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The breakout hitters no one else is expecting

AP Photo/David Goldman

My colleague Jim Bowden recently wrote about 10 players he predicts will have breakout seasons. He focused on young guys such as Andrew Benintendi, Alex Bregman and Julio Urias.

There is another type of breakout player: ones we might not expect. I'm thinking of somebody like Daniel Murphy, who tweaked his swing in 2015, watched his power develop in the second half and postseason that year and then hit .347 and led the NL in OPS in 2016.