Whether it's fantasy baseball players looking for a leg up on the competition in the new season or fans craving the next big thing on their favorite MLB team, I get asked a lot about sleepers this time of year, so let's identify the biggest breakout candidate for all 30 clubs.
I'm defining a breakout season not just as "beating last year's WAR," because picking young players who are growing into more playing time is a pretty easy hack for that. I'm picking players under 30 years old who I think will beat their projected WAR by at least a half-win, using FanGraphs' Depth Chart projections for both playing quality and playing time. That means this isn't just a list of top prospects, projected stars or 26-year-olds entering their prime. We have some solid sleepers for fantasy leagues and post-hype picks, as well.