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Buy or Sell on Jordan Walker, Emerson Hancock and MLB's Early Breakout Stars
After homering on both Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker became the MLB leader in home runs with seven of them, making him the early frontrunner for unofficial Breakout Star of the Year.
You may disagree with our definition of "breakout stars," but we are exclusively focused on players who either appeared in at least 162 games or pitched at least 162 innings prior to this season—leaving something to be desired along the way.
In other words, we won't be talking about Rookie of the Year hopefuls like Sal Stewart and Chase DeLauter; nor will we fixate on guys like Andy Pages or Ben Rice who already had a solid 2025 campaign before really sprinting out of the gates this year.
Rather, these are players who either underwhelmed or downright stank over the past few seasons before surprisingly dominating through the first couple weeks of this season.
Which begs the question that we'll attempt to answer: Will they continue to provide good value, or are they just a flash in the pan?
Unless otherwise noted, statistics are current through the start of play on Sunday, April 12. Players presented in alphabetical order by last name.
Taj Bradley, RHP, Minnesota Twins
1 of 8
Pre-2026: 385.1 IP, 4.86 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 1.30 WHIP, 9.6 K/9
Breakout Start: 16.2 IP, 1.08 ERA, 1.59 FIP, 1.08 WHIP, 11.9 K/9
Taj Bradley always has had good strikeout stuff, resulting in big expectations upon his arrival in the majors with Tampa Bay in April 2023. However, he struggled with home runs as a rookie and walked too many opposing batters last year, winding up with an ERA of nearly 5.00 that wasn't properly indicative of his talent.
So far this spring, though, Bradley has been rock solid in both of those departments, issuing just four walks and no home runs through three starts against the Orioles, Royals and Tigers.
To some extent, that success is owed to a heater with a little extra heat on it. Bradley's four-seamer is coming in at 97.7 MPH after three straight years at around 96.3 MPH. As a result, his fastball run value has skyrocketed from the 20th percentile in 2025 to the 90th percentile this year, per Baseball Savant.
And that amped up four seamer has turned Bradley's splitter into a lethal weapon, responsible for 36 percent of his strikeouts. Per FanGraphs, only Yoshinobu Yamamoto's splitter has been worth more runs above average than Bradley's.
While we wouldn't say we expect that to remain the case, that's a big early step in the right direction for what was once a consensus top 50 prospect. The 25-year-old might be coming into his own in his fourth season.
Verdict: Buying
Xavier Edwards, 2B, Miami Marlins
2 of 8
Pre-2026: 239 G, .298/.358/.372, 4 HR, 72 RBI, 63 SB, 104 OPS+
Breakout Start: 14 G, .357/.410/.536, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 2 SB, 170 OPS+
Over the past three years, Xavier Edwards had been an above-average contact hitter.
In fact, among the 229 players with at least 1,000 plate appearances from 2023-25, Edwards was tied with Shohei Ohtani for the seventh-best batting average at a mark of .298.
More than 80 percent of hits went for singles, though. So, while his batting average was pristine, Edwards' slugging percentage ranked 205th out of those 229 players at .372.
But all of a sudden, he has become an extra bases specialist. Edwards opened this season with a nine-game hitting streak and already has three doubles and two triples to go along with the home run noted above.
Prior to an 0-for-4 Saturday afternoon in Detroit, Edwards had an OPS of 1.016 that ranked 11th-best in the majors. He was the only player in the top 13 that didn't already have multiple home runs.
We all know this switch hitter has the speed necessary to occasionally turn a single into a double or a double into a triple. But he slugged .398 in his seven seasons in the minors and it's highly unlikely he'll continue to thrive in the total bases department.
Possible batting champ? Sure. We'd buy that.
This OPS+ is going to slowly but surely drop down to around a 110, though.
Verdict: Selling
Emerson Hancock, RHP, Seattle Mariners
3 of 8
Pre-2026: 162.2 IP, 4.81 ERA, 5.23 FIP, 1.36 WHIP, 6.0 K/9
Breakout Start: 17.2 IP, 2.04 ERA, 2.41 FIP, 0.74 WHIP, 9.7 K/9
Emerson Hancock was the sixth overall pick in the 2020 MLB draft, but a series of shoulder injuries kept him from ever blossoming into the type of "can't miss prospect" that Seattle was hoping he would become.
He had a 3.99 ERA in 44 career starts at the Double-A level when a Bryan Woo forearm injury in August 2023 left the M's with little choice but to give Hancock a shot. And in each of his first three seasons, he had a big league ERA of 4.50 or worse, bouncing back and forth between Seattle and Triple-A Tacoma as the team's "break in case of injury" option.
A Bryce Miller oblique strain is the only reason Hancock cracked the Opening Day rotation this year, but he has made the most of this latest opportunity. Hancock went six no-hit innings in his season debut against Cleveland. And after allowing a leadoff home run to Zach Neto in his next outing, he went 6.2 scoreless innings from there against the Angels.
Most impressive by far has been the sweeper that Hancock didn't even add to his arsenal until last season. He has abandoned the conventional slider and all but stopped throwing his changeup in favor of the 78 MPH frisbee against which the early opposition is 0-for-9 with five strikeouts.
We need to see it for at least one more start before we can start to truly believe in Hancock, but the drastically improved strikeout rate is promising.
Verdict: Selling
Colt Keith, IF, Detroit Tigers
4 of 8
Pre-2026: 285 G, .258/.320/.395, 26 HR, 106 RBI
Breakout Start: 14 G, .354/.392/.500, 7 doubles, 4 RBI
The Tigers were certainly planning on Colt Keith eventually becoming a key piece of their puzzle. Several months before his MLB debut, they bought out his arbitration years on a six-year, $28.6M extension that could become a nine-year, $64M deal if they exercise the club options for 2030-32.
In his first two seasons, though, he was just kind of OK.
He was more valuable than most of the players on this list, but with an OPS+ of 100 that suggested he wasn't exactly irreplaceable. In fact, Detroit extending Gleyber Torres a qualifying offer to return in 2026—with Javier Báez still under contract and top prospect Kevin McGonigle on the way, no less—was a pretty good indicator of how un-cemented into the primary infield plan Keith was heading into this season.
Through 15 games, though, Keith is leading the Tigers in both total hits and OPS, despite still searching for his first home run of the campaign. (He does have three doubles that would have been home runs in more than a dozen ballparks, so those dingers should be coming soon.)
His hard-hit percentage ranks among the best in the majors, as does his chase rate on pitches out of the strike zone. Keith is also hitting breaking balls maybe as well as anyone in baseball, slugging .750 with an xSLG of .960 that is just ludicrous.
While we aren't buying him as an MVP candidate or anything just yet, we're ready to buy him as a legitimate heart-of-the-order option for a postseason hopeful.
Verdict: Buying
Angel Martínez, OF, Cleveland Guardians
5 of 8
Pre-2026: 182 G, .226/.277/.353, 14 HR, 56 RBI, 11 SB
Breakout Start: 13 G, .342/.419/.500, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 4 SB
Heading into spring training, it was unclear whether Angel Martínez would have a big league job in 2026. He had a .630 OPS in more than a full season's worth of experience, and rookies Chase DeLauter and George Valera are the future of this Guardians outfield.
However, Valera suffered a calf strain in mid-March and has been on the IL—though, he is mashing in his rehab assignment at Triple-A Columbus and should be back very soon—and Martínez more than picked up the slack with four home runs and a 1.196 OPS in his 18 games played in spring training.
Thus, he was given another chance to prove himself on an everyday basis.
Lately, he has made the most of it, going 10-for-17 (.588) with a home run, two doubles and three stolen bases in his last four games.
Can he even remotely keep it up, though?
After a 457-game minor-league career with a 162-game pace of 15 home runs, 19 stolen bases and a .768 OPS?
Martínez also started hot last year, going 8-for-14 in his first four games and sitting on a .325 batting average after 25 games played. But he hit .201 the rest of the way and could be headed for a similar swoon.
Verdict: Selling
Jordan Romano, RHP, Los Angeles Angels
6 of 8
2024-25: 56.1 IP, 3-6, 16 SV, 7.83 ERA, 5.57 FIP, 1.46 WHIP, 9.6 K/9
Breakout Start: 5.0 IP, 4 SV, 0.00 ERA, 1.55 FIP, 0.40 WHIP, 12.6 K/9
To be sure, two-time All-Star Jordan Romano is a bounce-back candidate as opposed to a breakout candidate.
But it sure did look like the soon-to-be 33-year-old was washed up after his brutal run through the past two seasons.
Between his All-Star years in 2022 and 2023, Romano made 122 appearances, allowing multiple earned runs just six times. Last year, he made 49 appearances and gave up at least two earned runs on 11 occasions. He also imploded for four earned runs allowed on four separate occasions, which didn't even happen once, let alone four times in his 231 appearances with Toronto.
With the Angels, however, Romano has been unhittable—as in five hitless innings of work en route to his four early saves.
What's bizarre/concerning about this hot start is that while his strikeout rate (41.2 percent of batters faced) has never been higher, the average velocity on his two-pitch arsenal—94.6 MPH for the four-seamer; 84.3 MPH on the slider—has never been slower.
He's also inducing ground balls at a preposterously low rate, and he would have blown a save were it not for Jo Adell's third home run robbery of the night on April 4.
It has been an impressive start, but it's also a mighty small sample size. And even during last year's nightmare, there were two separate spurts in which Romano went at least five innings without allowing any hits. It just feels like a question of when that other shoe will drop again.
Verdict: Selling
Randy Vásquez, RHP, San Diego Padres
7 of 8
Pre-2026: 269.1 IP, 4.08 ERA, 4.81 FIP, 1.39 WHIP, 5.8 K/9
Breakout Start: 17.2 IP, 1.02 ERA, 2.58 FIP, 1.08 WHIP, 9.7 K/9
Over the previous two seasons, Randy Vásquez was the furthest thing from a strikeout machine. In fact, in 46 starts, he tallied seven or more strikeouts only once—racking up nine in an outing against the no good, very bad Colorado Rockies this past September.
So, color us surprised that Vásquez had eight strikeouts in six scoreless innings against the Tigers in his 2026 debut, as well as another eight Ks on Thursday against the Rockies.
On each of his seven pitches, he has a higher whiff rate than he did in 2025, with the changeup in particular becoming a wipe-out pitch against lefties. His average velocity is also up across the board, now pumping in both the four-seamer and the sinker at nearly 95 MPH after hovering in the 93.0-93.5 range last year.
Has the 27-year-old who was pretty much a throwaway piece of the Yankees/Padres Juan Soto trade in Dec. 2023 blossomed into a legitimate middle-of-the-rotation type of arm, or is it fools' gold?
His fastball was already pretty valuable last season, in the 87th percentile of run value, per Baseball Savant. But now that his offspeed stuff is up to snuff and inducing all sorts of chases, we're inclined to believe this breakout is legitimate. He won't maintain a 1.02 ERA or anything like that, but Vásquez could be a big key to the Padres getting back to the postseason.
Verdict: Buying
Jordan Walker, OF, St. Louis Cardinals
8 of 8
Pre-2026: 279 G, .240/.302/.378, 27 HR, 112 RBI, 18 SB, minus-2.6 bWAR
Breakout Start: 14 G, .314/.386/.706, 6 HR, 13 RBI, 1 SB
Jordan Walker was the 21st overall pick in the 2020 MLB draft. And after a combined total of 33 home runs and 36 stolen bases in 201 minor league games played between 2021 and 2022, he entered 2023 as a consensus top five prospect in all of baseball.
But after a decent rookie season with 16 home runs and a .787 OPS, Walker had a .595 OPS in 162 games played between 2024 and 2025.
After three years in the bigs, he looked like a guy who desperately needed either a fresh start somewhere new or a different career path altogether—and a .528 OPS in 14 games played during spring training didn't exactly suggest that big changes were coming.
Lo and behold, he has started destroying baseballs like never before at the big league level.
Not only was Walker's 459-foot grand slam off Drew Anderson the longest blast of his career, but he hit opposite field home runs on back-to-back days at Nationals Park last week after not hitting a single home run to the right field side of straightaway center in either 2024 or 2025.
With his elite bat speed, Walker's ability to turn around a fastball has never been in doubt. But the biggest change appears to be his ability to identify and hammer offspeed pitches.
Per Baseball Savant, Walker had been 23-for-114 with one home run and 37 strikeouts against offspeed stuff over the past three seasons, but he's 4-for-7 with a home run and a ground-rule double in the early going.
That's the X-factor to keep an eye on. If he continues to hit changeups reasonably well, he might finally have a season that validates all the hype that preceded his MLB debut. But if he turns back into Pedro Cerrano and starts hopelessly flailing at any pitch with movement or a decelerator, he could regress in a hurry.
Verdict: Buying
