Fantasy baseball post hype hitters: Can Evan Carter, Jordan Lawlar finally break through?

When it comes to fantasy sports, we love a breakout. We spend days analyzing (or reading about) metrics that might suggest a player is set to hit a new level or emerge into a role we never saw coming for them. However, the consequence of that is we tend to almost immediately discard players who don’t produce in the way we hoped. Draft rooms are littered with former “favorites” who we now sneer at as we scroll past their names.

But post-hype sleepers have feelings too. As well as the ability to make a real difference on your fantasy teams.

This is the third season of me writing this article, where I take a look at some post-hype hitters I think could provide major value based on where they’re going in drafts. While I missed more than I hit on last year, that’s the nature of these kinds of articles. We had some huge breakouts with Jonathan Aranda and also Jordan Beck, who was going undrafted. Trevor Larnach had some nice moments, but Connor Norby and Parker Meadows were undone by injuries, and Jordan Walker never got it going. Hopefully, we can find a Jordan Beck-type pick this year.

As a reminder, post-hype here means somebody who was either a top prospect or had some buzz in previous seasons but failed to live up to that. These are not players who just had one bad season. They need to have languished in the minors longer than expected or struggled in an extended major league attempt. Since they’re no longer hyped, they also need to be going outside of the top 200 in current drafts, which means none of these are slam dunk choices to outproduce their draft value, but they’re guys who I think can if given the chance.

All ADP data is taken from NFBC Rotowire Online Championship drafts from February 1st through February 18th (20 drafts)

Brett Baty - 2B/3B, New York Mets (ADP: 280)

You may say, "How is Baty post hype when people keep talking about how good he is?" Well, he's been drafted near pick 300 over the last month, so clearly the conversation about his skills has not led to enough hype to actually draft him. I know a lot of that has to do with playing time concerns, but if people truly believe in his talent, then they would, and should, be drafting him higher than this.

Baty was the best third base prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, back in 2022. He was also the 27th-ranked prospect overall that season. Heading into the 2023 season, his MLB Pipeline ranking improved to 21st overall, ahead of guys like Pete Crow-Armstrong, Royce Lewis, and Noelvi Marte. However, he could never quite find his footing at the big league level. He was demoted multiple times and played in just 158 MLB games between 2023 and 2024, never hitting above .230 in either season. He got off to a poor start in 2025 as well, slashing .204/.246/.352 in the first 18 games of the season before being demoted again. When he was called back up a few weeks later, he looked like a different hitter and would go on to slash .266/.327/.454 in 110 games the rest of the way with 17 home runs, seven steals, and a 24% strikeout rate.

So what happened? Well, Baty started to be a bit more patient. He chased less outside of the zone, and he allowed himself to get behind in counts rather than attack pitches early that he couldn't do damage on. However, his early called strike rate decreased, so he wasn't simply letting the first pitch go by. His overall swinging strike rate dropped, and his barrel rate jumped to 13% while both his max exit velocity and average exit velocity were career highs. His new profile has all the makings of a breakout, so the only reasons why we're not drafting him as such are that he's been demoted a bunch before and/or we don't feel confident in his playing time. Well, past demotions shouldn't cause us to overlook the clear changes he made, and I think there's a really good chance he's the starting designated hitter for the Mets against right-handed pitching. When you add to that his ability to play second base, third base, and potentially even left field if the Mets need to give somebody an off day, there is still a path for Baty to push close to 500 plate appearances this season.

Evan Carter - OF, Texas Rangers (ADP: 285)

We all know where the hype came from for Evan Carter. At 20 years old, he made his MLB debut and hit .306 with five home runs and three steals in 23 games for the Rangers and then helped lead them to a World Series that same postseason. He headed into the 2024 season as the 5th-ranked prospect in all of baseball. Yet, the success seemingly ended there. Nagging back injuries sapped much of Carter's juice, but he also dealt with a quad injury and a broken wrist last season after he was hit by a pitch in August. In total, he has played just 108 games over the last two seasons, hitting .222/.309/.379 with 10 home runs and 16 steals.

On one hand, we know that Carter's 2024 struggles were due to his back injury. He has said on the record that his body was physically incapable of recreating his swing from 2023. We also know that, after the 2024 season, he finally decided to get the problem fixed, opting to get a lumbar ablation procedure, which is a procedure that burns tissue to help address persistent back issues. However, he also had back spasms in August, and we know the Rangers are trying to re-work his swing to put less strain on his back.

None of that makes us feel good, and we can admit that. However, Carter is only 23 years old, and it seemed like things were starting to click with his revamped swing as the season went on last year. He struggled to begin the season, but in 50 games from June 1st on, he hit .263/.354/.423 with four home runs, 26 runs scored, 22 RBI, and 11 steals. That came with just a 5% barrel rate but also a sub-20% strikeout rate. The 11 steals over that time also tell us that Carter's back was feeling good, which provides a sliver of hope.

So can we fully trust Carter? No, of course not. That's why he's going so late in drafts, but perhaps this new swing makes him a .270 hitter who will have just 15+ home runs but steal 20+ bases while hitting in the middle of a solid lineup. That wouldn't be enough for a top-five prospect in all of baseball, but there may still be a path forward for Evan Carter to be a useful fantasy asset.

Chase DeLauter - OF, Cleveland Guardians (ADP: 302)

Chase DeLauter is another player whose star has lost luster due to injuries. Now, you may say, "How is he post hype when he doesn't have a single MLB at-bat in the regular season?" My answer would be, that's precisely why. Heading into the 2024 season, DeLauter was the 31st-ranked prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline. He had hit .355/.417/.528 in 55 minor league games the year before. Yet, injuries limited him to 39 games in 2024, and he slashed just .261/.341/.500. He then came into the 2025 season as the 58th-ranked prospect in baseball, but last season, he was also limited to just 42 games due to injury and slashed .264/.379/.473. The truth is just that expectations for DeLauter are drastically different in 2026 than they were in 2024, and people now are simply crossing their fingers that he can stay healthy.

DeLauter only went 1-for-6 in the postseason, but he didn't look overmatched. In Triple-A earlier in the season, he had a 52% Hard-Hit rate with an average exit velocity of 91.2 mph. It's not setting the world on fire, but that's a strong quality of contact. He rarely chased out of the zone and had an 87% zone contact rate with just a 7% swinging strike rate (SwStr%). That's been the scouting report on him for a while. He has an advanced feel for the barrel and the bat speed to catch up to anything. He doesn't NEED to pull the ball to tap into his power, which is a good thing because he took more of an all-fields approach last season. I believe he has every chance to open the season as the Guardians' starting center fielder, which could lead to a 15-20 home run season with a .250-.260 average. He's not going to steal many bases, but he could remind people just how talented he is.

Jordan Lawlar - 3B, Arizona Diamondbacks (ADP: 322)

For the last two seasons, it feels like we've been perpetually waiting for Jordan Lawlar to get a chance in Arizona. He came into the 2024 season as the 11th-ranked prospect in baseball after hitting .278/.378/.496 with 20 home runs and 26 steals in 105 games at Double-A and Triple-A in 2023. However, he had thumb surgery at the beginning of that season and was out until June, and then injured his hamstring when he returned. As a result, he was limited to 23 games that season. He then got off to a hot start in 2025, and it seemed like a sure thing for him to get an extended run at the MLB level, especially with the Diamondbacks acting as sellers at the deadline, but hamstring injuries again limited Lawlar to 91 total games last year.

His injuries and his paltry .182/.257/.288 slash line with a 35% strikeout rate in 28 MLB games seems to have people turning their back on Lawlar. I would caution against that. He still slashed .313/.403/.564 with 11 home runs and 20 steals in 63 games at Triple-A last season. He posted a 10.8% swinging strike rate at that level and had just a 13.7% mark in his MLB debut, which is low when you consider that his strikeout rate was 35%. His Triple-A zone contact and overall contact rates were solid, but he has a patient approach that may simply have been overly patient at the big league level. In Triple-A, he saw pitches in the strike zone just 48% of the time, and few pitchers had the elite secondaries to continuously put him away if he got behind in the count. In his MLB sample size, Lawlar saw over 53% of his pitches in the strike zone and fell behind in counts far more often against far better pitching. That's not a recipe for success, but it's also not a fatal flaw.

Lawlar doesn't have tremendous power, but his 113 mph max exit velocity in Triple-A shows that there is thump in his bat, and we know he can run. Considering he also pulls the ball around 50% of the time, he's able to get to that power without having to continuously register elite exit velocity readings. With the news that Lawlar is also going to get a chance to win a starting job in the outfield, this could finally be the season that we see him get 400 or more plate appearances for the Diamondbacks. At 23 years old, Lawlar's best days remain ahead of him, and I think he has the chance to be a 20/25 guy in a full season. These are the types of gambles I'm open to taking this late in drafts.

Jordan Walker - OF, St. Louis Cardinals (ADP: 324)

I'll just admit right now that both Parker Meadows and Jordan Walker are going to be in here again. I know, I know, but I can't fully quit them; at least not at these prices. Walker struggled again last season, slashing .215/.278/.306 in 111 games with six home runs and 10 steals. He also struck out nearly 32% of the time, so why would I be willing to take a chance on him again?

Well, for starters, the Cardinals are not trying to contend this season. They are fully in development mode with an eye on the future, so I think this is the year they simply give Walker a ton of runway and try to decide if he's part of their future or not. He's still just 23 years old, so his struggles in adapting to MLB pitching are not that alarming. Another reason I'm looking at the glass as being half full is that we saw Walker post a career-high 11% barrel rate last year with an increase in average exit velocity and an impressive 118 mph max exit velocity. In other words, there is tons of power in his bat.

Walker shifted his focus to hit off his backside more, which has allowed him to get to that power a little more. We like to believe that baseball players make a change in the offseason and it simply clicks, but that's very often not the case. It takes time to change your mindset and mechanics on your swing. Walker now has had another offseason to incorporate those changes and iron out which of them works best for him, as he discussed himself. He spent much of the offseason learning more about his physiology and what movements are best for his body and swing. It has reportedly simplified his swing mechanics and "put him in a better position to make contact," so I think that should lead to more consistency and better power production since we know he has the thump in his bat to get there.

In addition, Walker stole seven bases in the second half last year and has talked about having more confidence on the bases and learning from Victor Scott II about how to read starting pitchers more to get better jumps. There's a chance that we can get a 15-stolen-base season from Walker. I know it feels like stepping on the rake again, but there's a chance we're looking at, at least, a 15/15 season for Walker with a usable batting average while playing every day.

Bo Naylor - C, Cleveland Guardians (ADP: 361)

Bo Naylor seems to be coming up for me a lot in my early-season research, which is a conflicting feeling because he has a career .205/.286/.384 slash line in 318 big league games. That comes with a 27% strikeout rate, which makes it easy to believe there is no post hype here, but that the hype was simply overblown. However, Naylor was the 64th-ranked prospect in baseball coming into the 2023 season for a reason, and I think those reason still exists.

For starters, we know he has good raw power. He slugged 14 home runs last year with a 10% barrel rate and a 111 max exit velocity. Those are good numbers, especially for a catcher. He also got to that pull side more in 2025, posting a nearly 27% Pull Air rate, which means nearly 27% of all the baseballs he put in play were pulled in the air, which is great for power production. We also saw him course correct a bit as the season went on, taking a 55% fly ball rate from the first half and dropping it down to 47% in the second half. That led to a jump in batting average from .171 to .230, which we like to see.

Another change I like is the shift in Naylor's approach. His early balls in play rate jumped up as he looked to attack his pitch earlier on. That led to him being behind in the count less often, but even when he was behind in the count, his putaway rate (the rate at which a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout) fell from nearly 24% to just under 18%. His zone contact jumped almost 6%, as did his overall contact rate, while his SwStr% fell to 9.6%. Those are all changes we love to see, especially from a player who has just turned 26 years old. It's not uncommon for catchers to break out a bit later offensively, especially when you consider the mental burden of learning how to manage and lead an MLB pitching staff. We know Naylor spent tons of time working on his defensive game when he was first called up, so he may now finally have a chance to focus on his offense.

Triston Casas - 1B, Boston Red Sox (ADP: 385)

Triston Casas is a bit of a forgotten man in Boston. In some respects, it's understandable. He played just 63 games in 2024 after tearing cartilage and fracturing a rib on a swing. He then played just 29 games last year before rupturing his left patellar tendon on a baserunning accident. Both of those injuries are freak injuries that don't indicate Casas being injury-prone, but they have overshadowed the fact that Casas entered the 2022 season as the 16th-ranked prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline and 19th according to Baseball America. He also entered the 2023 season as the 23rd-ranked prospect, according to MLB Pipeline and 28th according to Baseball America. By all accounts, he is a former top prospect that everybody is overlooking heading into the 2026 season.

I get it. He is coming off a major knee injury, and even before getting hurt, Casas was struggling. In 112 plate appearances in 2025, he hit .182/.277/.303 with three home runs and a 56 wRC+, ranking 184 of 221 qualified hitters mentioned above. But I still believe there are some reasons for optimism.

For starters, Casas has a career .800 OPS, 12.2% barrel rate, and 45.5% hard-hit rate. He doesn't chase the ball out of the zone and has a 12% swinging strike rate, which is good for his level of power. He also pulls the ball in the air more than average, with a 20% Pull Air% over his career, which is significantly higher than the 16.7% league average. I also believe his baseline skills are better than that. You may need to join me out on a limb for this one, but Casas is a notoriously slow starter. In 73 MLB games during March and April during his career, he has hit .181/.280/.309. In 120 career games that have taken place in the second half of the season, Casas is hitting .268/.377/.515. That's an .893 OPS. Perhaps the Miami, Florida native doesn't enjoy living and playing in the Northeast that early in the season.

Yet, here's the thing: Casas has played in only 39 second-half games since the start of the 2024 season, and those all came in 2024 after he came back from his fractured rib. You know, there injury where he said it felt like he got shot in the side. It's possible that Casas is a slow starter who has only really had a start of the season in each of the last two years. Now he's about to begin a season where he's unlikely to even debut in Boston until May. While that has kept his draft cost down, Boston really needs his power in the lineup. Yes, the team needs to make a trade to free up the DH spot, but there's a distinct possibility that, by June, Casas is the primary DH against right-handed pitching and recovered enough from his knee injury to match his .800 career OPS. That could give us 350-400 plate appearances of solid production for somebody we're getting for free in drafts.

Jacob Melton - OF, Tampa Bay Rays (ADP: 410)

I know you may not view Jacob Melton as a post-hype prospect, but he was the Astros' number one prospect entering the 2024 season. He also only has 32 MLB games under his belt, so maybe the hype window isn't closed on him, but Melton posted just a 22 wRC+ in his 78 plate appearances last season. That ranked him 217th out of 221 hitters under the age of 27 who had at least 50 plate appearances last year. So, basically, he's a former top prospect within his organization who was well below-average in a small MLB sample and is now being forgotten about in fantasy drafts. To me, that qualifies him for this article.

So why do I like Melton? For starters, I think there's a chance he earns a starting job for the Rays this year after being acquired in the offseason as part of a trade that sent Brandon Lowe to the Pirates. Cedric Mullins was signed to play center field, and I believe the Rays will want Mullins to hold that job down for at least the first half of the season, but Jake Fraley is no lock to start in right field, nor is Chandler Simpson a lock to start in left field. Melton will be given a chance in spring training to win a job, and he just might run with it.

Despite his elevated strikeout rate in his brief MLB call-up, Melton rarely swings and misses with just an 8.2% SwStr% in Triple-A last year. He regularly posts overall contact rates around 80% with zone contact rates up around 87%. He doesn't expand the strike zone, and his 113 mph max exit velocity in Triple-A last year shows that there is some power in his bat. He has never pulled the ball much in his minor league career, but we know that the Rays love to get their hitters to their pullside power, so we have to assume they are going to try to maximize his solid raw power. The 25-year-old also has speed to burn, stealing 46 bases in 2023 and 30 bases in 2024. If he were to win a starting job in Tampa Bay, I think he could swipe 25 or bases bases and could get to 15 home runs or more if Tampa optimizes his swing the way I believe they will. His playing time is a bit of a risk, but I don't think the skills are.

Parker Meadows - OF, Detroit Tigers (ADP: UNDRAFTED)

While Meadows was never a top 100 prospect, he was a well-regarded prospect who was Detroit's 6th-ranked prospect in 2024 and a consistent top 10 prospect for them in other seasons. However, so far, he has posted just a .232/.308/.386 slash line with 16 home runs and 21 steals in 177 MLB games. He also suffered a hamstring injury in 2024 and performed poorly enough that he was demoted to Triple-A Toledo. Yet, just like with Jordan Walker, I still believe in Parker Meadows.

Back in February of last season, I was in on Meadows as a breakout candidate and mentioned that, after his demotion to Triple-A, he rebounded by slashing .296/.340/.500 with five homers and five steals over his final 47 games of the season. I believed that Meadows' good defense in center field would keep him in the lineup every day, but I didn't bank on injuries. Meadows began the season on the IL with a right nerve issue called musculocutaneous in his right arm. He came back in June but then suffered a quad strain in July that put him on the IL for over a month. That led to Meadows playing in just 58 games.

The nature of these injuries doesn't make me believe that Meadows is injury-prone. I still believe he's a high-contact hitter with a strong feel for the strike zone who has the speed to swipe 15-20 bases in a full season. Back in 2023 and 2024, he was putting the ball in the air around 45% of the time, which is more enticing to me than the 35% mark last year, while coming off the nerve issue in his arm. If Meadows is back to that level of elevation, I think a floor of a 15/15 season with a solid batting average feels fair. He's unlikely to start the season as the leadoff hitter, which will hurt his counting stats, but it's not as if Colt Keith is a prototypical leadoff man. If Meadows is producing, I think he's the far better fit at the top of the lineup, and I'd expect the Tigers to make the change, which would be a big boost for fantasy managers.

Eduoard Julien - 2B, Colorado Rockies (ADP: UNDRAFTED)

If the Rockies did it for Mickey Moniak, can they do it for Eduoard Julien? Last year, Moniak arrived in Colorado as a former number one overall pick who had failed to establish any consistency at the MLB level. He then played himself into a starting role, and hit .270/.306/.518 with 24 home runs and nine steals. That .270 average was a surprise for somebody who hit .219 in 418 plate appearances in 2024. But that's what the thin air of Colorado will do for you. So what will it do for Julien, who posted a .263/.381/.459 slash line in 408 plate appearances in his MLB debut in 2023?

Julien has struggled to replicate that in the last two seasons, but that has more to do with his approach than his skill. For his career, Julien has a nearly 32% strikeout rate but just a 10% swinging strike rate? How does that happen? Well, he also has a 20% called strike rate. His nearly 25% early called strike rate is well above the league average of 21%, and he has gotten himself into two-strike counts nearly 32% of the time in his career; that's 15th-percentile in baseball. So even though he doesn't chase outside of the zone and has an 82% zone contact rate in his career, he has a .232 career batting average and strikes out too much.

Can a move to a more hitter-friendly environment help him unlock an approach change? Maybe. It's a major roll of the dice because he's had this approach for three years, but maybe having a team give up on you is a wake-up call. Julien has a 12% barrel rate and 42% hard-hit rate during his career, so we know he can make quality contact. He doesn't pull the ball often and is below league average in Pull Air%, so it would be unlikely that he ever becomes a major home run threat, but his batted ball profile should enable him to post a strong batting average in Coors Field. He just needs to be a little more aggressive early in the count.