Every season brings unexpected breakouts.

We don’t mean rookies such as Paul Skenes or Colton Cowser -- can’t-miss prospects who, when they made it to the Majors, did not, in fact, miss. We’re talking about players who were either flying under the radar before reaching the big leagues or who had previously been unable to reach the high expectations placed upon them.

In 2024, though, these eight guys (listed alphabetically below) announced their presence with undeniable authority. Going forward, you’ll remember their names.

Patrick Bailey, C, Giants
Bailey was the sort of player Giants fans hoped could be a vocal leader of their team in the Buster Posey mold (albeit with less pop in his bat), and he did well enough to finish seventh in National League Rookie of the Year Award voting in 2023. But everything got better in 2024 as Bailey established himself as the Giants’ clear-cut catcher of the future … and maybe even their leader of the future. His bat slowed down a bit after a promising start, but his glove? Bailey led all players in Statcast’s fielding run value metric (plus-22), and FanGraphs, which factors pitch framing into its WAR calculation, had Bailey third among catchers with 4.3 WAR. At age 25, Bailey already has won as many Gold Gloves as Posey -- now his team’s president of baseball operations -- did over his whole career.

Lawrence Butler, RF, Athletics
On May 14, the A’s sent Butler down to Triple-A Las Vegas, and why wouldn’t they? About to turn 24, he was hitting .179 with just two homers and a .555 OPS in 41 games. (This, after struggling in 42 games in 2023.) But shortly after Butler was called back up in June, A’s hitting coach Darren Bush worked on some swing adjustments with him, and in the 13 games heading into the All-Star Break, he hit seven homers. After the break, Butler was a monster, hitting .300 with 13 homers and 12 steals, establishing himself as a piece to build around for the A’s. With Brent Rooker, the A's now have one of the best 1-2 punches in the entire sport.

Kerry Carpenter, DH/RF, Tigers
The Tigers’ efforts over the past few years to develop some big bats through their system have produced some clear successes (Riley Greene) and some still-unanswered questions (Spencer Torkelson). But no one really saw Carpenter coming. Carpenter didn’t break into the Majors until late in 2022, when he was almost 25, but since then, all he has done is hit. His 135 career OPS+ puts him right in line with Rafael Devers and Matt Olson over the same span.

Carpenter authored a major breakthrough season in 2024, raising his OPS a full 121 points to .932, leading the team in that category. A midseason injury hurt his counting numbers, and the Tigers suffered quite a bit in his absence. They didn’t look whole again -- and didn’t make their great run to the postseason -- until he returned.

Jarren Duran, CF, Red Sox
You might have held out some real hope for Duran heading into 2024. He’d hit .295 with eight homers and 24 steals over 102 games in 2023, generating some forward momentum -- the kind you’re looking for from a player entering the back half of his 20s -- after he struggled during his big league stints in 2021 and ’22. But then Duran, seemingly out of nowhere, became one of the best players in baseball in 2024, leading the Majors in both doubles and triples, hitting 21 homers and finishing in the top 10 in WAR. He’s probably the full-on leader of this team now, and a guy to build around. He also has the best ability: Availability. He led the Majors in plate appearances this year, with 735. You can count on him, every day.

Erick Fedde, RHP, Cardinals
He was a first-round pick of the Nationals back in 2014, and the Nats thought they might have had a future Stephen Strasburg on their hands. They didn’t. He never could quite get it together in the bigs -- he had a career 5.41 ERA in Washington -- and eventually decamped to the KBO in 2023 to figure out his game. He returned to the States in 2024 an entirely different pitcher, putting up a 3.11 ERA for the White Sox, before being traded to the Cardinals and notching 10 solid starts. He's now a key piece of the Cardinals rotation, maybe their most stable one outside of Sonny Gray, and depending on what happens with the Cardinals this year, he could be a Trade Deadline acquisition once again before becoming a free agent.

Hunter Greene, RHP, Reds
The Reds have been waiting for this since they selected Greene with the second overall pick of the 2017 Draft. The tools have always been there: He’s huge, he throws hard, he has everything you need. It all came together for him in 2024, with a 2.75 ERA and more than one strikeout per inning. It was just hard to square up the guy: He gave up just 5.7 hits and 0.7 homers per nine innings, and opponents batted .183 and slugged .298 against him. According to Baseball-Reference’s formulation of WAR, Greene even led NL pitchers in that category, with 6.3. He’s still only 25, by the way.

Cristopher Sánchez, LHP, Phillies
That’s all the Phillies needed: Another quality starting pitcher, falling to them out of nowhere. (In this case, he was a trade acquisition from the Rays after the 2019 season.) Sánchez had started to piece it together in 2023, but he was a revelation for the Phillies in '24, putting up a 3.32 ERA in 31 starts, making his first All-Star team and even receiving votes in the NL Cy Young Award race. The Phillies were so impressed with him that, in the middle of their trip to London this summer, they negotiated a four-year, $22.5 million extension that includes team options for 2029 and ‘30. Sánchez may end up outlasting every other notable pitcher in this rotation.

Ezequiel Tovar, SS, Rockies
There might not be a team in baseball that needs a homegrown star more than the Rockies, and they might have one in Tovar, who became a full-fledged All-Star-quality player in his age-22 season. Tovar played 150-plus games for the second straight season, and his defense was so good that he won his first Gold Glove Award. But it was the bat that stood out this year: He hit 26 homers, and, perhaps more impressively, he led the NL in doubles with 45. He probably could afford to up those walks a bit and lower the strikeouts, but he’s still young, with plenty of room to grow. He has all the time in the world to do both, and so much more.