Breakout Breakdown: Josh Naylor

You could make the argument that Josh Naylor had a breakout in 2022 in his first full major league season. He got a late start to that campaign while working his way back from ankle surgery and also missed some time with COVID-19, but finished with a solid .256/.319/.452 batting line with a career-high 20 home runs and 79 RBI.

Naylor had more in store for 2023, though. The 26-year-old greatly improved his triple-slash line across the board in batting .308/.354/.489. His OPS+ was 133 and his wRC+ was 128. Among players with at least 400 plate appearances, only seven others had a higher batting average. Naylor also drove in 97 runs, which tied for 22nd in regards to the 400-plate appearance qualifier.

Naylor achieved these numbers despite a horrendous start to the season. He was batting only .191/.244/.304 with three home runs through his first 33 games. The first baseman then went through a stretch where he homered in three straight games and in four of five contests. That kicked off a robust .347/.391/.552 batting line across 88 games through the remainder of the season. From May 12 on, Naylor led all of baseball with his .347 average and ranked 11th both in terms of wRC+ (157) and wOBA (.395). 

That's roughly 85 percent of the season during which Naylor was legitimately one of the best hitters in baseball.

In terms of RotoWire's Earned Auction Values, Naylor came in at $15.59. That was good enough to rank him 13th at first base, just behind a couple guys you might have heard of in Vladimir Guerrero and Bryce Harper. Naylor ranked 55th among hitters and 76th overall. Not bad for a guy who you were able to land with one of your last few picks in drafts last spring.

Naylor has always been an aggressive hitter, but he took it to another level in 2023. As evidence, check out the screenshot below from Baseball Savant:

In regards to Swing %, here's where Naylor ranked among players with at least 400 plate appearances:

Naylor swung at anything and everything in 2023. Balls in the strike zone, balls out of the strike zone, first pitches. And yet, even with the ultra aggressiveness, he was as good as ever at making contact. Naylor's strikeout rate was just 13.7 percent, which ranked in the 94th percentile. He whiffed at just a 19.8 percent rate, which ranked in the 79th percentile.

It's going to be nearly impossible for a hitter who offers at so many pitches to consistently impact the ball with authority, and it's true that Naylor's batted-ball data doesn't jump off the page. That said, his hard-hit rate (41.2 percent), average exit velocity (89.1 mph) and barrel rate (8.2 percent) were all above the league average (his HHR significantly so). Naylor has also always ranked well in terms of max exit velocity, coming in at 113.9 mph in 2023 (90th percentile), so you know the raw power is in there.

One area where Naylor greatly improved in 2023 was his work against left-handed pitching.

Naylor's .565 OPS versus lefties from 2019-22 ranked 411th out of 447 players with at least 130 plate appearances against southpaws over that span. His .821 OPS in 2023 against left-handers came in at 89th out of 276 players that accrued at least 80 plate appearances versus lefties. I don't know that we can count on that improvement carrying over into 2024, given how truly awful he had been in those situations previously and over a larger sample. It was undoubtedly an encouraging development, though, and at the very least should allow Naylor to enter next season as an everyday guy rather than a platoon player (Cleveland does have a new manager in Stephen Vogt, so perhaps this isn't a slam dunk).

Naylor finished 2023 as the Guardians' No. 3 hitter behind Steven Kwan and Jose Ramirez – both against righties and lefties – and rarely batted lower than cleanup for them during the season. If Vogt keeps that same setup, it should remain a pretty fruitful spot for the 26-year-old. Probably not a 97 RBI over 495 plate appearances level of fruitful, but fruitful nonetheless.

My biggest concern with Naylor is his injury history. Ever since his gruesome right ankle injury and subsequent surgery in June 2021, Naylor has required regular time off due to soreness in the ankle, and at this point it seems likely to be something that will continue to nag at him. It didn't hurt his production in 2023, but it's certainly a lingering concern for me. Regular maintenance days (or worse) and the potential for regression versus lefties creates some volume worries.

Naylor isn't going to offer the type of home run power you're typically going to want out of your first baseman. His quality of contact is decent but not great, and he's traditionally been a guy who hits the ball on the ground a lot. He did have a still-low-but-career-high 36.8 percent flyball rate in 2023, though, and his big max velos should allow him to run into some long balls. Where Naylor has the potential to continue standing out is in the average department, and he should have plenty of run-producing opportunities with Kwan and Ramirez getting on ahead of him. Naylor's early NFBC ADP sits at 132, with a min pick of 92 and max pick of 179. I like him to return a profit there if he's able to turn in a full, healthy season, although I've expressed my doubts about his ability to pull that off.