Opinion: MLB breakout players candidates

Jurickson Profar had a career-high .839 OPS last season at age 31, a dozen years after he made his Major League debut as a 19-year-old with the Texas Rangers.

Most don’t take as long as Profar did to have a big season, but each year, we see a handful of players with high prospect pedigree who finally take the leap into stardom at the game’s highest level.

Last year, Profar was the prime example of that. Here are my picks, with two position players and two pitchers, for who will experience a breakout this season.

Kerry Carpenter, Detroit Tigers

The first entry on my list is the left-handed slugger Kerry Carpenter. Carpenter has been phenomenal in his brief Major League career to this point, but injuries have played a major role in hampering his development.

His high-water mark for games played in his three partial seasons in MLB is 118 in 2023.

Carpenter has plenty of power, evidenced by his career pace of 30 home runs per 162 games, but his underlying stats suggest there is more that’s yet to be unlocked.

Specifically, he produces the optimal result for a lefty home run hitter at a prodigious rate: Carpenter hits the ball in the air on the barrel of the bat to the pull side just over 40% of the time.

Should Carpenter maintain his health for the entirety of 2025, he should be able to easily uncork over 40 home runs.

Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs

Five years after being drafted in the first round by the New York Mets, “PCA” will finally have his shot at a full season’s worth of playing time as the everyday center fielder for the Cubs.

While he did find his way into 123 games in 2024 and accumulated 2.3 f-WAR, he often took the field as a defensive replacement, or was removed in favor of a pinch-hitter.

This is because despite racking up 14 Outs Above Average in the outfield and registering a sprint speed in the 99th percentile, PCA couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag.

As late as July 2nd last season, he posted an OPS at an abysmal mark of .502. However, during the game after, he made the decision to move back slightly in the batter’s box, and caught fire thereafter, finishing the year with a somewhat palatable OPS of .670.

As a true threat to be one of baseball’s few five-tool-hitters, PCA could vault himself up alongside players like Bobby Witt Jr. as one of the more valuable players in the league with a big season at the plate.

Hunter Brown, Houston Astros

Hunter Brown is an intriguing case of a player who has all of the abilities in the world, but just has not seemed to put it all together just yet. I believe that 2025 will be the season which Brown truly breaks out.

In 2024, Brown was without a doubt a good pitcher near the front of the rotation for the postseason-bound Astros. He registered an ERA of 3.49 just one year after he sat at 5.09 in that category. Even with the improvement, Brown’s high velocity fastball and strikeout potential give him an even higher ceiling than most.

Brown’s curveball produces far more depth than the average MLB hook. Comparatively, all of Brown’s other offerings have nearly identical shapes to the league averages.

With that in mind, it makes no sense that Brown only throws his curveball 12% of the time. If he bumps the usage of that pitch up, and looks to contain himself to a fastball/curveball combination, his breakout is imminent.

Edward Cabrera, Miami Marlins

Last but not least on this list is the young, electric right hander Edward Cabrera. Cabrera, who is perhaps most known for his 94 MLB The Show card back in 2021, has long been able to induce break on all of his pitches. His best offering is his changeup, which he throws very hard and about a third of the time.

He pairs this with a four-seam fastball, a sinker, a curveball and a slider. His main issue has always been his inability to command any of his pitches with consistency. He has walked an average of 5.1 batters per nine innings in his career.

My prognosis is that Cabrera throws too many pitches. His changeup has always been his break and butter, so if he is able to refine his pitch mix to, say, three pitches, he should be able to dial in his control a little bit more.

Although Cabrera has been far from bad in his career, his walks have always made him a bit of a hazard. Here’s to hoping he can reel those walks back in for the Fish’ in 2025.

Dominick Pizzelanti is a second-year student dual-majoring in broadcast journalism and Spanish. To contact him, email dqp5565@psu.edu.