Last year, I started this column to find the next Josh Lowe. The idea was to prevent us from having “The One Who Got Away” when we give up on a player we like too early. Josh Lowe was one of my favorite young breakout hitters in 2022, but he struggled to start the year and was demoted a few times, so I was tentative about drafting him in 2023. Of course, that year he hit .292 with 20 home runs and 32 steals, and I was crying into my pint of ice cream at the end of the night.
I figured if we looked at highly regarded prospects who failed to live up to expectations in their MLB debuts but had solid underlying metrics, we might be able to identify which players not to give up on. Last year’s article brought me to Lawrence Butler, Zach Neto, Brenton Doyle, and Jordan Westburg. Unfortunately, my choice for the “next Josh Lowe” was Parker Meadows. Still, the exercise proved useful, so we’re going to do it again.
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The criteria for what makes somebody the “Next Josh Lowe” is that they made their debut in the previous season, had at least 100 MLB plate appearances, and had an offensive WAR under 1.0. That means no Jasson Dominguez, who had only 67 MLB at-bats, or Coby Mayo, who had 46 at-bats last year. That also means no Heston Kjerstad or Tyler Soderstrom, who had offensive WARs over 1.0. I also looked for players who were legitimate prospects, either making top 100 lists or featured inside their own team’s top 100.
The next step was personal sorting. I looked beyond the surface-level stats (since the point is that they would have been bad), and ooked at barrel rate, max exit velocity, swinging strike rate, chase rates, and overall contact to get a sense of who has a workable approach at the plate and who was able to make solid contact overall contact. Even in Lowe’s bad 2023 call-up, he had an O-Swing% under 30%, a slightly above league average SwStr%, a 5.2% barrel rate, and good minor league batted ball data, so there were hints at a viable fantasy profile (especially since we knew his scouting report).
When all that was done, I had six players who could be the “next Josh Lowe,” two players who won’t start out of spring training, and one player who technically fit the criteria but is being drafted far too high right now. For me, part of being “the next Josh Lowe”…