One of the most enjoyable parts of a baseball seasons is seeing which players will take you by surprise. Sometimes it’s a rookie in his first real taste of the majors. Sometimes it’s a younger player finally figuring things out. And sometimes it’s a veteran player having a career year. Whatever and whoever it is, it’s always different every year and finding that out can be a lot of fun.
Today I’m going to present to you 2015’s All-Breakout Team. I’m going to pick one player for each position that has had what I consider to be the most remarkable season in one way or another. The catch is that this player cannot be one that would have been expected to produce well coming into this season based on the previous few seasons at least. Otherwise it wouldn’t exactly be a breakout.
CATCHER – Francisco Cervelli, Pittsburgh Pirates
Francisco Cervelli was a solid backup catcher with the Yankees for a good six years. He always got good marks for his defense and he even had a pretty solid season at the plate last year. But he had eclipsed 200 plate appearances only once in those six seasons. So when the Pirates announced they would be letting Russell Martin walk and give the full time spot to Cervelli, a lot of people were skeptical. Turns out the Pirates knew what they were doing.
In a career high 475 plate appearances, Cervelli has hit .301/.377/.403. Among qualified catcher Cervelli is second only to Buster Posey in offense. Cervilli is also second only to Buster Posey in fWAR. Posey is in a class by himself at 5.6 fWAR but Cervelli’s 3.5 is still very good. Only two other catchers–Brian McCann and former Pirate Russell Martin–surpassed the 3.0 fWAR mark.
There were a lot more high profile trades since last season ended. But the Pirates getting Cervelli for lefty reliever Justin Wilson has to rank among the best based on what they gave up. Even though Wilson has been excellent for the Yankees, they got fleeced.
Honorable Mention: Stephen Vogt, Athletics
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