Year of the Breakout Player

May, 28, 2011

5/28/11

10:26

AM ET

By Jim Bowden | ESPN.com

A breakout player is someone who has always had the talent and potential, but has never been able to live up to it at the major league level. The reasons players have breakout seasons include but are not limited to: an opportunity to play full time, rebounding from injuries, making adjustments they've never made before, maturity, learning from experience, getting significant playing time, increased physical ability due to different training methods.

There are several great breakout stories so far from this 2011 season and I found it difficult to decide who qualifies. Therefore, players like Matt Kemp won't be included because he already had his breakout season, while players like Mike Stanton and Starlin Castro showed us last year what they could do. Others like Ryan Vogelsong and Phil Humber could have made list, but I wanted to limit it to five pitchers and five position players.

Position players

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

Jim Bowden

Bowden, who served as the senior vice president and GM for the Cincinnati Reds and the Washington Nationals, is an analyst for ESPN.com. In 1992, Bowden became the youngest GM in MLB history when the Reds hired him at age 31. The Reds finished in first place twice during his 10 years as GM, and he was named MLB Executive of the Year by Baseball America in 1999. After working for ESPN in 2004, Bowden became the first GM of the Washington Nationals when the franchise relocated from Montreal to Washington, D.C., in 2005, working in that role until the 2009 season. Bowden co-hosts the "Inside Pitch" radio show on Sirius XM satellite radio. Follow on Twitter: @JimBowdenESPNxm.