Miami Marlins hitter is finally breaking out

The Miami Marlins just swept the Washington Nationals at home. The Fish are now 23-21 and 4.5 games back in the National League East. There's more... the team has a 7-3 record in the last ten games. That's the best record in the division during that stretch. An important development is the breakout of LF Bryan De La Cruz. I actually predicted it before the season so I'm extra happy to see this happening. This comes on top of 3B Jean Segura bouncing back from his poor start as well. Let's take a look at what we can expect from Bryan going forward.

Bryan De La Cruz is finally turning into a star for the Miami Marlins.

Bryan De La Cruz batted .310/.342/.535 in the second half of the 2022 season, and was subsequently moved up to batting third in the batting order. He also improved his Exit Velocity from 88.4 in 2021 to 90.8 in 2022. It's 91.3 so far in 2023. The increase in Exit Velocity, helped De La Cruz become the best hitter on the team in the second half of 2022. This further increase is helping him become an even hotter hitter this season.

The Miami Marlins could use another big middle of the order bat, and it looks like for the second straight season it could be Bryan De La Cruz. He is currently batting .287/.327/.434, with 4 home runs and 15 RBI in 40 games and 143 AB. He should get even better as the season goes along, at least in my opinion. He's actually batting .281 with 3 home runs and 8 RBI over the last month! He's also batting .455 with 2 home runs and 5 RBI over the last week.

Can he keep it up? He has a .389 BABIP so that's an obvious concern. His career BABIP is .345 so that means that his production will likely decline. Fangraphs isn't very high on Bryan, projecting a .260/.310/.416 batting line for him going forward. Fangraphs is lower on De La Cruz than I am, as I fully expect the breakout to continue.