Leaderboard of the Week: ADP Overachievers

For today's table, I compared the preseason ADP (average draft position) to our current rankings to find which players outperformed their preseason expectations (underperformers coming next week). For players without an ADP value, I gave them a value of 550. To help with the comparison, I converted ADP and (nearly) final rank to dollar values using the 12-team formula I created here. I like to use dollar values because the drop in production from the 20th to the 30th pick is larger than the difference between the 300th and 310th player. Using this formula helps to show that difference. 

Here are my thoughts on groups of guys who can be targeted as future breakouts..

Found Health (Hitters): Trevor Story, Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco, Zach Neto

All four of these guys were drafted after pick 200 and didn't play much in 2024:

In three cases (not Neto), multiple seasons of injuries held them back before they eventually got healthy and lived up to their potential. Neto came back healthy from November shoulder surgery. 

This group and the "hurt" pitchers are probably the two most actionable groups here. Besides their actual projected plate appearances, these injury-prone players might be reason to include a per-600 PA and per-160 IP projection to find breakouts based entirely on health.

Found Health (Pitchers): Nathan Eovaldi, Matthew Boyd

All pitchers get hurt, then get healthy and then hurt again. It's a constant cycle. Embrace it. These two mid-30-year-olds were also post-200 ADP afterthoughts.

I wonder if age was a factor with this pair. Managers had multiple chances to be burnt by them in recent seasons and weren't willing to go back.

Talent Upgrade: Geraldo Perdomo, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Jo Adell, Sal Frelick, Trent Grisham

These are the breakouts no one really saw coming. I dug through them and found some three common traits: peak age, improved power, and improved Contact%.

First, the five were still in the right part of the aging curve, which sees an average hitter's stats start to decline at age 27. None were older than 28. 

Note: in the Found Playing Time category, Andy Pages (24) and Hunter Goodman (25) fit in the same time range.  

Second, their average exit velocity jumped. I did a cursory look at their Spring Training power numbers, but nothing obvious. 

Now, looking at their spring training stats, all saw a jump in their contact rate from the previous spring training: 

With this sample size of seven, this contact rate jump seems to be a big deal. I think I've found a topic for a future leaderboard to investigate. 

Found Playing Time: Hunter Goodman, Andy Pages, Trent Grisham, Kyle Stowers

These talented hitters weren't expected to play much. Here is FanGraphs' projected playing time for the four, along with their projected OPS:

All four were projected to be study contributors and got more playing time. Like with the Found Health group, bumping up a player's playing time might be a great way to find a breakout. 

Defensive Specialists: Sal Frelick, Andy Pages, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Trent Grisham

While part of other groups, these four get the added lineup stability that comes with being great defenders. Sometimes the breakout doesn't come right away (Frelick), but the guaranteed playing time gives the player a longer leash. 

Big Boys go Boom: Cal Raleigh, Kyle Schwarber, Junior Caminero, Tyler Soderstrom, Eugenio Suarez, Hunter Goodman, Andy Pages, Ramon Laureano

Somebody has to lead the league in home runs, and it might as well be the guys who hit the ball hard. Here are the above players ranked by Barrels per Plate Appearance in 2024. Besides the big names, a few surprises sneak in (the '25 table is on my list to visit this offseason). 

Note: Kyle Stowers and Mickey Moniak were at 6.2% Barrel/PA.

While some of these guys didn't have enough barrels go for home runs in 2024, they made up for it in 2025. 

Random Middle Reliever with a Ton of Wins: Adrian Morejon

There is always one.