Which Surprising Standouts Can Repeat in 2022?

The 2021 campaign saw plenty of unexpected star turns. Will they keep it up?

One of the many quotes attributed to former Yankees great Yogi Berra addresses the inherent unpredictability of baseball: “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.”

Or, put another way: you can’t predict ball. The day-in, day-out nature of a baseball season produces unpredictable surprises on a near routine level. Much more difficult, though, is defying the odds for six straight months. The 2021 campaign saw plenty of standout seasons that few could have seen coming, but which of them have repeat potential in 2022?

That’s the question I’ll try to answer for five surprise performers from a year ago. Some of the players below were relative unknowns before bursting onto the scene, while others appeared to have their best days firmly behind them. Can they put the pieces together again to thrive once more in 2022?

In 2021, Cedric Mullins II became just the seventh player in the past decade with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases.

Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports

OF Cedric Mullins II, Baltimore Orioles

In 2019, Mullins batted .233/.302/.347 across Double A and Triple A. Two years later, he was the starting center fielder at the All-Star Game in Denver. The 27-year-old’s meteoric rise from bench outfielder on the worst team in the league to one of the game’s breakout stars was a whirlwind, and it’s something of a shame that his efforts went relatively unnoticed because he was playing for such a woeful team.

The biggest catalyst for Mullins’s becoming an All-Star seemingly overnight is also the most obvious: he quit switch-hitting. Mullins gave up on trying to bat righthanded against lefties and relied on his natural left-handed swing in 2021 to great results. In 247 plate appearances against southpaws, he hit .277/.337/.451 with a nearly identical strikeout rate (18.6%) to the one he had against righties (18.5%).

Mullins is the best thing the Orioles have going for them at the big-league level, and he has four more years of club control before hitting free agency. If his sudden rise to stardom proves to have any staying power, Baltimore would be wise to keep him in the fold as part of its future plans rather than looking to ship him off for more pieces to rebuild.

OF Bryan Reynolds, Pittsburgh Pirates

Reynolds is in the same category as Mullins: a young outfielder on a bad team. While he had a stronger pedigree than Mullins—he was the 59th overall pick in 2016 and finished fourth in National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2019—few could have predicted he’d morph into one of the best hitters in baseball in 2021. Reynolds batted .302/.390/.522 with 67 extra-base hits and a 142 wRC+, which ranked 10th among qualified hitters and placed him ahead of guys like Nick Castellanos, José Ramírez and Freddie Freeman.

Reynolds’s breakout is even more remarkable considering his poor play in the abridged 2020 campaign, in which he hit .189/.275/.357 in 55 games. Statcast data paints his 2021 performance as anything but fluky: he ranked in the 70th percentile or better in strikeout rate (18.4%), walk rate (11.6%), expected wOBA (.385) and sprint speed (28.7 feet per second). A big factor was pitch recognition, with Reynolds swinging less often at pitches outside the strike zone and being more aggressive at those in the zone.

Bryan Renolds' Plate Discipline

FanGraphs

Years	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%
2019-20	31.2%	73.0%
2021	28.4%	78.2%

Opposing pitchers will certainly adjust to Reynolds’s adjustments, and he saw fewer fastballs in 2021 (50.8%) than he did the two seasons prior. But the All-Star has shown his rookie campaign was a sign of good things to come, and another year of production will further establish him as one of the league’s best young hitters.

Adam Wainwright defied Father Time in 2021. Can he do it again in 2022?

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SP Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals

The ageless Wainwright has been steadily productive since coming back from an injury-plagued 2018 season, but even his most ardent supporters couldn’t have predicted he’d put up a 3.07 ERA while topping the 200-innings mark for the first time in seven years. Expecting a repeat performance in 2022 at age 40 feels foolish, if only because the history of the game is short on such seasoned aces.

Since World War II, only seven pitchers aged 40 or older have matched Wainwright’s 2021 ERA+ (127) over 200 innings. The list includes four Hall of Famers, Roger Clemens (twice) and the interminable Jamie Moyer:

Starting Pitchers vs. Father Time

Stathead

Player	Year (Age)	IP	ERA (ERA+)
Roger Clemens	2005 (42)	211.1	1.87 (226)
Roger Clemens	2004 (41)	214.1	2.98 (145)
Randy Johnson	2004 (40)	245.2	2.60 (176)
Nolan Ryan	1987 (40)	211.2	2.76 (142)
John Smoltz	2007 (40)	205.2	3.11 (140)
Tom Seaver	1985 (40)	238.2	3.17 (136)
Jamie Moyer	2003 (40)	215.0	3.27 (132)

To emulate his success from a year ago and join these luminaries, Wainwright will need to continue to dominate with his signature curveball. Opposing hitters managed just a .209 batting average with a 26.8% whiff rate against it last year, and overall continued to pound balls into the dirt with a 47.5% ground ball rate. If he can remain healthy and continue to keep batters off balance, Wainwright can be just as effective in 2022, though both of these conditionals are far from certain for a pitcher at his age.

SS Brandon Crawford, San Francisco Giants

Crawford was one of several Giants to enjoy a renaissance of sorts in 2021, though perhaps he was the most unexpected. The veteran shortstop had posted an 89 OPS+ over the previous four years, though hit much better in 54 games in 2020. That he would turn in a career year offensively at age 34 after a period of relative decline did not seem likely for the normally defensive-minded shortstop.

So how did Crawford remake himself in the batter’s box? In short, by improving his plate discipline and hitting the ball on the ground less frequently. Crawford’s barrel rate of 11.7% is his highest in the Statcast era (since 2015), and the same is true of his average launch angle (14.8 degrees). That he was able to tap into his power for a career-best 24 home runs while posting his lowest strikeout rate (19.1%) in five years might qualify as a minor miracle, but that doesn’t make it a fluke. Crawford’s refined approach should bode well for his future success at the plate, and set the Giants up for another run at the division crown in 2022.

Ty France got hit by a pitch 27 times in 2021, the most of any hitter in the majors.

Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports

1B Ty France, Seattle Mariners

Despite missing the postseason for the 20th straight season, the Mariners have a strong case as the biggest team surprise of 2021, and France is a key reason why. No matter how impressive he looked in 43 games for Seattle and San Diego in 2020, nobody could have predicted how well he’d hit in 2021.

Big things just aren’t expected from 27-year-old former 34th rounders, but France produced in a big way. His aggressive approach at the plate limits his ability to draw walks, but rarely results in swings-and-misses. France had an 8.7% whiff rate last season, and struck out in only 16.3% of his plate appearances. His batted ball profile looks sustainable, but if there’s one part of France’s approach that reeks of flukiness, it’s his knack for getting hit by a pitch. France was tied for the major-league lead in getting beaned (27) last season, which helped buoy his on-base percentage. But is knowing how to wear one a skill or fluke? France himself isn’t quite sure.

“I wish I had an answer for you,” France said back in June to MLB.com’s Justics delos Santos. “It seems to be the story of my baseball career. It’s happened since college days. I really don’t have an answer for you.”

Whatever the answer is, expect France to be a key player in Seattle‘s quest to get back to meaningful October baseball. How successful he is at replicating his proficiency in getting plunked will go a long way toward finally returning the Mariners to the playoffs.