10 young hitters to watch in 2012

On Thursday, I wrote about ten young pitchers to keep an eye on in 2012. The same caveats apply for this list as for the pitchers list: all hitters must be under 25, and none of them can have been traded this offseason. Let's take a look. 1. Jason Heyward, Braves. In his rookie season of 2010, Heyward posted an .849 OPS and 5.1 fWAR, finishing as the runner up in the NL Rookie of the Year race behind Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants. Last season, Heyward's OPS fell to .708 and his fWAR fell to 2.2, due in part to a drop in BABIP from .335 to .260, a lingering shoulder injury that was never healed all season, and the entrance of new hitting coach Larry Parrish, who messed with Heyward's approach (and for that matter, most of the rest of the team's approach) at the plate. This season, Heyward's shoulder is apparently healthy coming into the year, and Parrish has been replaced with Greg Walker, who was the mind behind some of the high octane White Sox o...