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Don't look now, but Tyler O'Neill is taking the league by storm! Through two months, the fourth-year Cardinals outfielder has posted some impressive numbers across the board and is getting the attention of many folks around the league. He's not only seized a spot in the lineup every day, but he's also working his way up into the middle of the order and has hit as high as third in recent weeks.
At the beginning of the year, there was still a lot of debate about which of these young Cardinals outfielders would hold the most value this season with Dylan Carlson coming into the year as a highly coveted player for many fantasy managers. But for me, that debate is over and O'Neill has shown that he's by far the player with the higher ceiling and more fantasy potential.
Let's take a look at just how good the 25-year-old O'Neill has been so far this year and compare what he's done with what his fellow outfielder Dylan Carlson has done through the first two months of the season.
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2021 Breakout Season
Tyler O'Neill's stats though Monday, June 7th: .278 AVG, 13 HR, 29 RBI, 25 runs, 5 steals, .309 OBP, .611 SLG, .920 OPS
After only playing 50-60 games over his first three seasons, O'Neill is on pace to play a full season (not counting the 2020 Covid-shortened season) for the first time in his pro career and he's doing big things with his playing time. The power jumps off the page right away as 13 homers in only 41 games are impressive and four more than he hit in 61 games during his rookie year of 2018. The strikeouts are still an issue with O'Neill as he's whiffing 34% of the time this year, but his batted ball data is quite impressive.
As we can see from his Statcast sliders, he's absolutely crushing the ball when he does make contact but simply striking out way too much. That seems like it's going to be the biggest trade-off when it comes to O'Neill is that you're going to have to deal with the strikeouts if. you want the power he is producing. He has elite speed and has already swiped five bags this season, but I'd like to see him get on base more often and to do that he's going to have to make more contact and draw more walks (only 2.6% walk rate this season).
A quick look at some of his statcast metrics shows drastic improvement across the board with the exception of that K rate. His exit velocity is way up this year and the barrel rate is in line with what we saw from him in 2018 when he burst onto the scene in a big way as a rookie.
The barrels have not only been impressive compared to what O'Neill has done in the past, but they're also pretty darn good compared to the rest of the league. I had to drop down the number of batted balls to 50 in order to get him to pop here, but when you do he's second in the majors with 13.2 barrels per plate appearance. He just doesn't make enough contact to put him into that next echelon of hitters (Ohtani, Acuna, Devers, Guerrero, Tatis, Judge, etc...)
Tyler O'Neill vs. Dylan Carlson
It's not totally fair to compare them since they are different types of players, but let's do it anyway! Carlson is younger than O'Neill at only 22 years old and has less major league experience with only 358 plate appearances last season and through the first two months of this season. Carlson, who has been hitting in the two-hole for much of the season, is also a switch hitter and brings some skills to the table that O'Neill is lacking with a .360 OBP and 9.2% walk rate. But the trade-off here for his on-base skills is a big drop in power.
Those numbers aren't bad by any means and the walk rate, spring speed, and plate discipline (chase rate) are all actually quite good. Carlson projects as a very productive major league and there's definitely a spot for the types of hitters in both real life and fantasy. But he's simply not the power threat or running threat that O'Neill is and his ceiling is substantially lower in terms of just how dynamic of a player he will ever be.
When running some comparisons over at Baseball Savant, I sorted here by all balls put in play. Basically, when O'Neill is making contact (which we already established is less often than Carlson and well below league average), he's making better quality contact and getting better results. His .435 average and .579 wOBA on balls put in play is truly awesome and well ahead of his teammate Carlson.
While I think Carlson certainly has a bright future in the big leagues, it's Tyler O'Neill who has the potential to be a star. If he can increase his contact and cut down on the strikeouts, we have a player who is profiling as well as some of the biggest names in baseball right now. I'm not sure the buy-low window is open anymore at this point, but I sure wouldn't be selling high either. We are seeing O'Neill break out in a big way and there's reason to believe that he could continue to improve this year and beyond.
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