Four Hitters Who Should Have Your Early-Season Attention

The FanGraphs Newsletter, April 14, 2023 [READ IN BROWSER]( April 14, 2023 We made it! After just two weeks of play, there are several hitters off to scorching hot starts. Some are expected; for example, [Giancarlo Stanton]( [Freddie Freeman]( and [Mike Trout]( all have xwOBAs over .460 so far. Given their vast history of offensive prowess, it’s not surprising to see them put together a stretch like this. But if you look near the top of the xwOBA leaderboard, you might do a double take when you see some of the names aside those aforementioned stars. Without larger batted ball samples, we may not be able to draw any concrete conclusions about the unexpected players, but there are some sticky traits that are worth paying attention to as the season develops. For this exercise, Esteban Rivera is going to highlight four players that have caught his eye this season and who you should be watching over the next few months to see if they can keep up their early performance. The criteria for picking these players were relatively loose: It could be an under-the-radar bat that has impressed, or a veteran who has reached a new height due to an interesting adjustment. With that said, let’s jump into it. Matt Chapman Matt Chapman has never hit the ball this hard. Period. He’s barreled 12 of his first 34 batted balls; to put that into perspective, last year he had 48 barrels in 373 batted balls. This is not sustainable — not even [Aaron Judge]( 62 home run season had a Barrel rate above 30%. But you can’t fake getting this hot, and when you consider that Chapman has [adopted]( a toe tap approach in his swing in hopes to return to his previous offensive from his early days in Oakland, there is more reason to buy into this stretch. [Four Hitters Who Should Have Your Early-Season Attention, by Esteban Rivera]( [Prospect Report: Twins 2023 Imminent Big Leaguers]( A look at the Twins prospects who can reasonably be expected to play in the majors this year. | by Eric Longenhagen [Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani Are Going Streaking]( The 2021 and '22 AL MVPs have a new connection that you might not have noticed — and both are off to reassuringly strong starts. | by Jay Jaffe [It Had to Happen: Cubs Extend Ian Happ]( After years of conspicuous departures, the Cubs are starting to keep their homegrown talent. | by Ben Clemens [MLB: Drive To Survive in a Competitive Market]( MLB is falling behind its competitors in the attention economy, but options exist to catch up. | by Kiri Oler [Rays Prospect Evan Reifert Has a Wipeout Slider]( The Arizona Fall League's most dominant pitcher is an Iowa native with a knee-buckling breaker. | by David Laurila [Generation X-Axis: Nick Lodolo’s Horizontal Adventures]( There haven't been many ups and downs this season for Nick Lodolo or his pitches. | by Michael Baumann [Nate Eaton Needs to Ditch His Four-Seamer]( Position players pitching is beyond passe, but let's enjoy this one just a little bit. | by Davy Andrews 🎧 [EFFECTIVELY WILD EPISODE 1993:]( the Cycle]( [DOWNLOAD THE FANGRAPHS APP]( [FanGraphs & Effectively Wild Merch Is Now Available at BreakingT!]( [ORDER HERE]( [Rays now chasing a guy named Buttercup and 139 years of history]( by Matt Monagan, MLB [The Bunting Renaissance That Wasn’t]( by Rob Mains, Baseball Prospectus ($) [Whole new ballgame: What to make of MLB's early 2023 trends]( by Bradford Doolittle, ESPN [Marveling at the Trash Pandas’ no-hitter loss and the Rays’ winning streak: Weird & Wild]( by Jayson Stark, The Athletic ($) [@fangraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [RSS]( [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2023 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 1200 N Hartford St. Apt 312Arlington, Va 22201 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](