Every year Santa brings me Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster book which is chock full of insightful fantasy articles and projections. Last year Brandon Kruse wrote an article called "Speculating on Breakouts". His definition of a breakout player is one who earns a Rotisserie value of $20 or more after previously never posting a value over $10 at the major league level.
The criteria used included the following:
-age 27 or younger
-an increase in at least two of the following categories-PX, SX or H%
-Minimum league average PX or SX (100)
-Minimum contact rate-75%
-minimum xBA-.270
Last year, his speculation predicted two solid breakout players-Ben Zobrist and Erick Aybar, along with Martin Prado and Seth Smith, both of whom performed very well in 2009.
His choices for 2010:
Michael Aubrey (1B, BAL)
Ronald Belisario (RP, LAD)
Neftali Feliz (SP, TEX)
Yovani Gallardo (SP, MIL)
Matt Laporta (OF, CLE)
Joe Smith (RP, CLE)
Luis Valbuena (2B, CLE)
I wonder if Kruse is an Indians fan? He selected three of their players to breakout in 2010?