This list of top candidates for a breakout season in Major League Baseball is an eclectic group.
It contains a couple of beginners from each league, along with one of the best prospects from a year ago that will make a major improvement in 2025.
The list also contains an excursor who only needs a chance to play every day to join the elites, and a relief spruce became the starter who debuted seven years ago. Everyone has a good chance of being big artists like fans will talk about this season.
Junior Caminro, Third Base, Tampa Bay Rays
Caminero already has 213 career plates, so he is not eligible for Al Rookie of the Year. But his great league experience provides a strong foundation that creates great breakout potential 2025 at the age of 21-22.
Caminero got a taste of majors two years ago, shortly after he turned 20 years old. When he came in as a top 3-4 consensus total prospectus in 2024, he set up one .248/.299/.424 line with six home races, 11 walks and nine doubles in 177 plate performances. A solid performance in relation to his age that translates to perhaps 5% better than the league average when adjusted for homeball park and league conditions.
Projection systems vary, but an optimistic one at Fangraphs says that Caminero will meet 30 home races and be worth 4.3 Fwar, which would have made him the third most valuable third bass man in the league in 2024. It may be a distance this season, given the unpredictability of youth. In addition, we must see what effect to play home game at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa will have. Its dimensions, which duplicate Yankee Stadium, are more appealing for left-handed pull-hitters, but the right handed Caminero went to the opposite field more than the league average in 2024.
Jack Leiter, right -handed jug, Texas Rangers
March 8, 2024; Surprise, Arizona, USA; Texas Rangers started Pitcher Jack Leiter (71) pitch against Kansas City Royals during the first round at Surprise Stadium. Credits: Joe Camporeale-USA Today Sports A son of the former Major League Lefty Al Leiter, the younger Leiter came to the camp, which was ready to show that he was better than his first major league results in 2024. Leiter’s performance in grapefruit League play, along with injuries to right hand Jon Gray and his left hand Cody Bradford. He is still considered a beginner.
Both Leiters fast balls (a four seams and a lowering, which is a new pitch for him) have reached 99 plus MPH this spring, and he sits at 98 mph on all his fast balls. He has also refined his prey (called a “kick change”), and it has been almost unspoken, with battles who go 1-for-14 against it with a 50% strike frequency, along with a 31% swing and miss, at 51 total pitch.
That was how Scouts represented Leiter when Rangers chose him overall from Vanderbilt in the 2021 MLB draft. He was a consensus top 20-25 prospect in the following season, but Leiter failed in his first PRO season after Rangers started him on Class AA and published high eras by giving up on many walks and home. It’s something he still has to refine. But for the patient, Leiter has shown signs of improvements all the time.
In the middle of 2024 at Class AAA he got closer to expectations. A call to Rangers did not result in over two stints (9.84 era, 44 hits allowed, seven homers, 17 walks and 31 strikes in 35 2/3 rounds), but Leiter has made adjustments. Sometimes it takes longer to be better than is considered ideal.
Matt Wallner, Outfielder, Minnesota Twins
September 7, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; The Minnesota Twins left Fielder Matt Wallner (38) captures the ball in Foul Territory in the third round against Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter Aiken-Imagn Images Wallner has posted impressive speed statistics over two half seats with the twins. In the 580 career plate performances (mostly 2023-24), Wallner .251/.366/.500 beats 29 home races, 31 doubles and 58 walks, and earns a total of 4.0 BWAR.
Wallner, a left -wing swing that recently turned 27, has not yet made more than a strong side Plato player. But it has been in the works this spring, with manager Rocco Baldelli which gives Wallner time against left -handed pitching, even as the twins’ leaders.
Wallner has not met left in Majors so far, but he did so in the upper minors 2022-23 and published slow percentages north of .600 in these divisions. Everything that is taken into account, Wallner is the twins’ best defensive right -wing fields, and they are better when he stays in the game and is not replaced halfway due to a possible platoon advantage for a bat. Given the ability he has shown to left before, and the big league he has had part-time, a full-time Matt Wallner seems prepared for a season of 35 or 40 homes.
Matt Shaw, Infielder, Chicago Cubs
A teammate, Pete Crow Armstrong, received a lot of attention for his scary Cactus League numbers, but Shaw as a beginner has a chance to influence the crime while playing the third base.
Considered as a consensus top-30 or so prospectus over the past two seasons, ranked Shaw No. 14 Total of Keith Law entering the camp. Before he got a short taste with the big team at the end of 2024, SHAW .279/.373/.468 met with a 17.5% strike frequency in Double-A and followed it with a .298/.395/.534 line with a 19.7% strike frequency at Triple. Quite good for 23 years old.
A natural card stop, Shaw’s best seasons will probably come when he champion third base and improves his power team. But he should be above the average from the hope and has a strong chance of being a .300 hitter with 17-20 Homers-what would make him a leading challenger for the NL Rookie of the Year.
Clay Holmes, right -handed canna, New York Mets
February 22, 2025; Port St. Lucie, Florida, USA; The New York Mets Pitcher Clay Holmes (35) enters from the Bullpen area before the match against Houston Astros at Clover Park. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn images The New York Yankees undoubtedly liked to have Slugger Juan Soto around to help them reach the World Series a season ago. However, Soto did not come to Bronx for free, with his right hand Michael King a large part of the trading package with San Diego. Most often a lighter with yanks, everything King made was transformed into one of the best starting buttons in the league with Padres.
The lightning can strike again, in a way, with Holmes moving across the city as a free agent to go with soot and mets. Holmes never started with Yankees, but he made four with Pittsburgh Pirates as a beginner and 114 into minors before turning him into a relief. At almost 32 he is easily the oldest and most experienced player in this group. He published a 2.69 era with 238 strikes in 217 2/3 rounds exclusively as a relief for four years with Yankees, but he is investing in himself (as well as Mets) as a starting can.
Holmes has received enough value from all over a three-pitch mixture (Sinker, Slider, Sweeper) to be effective as a shipper, but his breaking places have become his Go-Tos. Holmes has worked on adding a cutter and a change this spring, but that is to see if he wears everything in the regular season. If he expands his Arsenal, it would be a similar attack plan that Seth Lugo used to go from an effective relief to one of the best starters in AL. Assuming he handles the physical stress of being a starting jug, Holmes has a chance to follow King and Lugo’s latest success.
