3 UP

Wilyer Abreu, OF BOS

That’s a lot of red!
We probably should’ve seen this coming. Maybe you did—I didn’t. The most significant change with Wilyer Abreu is in his swing-and-miss profile. His strikeout rate is down 9% from last year, while his walk rate is up 5%. And the most exciting part? There might still be room to grow.
Abreu looks like he’s made serious adjustments and may be keying in on secondaries. He’s batting .320 and slugging .840 against breaking pitches—a massive improvement from last year—while averaging 98.2 mph in exit velocity against them. He’s also raking against offspeed stuff, with a .353 AVG and .559 SLG. His numbers vs. fastballs are slightly down, but his whiff rate is down across all pitch types.
The speed is also ticking up. He has four steals through 40 games, putting him on a 16-steal pace—double last year’s total. Combine that with a 40-homer pace, and it’s easy to see why Roman Anthony hasn’t gotten the call yet.