Jose Bautista's 2010 breakout started in spring training. (Icon SMI)

In early February, I wrote an article discussing how some spring training stats can mean something and may give an advantage heading into fantasy baseball drafts.  This weekend is one of the busiest and last fantasy baseball draft weekends of the season, so it's a good time to take a look at one aspect from that article and present potential breakout players, according to Jon Dewan's Spring Training Slugging Percentage Indicator.

As outlined in the mentioned article, the criteria for finding these players is rather simple.  Given 40 or more spring training at-bats, if a player with at least 200 career major league at-bats posts a slugging percentage at least 200 points higher than his career slugging percentage, he is poised for a breakout year.

This group of players fit perfectly into the criteria as of the end of play on Wednesday March 23^rd.

Name	ST at-bats	ST Slug%	Career Slug%	Difference
Jake Fox - Orioles	61	.836	.423	413
Michael Morse - Washington	55	.727	.456	271
Mitch Moreland - Rangers	52	.673	.469	204
Brandon Wood - Angels	52	.538	.260	278
Aubrey Huff - Giants	50	.740	.476	264
Matt Kemp - Dodgers	50	.720	.472	248
Starlin Castro - Cubs	49	.673	.408	265
Ian Kinsler - Rangers	49	.816	.466	350
Alex Gordon - Royals	48	.646	.405	241
Alex Rios - White Sox	48	.688	.446	242
George Kottaras - Brewers	47	.745	.394	351
Russell Branyan - Diamondbacks	46	.783	.490	293
Travis Buck - Indians	46	.783	.424	359
Marlon Byrd - Cubs	46	.630	.423	207
Coco Crisp - Athletics	46	.783	.410	373
Kila Ka'aihue - Royals	46	.804	.398	406
Jason Michaels - Astros	46	.674	.415	259
Chris Davis - Rangers	45	.822	.459	363
Rajai Davis - Blue Jays	45	.711	.383	328
Carlos Gomez - Brewers	45	.667	.349	318
Willie Harris - Mets	44	.614	.352	262
Alcides Escobar - Royals	43	.651	.335	316
Chris Heisey - Reds	43	.674	.433	241
Josh Thole - Mets	43	.628	.373	255
Alex Rodriguez - Yankees	42	.952	.571	381
Ryan Roberts - Diamondbacks	41	.659	.389	270
Asdrubal Cabrera - Indians	40	.700	.394	306
Ryan Langerhans - Mariners	40	.675	.374	301
Aaron Miles - Dodgers	40	.600	.354	246
Lyle Overbay - Pirates	40	.700	.447	253

This method has successfully predicted breakout seasons for hitters at a 60 percent rate over the past six seasons.  A 60 percent rate may not sound too special, but many other methods for projecting the outcome of player performance at season's end usually sit closer to 30 percent.  It's worth noting the above names if you are looking to take a flier at the end of the draft, or simply want a reason to go an extra dollar on a guy when the bidding stalls in an auction draft.