rd (30 drafts)

2024 Exit Velocity Leaders

The top 15 is filled with hitters that you know hit the ball consistently hard, so I’m not going to talk about most of these guys. However, I did want to highlight a few below that I think could still be values based on where they’re being drafted.

Jerar Encarnación – OF, Giants (NFBC 12-team ADP: 480)

Encarnación is such an interesting story. His prodigious power made him an intriguing prospect for the Marlins, but he struggled to a .182/.210/.338 slash line in his 23-game MLB debut in 2022 and then continued to struggle in the minors in 2023 before the Marlins cut him. He had to play in the Mexican Independent League in 2024, but he hit .366 with 19 home runs in 26 games, so the Giants took a gamble and signed him to a minor league contract. In 33 games in Triple-A for the Giants, Encarnación hit .352/.438/.616 with 10 home runs and 33 RBI, so the Giants gave him 35 games at the big league level to end the season.

With all of that, Encarnación is just 27 years old. That EV50 number put him up around some of the premiere sluggers in baseball, and his 24% strikeout rate at Triple-A suggests that he could keep his MLB strikeout rate below 30%. Almost all of his contact is loud, as his percentage of baseballs hit over 95 mph is third behind only Aaron Judge and Shoehi Ohtani. Now, we know we’re dealing with a small sample size here, but the point is that Encarnación has tons of power and is getting a chance to be the starting designated hitter in San Francisco. He has no minor league options left, so he can’t be demoted, and he’s gone 8-for-18 so far this spring with one home run and 10 RBI. He’s the perfect flyer to take at the end of drafts because if he makes enough contact, he’s going to be a major asset for you, and if he doesn’t, he’s losing his spot in the starting lineup, and you can cut him without stress after a few weeks.

James Wood – OF, Nationals (NFBC 12-team ADP: 54)

James Wood had a solid MLB debut and is going inside the first 55 picks, so he’s certainly nowhere close to a sleeper. However, he had nine home runs in his 79 MB games and just 19 home runs in total last year, so I wanted to highlight him here because his quality of contact last year was really good. The 29% strikeout rate is something we’re going to want to monitor, especially because his strikeout rate was over 33% in Double-A in 2023, which is a bit of a worry. However, when it comes to authoritative contact, he’s up there with some of the best, and he also has 20 stolen base upside since the Nationals are going to play him every day. I’m more than fine with drafting Wood at this cost.

Matt Wallner – OF, Twins (NFBC 12-team ADP: 275)

Matt Wallner is another player you don’t need to be told hits the ball hard, but it’s nice to see it in the context of some of these elite power producers. His EV50 numbers are impressive, he carries strong exit velocities even on fly balls, and his percentage of baseballs hit 95 mph and over is essentially the same as Vladimir Guerrero Jr and Oneil Cruz, who are two players we view as making some of the loudest contact in baseball.

What’s also interesting about Wallner is that he’s been leading off this spring. We know that the Twins are going to bench him against left-handed pitchers, but if Wallner leads off against righties, which they have said they are hoping he can do, then he should get an extra at-bat in most games, and that could bring his plate appearance total up to comfortably over 500. We also can’t forget the massive contact gains he made in 2024 after his demotion, hitting .272/.376/.538 in 55 games in the second half of the season. While I don’t believe he can sustain that for a full season, we could see him hit at least .240 with that elite power as the lead-off hitter for the Twins. That will make him a valuable pick at this price.

Jesús Sánchez – OF, Marlins (NFBC 12-team ADP: 254)

I have always had a soft spot for Jesús Sánchez. It seems like every time I do a leaderboard that measures quality of contact, he is all over it. Last year, when I started breaking down the Statcast bat speed data and looked at the hitters with the fastest and shortest swings, Sánchez was on there (so was Eloy Jimenez, actually). Sánchez has posted a 12.2% barrel rat in each of his last two seasons and was more aggressive last year, which led to a slight decrease in contact rate but a bump in power production.

The issues for Sánchez have been his groundball rate and his platoon splits. Last year, his groundball rate was over 50%, and increased as the season went on. That’s not really what you want to see from a hitter who makes this kind of authoritative contact. You also don’t want to see a .162/.228/.257 slash line against lefites. However, we should note that the Marlins started to play him against lefties more at the end of last season but just moved him farther down in the batting order. That likely won’t continue if he keeps hitting .170 against them, but I think he’ll get the chance to prove his worth at the start of the 2025 season, and given his power and 15+ stolen base upside, he’s worth a gamble in drafts. However, he might not fully break out until he goes to another organization that can fix his groundball approach to maximize his power upside.

Matt Chapman – 3B, Giants (NFBC 12-team ADP: 132)

Matt Chapman is a boring veteran who is being drafted too late. I know we remember his poor 2021 and 2022 seasons, but Chapman has always posted elite barrel rates, which give him strong power production, even in San Francisco. In fact, he hasn’t posted a barrel rate under 11% since 2018 and hasn’t gone below 12.6% since 2019. That elite quality of contact caused him to go through a stretch where he started to sell out for pull-side power, raising his pull rate to almost 48%. Those were some of his worst stretches of overall production.

Last year, Chapman became less pull-happy and less passive at the plate, dropping his pull rate to 39% and swinging almost 2% more but often swinging at more pitches on the fringes of the strike zone. That led to a 6% increase in zone contact and a 7% increase in contact rate overall and got his batting average up near .250. That may have been an adaptation to playing games in San Francisco, which is one of the tougher parks for right-handed power; however, Chapman still had 27 home runs because he has the raw power to drive the ball out of any ballpark, even if he’s not trying to on every swing. Pair all of that with a career-high 15 steals, and even if that number falls back near 10, you’re looking at a consistent power producer with an improving batting average and chip-in steals. I think he’s a real value in drafts.

A few of these guys are some of my favorite later-round gambles in drafts. I’ve already written about Trevor Larnach as my pick for our Rotoworld staff hitting sleeper, I discussed Eloy Jimenez as a late-round hitter to take a flyer on, and I covered Lars Nootbaar here. I did pick Michael Toglia as my hitter bust for our Rotoworld staff picks, but that has more to do with his draft cost. I think he’s going to be a .220 hitter with a 33% strikeout rate, so I have a hard time drafting him around pick 180 in 12-team drafts. I do think both Paul Goldschmidt and Jorge Soler are being underdrafted because of their age, and I mentioned Goldschmidt as one of my favorite first base targets in one of my daily videos on NBC Sports.

Michael Harris II – OF, Braves (NFBC 12-team ADP: 40)

I just wanted to highlight Michael Harris II briefly because I know people think of him as more of a speed and defense guy, but he can swing the bat. Injuries really impacted his production last year, but I’m expecting big things this season.

Jo Adell – OF, Angels (NFBC 12-team ADP: 295)

Adell finds himself in an interesting situation. On one hand, the Angels likely aren’t going to be good, and the numbers above show that he has the power to make a meaningful impact at the big league level. On the other hand, he continues to strike out a ton and will have to play center field more this year since the Angels are moving Mike Trout to right field. Adell played just 34 innings in center field last year and is an inferior defender to Mickey Moniak, so Adell is going to need to hit to stay in the lineup while Trout is healthy.

Another thing to notice from the numbers above is that Adell is the only player with an average exit velocity under 90 mph. That’s in part because he has the second-lowest rate of batted balls over 95 mph, which means that his top-end exit velocities are consistently good, but he makes far more weak contact than anybody else on this list. That could be due to his 30% chase rate and huge jump in contact rate outside of the strike zone, which led to a lot of what Fangraphs classified as “medium” contact. Adell did meaningfully cut his swinging strike rate down and struck out under 28% of the time, but his approach still needs a lot of work, and he has yet to really show he can consistently hit MLB pitching, so I’m not getting many shares this year.

Tyler Soderstrom – 1B, Athletics (NFBC 12-team ADP: 277)

Much like Adell, Soderstrom is a young hitter with tremendous raw power, who struggles to make consistent enough contact at the big league level. So far. Unlike Adell, Soderstrom has been able to find the barrel more consistently and makes elite contact more often than Adell does. Soderstrom also chases out of the strike zone less and makes more contact in the zone, so even though their swinging strike rates are basically the same, Soderstrom’s contact profile is better.

The other areas for concern with Soderstrom are that he had a 49% groundball rate last year, which is not something you want from a power hitter, and he pulled the ball just 33% of the time. He could change his approach now that the Athletics will be playing their games in a minor league park instead of the spacious Oakland Coliseum, but we need to see it before we can believe it. As it stands now, Soderstrom has tremendous raw power and will get regular playing time, but he hits the ball on the ground too much and has the contact profile of a .230 hitter. All of that should cap his potential upside, but he’s going late round in drafts that it’s worth a flyer.

Adolis García- OF, Rangers (NFBC 12-team ADP: 147)

Ryan McMahon – 3B, Rockies (NFBC 12-team ADP: 306)

I wanted to end with García and McMahon because they are two names that stood out to me on this list as established veterans who are being undervalued after poor seasons.

García is going much earlier in drafts, and that’s understandable given his past performance. Even in his “bad” year last year, he hit 25 home runs and stole 11 bases. However, we know that he was battling a knee injury all of last season after ending the 2023 season dealing with injuries. He spent all off-season rehabing a sprained patella tendon, and reports from spring training are that he’s clearly healthy and running back at full speed. We also pair that with a new swing that is making García quieter in his movement and more direct to the ball. He’s also allegedly not trying to lift everything and accepting that he has the power to drive the ball out of the park even when he’s not trying to. Given that García made this EV50 list in his down year, a shorter swing should help his overall contact and push him back towards 30 home runs. If his healthy knee also allows him to steal more than 15-20 bases again, you’re looking at a major bargain where he’s going in drafts.

For years, Ryan McMahon has been one of the most consistent players in fantasy baseball. Every year since 2021, he has hit between .240 and .254 with between 20 and 23 home runs, between 4 and 7 steals, and between 67 and 80 runs scored. We should just be penciling him for the same thing in 2025, and that would make him a value going outside of the top 300 picks; however, we are using McMahon’s odd 2024 season to impact our approach. Had he not hit .272/.350/.447 with 14 home runs in the first 95 games and been the subject of plenty of trade rumors, then he wouldn’t be going this late in drafts. Because we all know what happened. The Rockies held onto him, and he proceeded to hit .188/.283/.309 with six home runs and a 29.5% strikeout rate in 58 games in the second half. Those second half numbers and the failed trade are what stand out to us instead of acknowledging the fact that McMahon remains the same hitter he has been for years.