When is Predicting a Breakout Season Meaningless?

When your prediction is Collin Balester.

Two questions immediately spring to mind:
1.  What does a breakout season for Collin Balester mean?
2.  Why would you pick a failed-starter-turned-middle-reliever as a 'breakout' candidate?

I assume the safe answer to Question 1 is that he'll provide consistently above-average middle relief.  A more generous answer would be Balester pitching his way up the bullpen hierarchy to become a critical setup man (i.e. the 2010 Burnett).  Even if this implausible scenario materialized - would it significantly affect the course of the Nats' season?  Is it something that Nats fans can get excited about for the future?  Why would someone make a prediction that is both incredibly unlikely and of such limited impact?

A breakout candidate whose potential impact on the team is roughly on par with Collin Balester's

For reference, Baseball Prospectus projects Balester as a long reliever with an ERA of 5.24 and a WHIP of 1.53.  Over 50 innings of work, they peg his SO and BB totals at 33 and 21, respectively.  This is in all likelihood not an impact arm, his competent run out of the bullpen at the end of last season notwithstanding.

Over at the Nationals ZiPS projections, there are some legitimately interesting breakout candidates.  Jordan Zimmermann is the only non-Strasburg starter to feature an ERA+ above league average (adjusted ERA is 100*(leagueERA/ERA), adjusted for ballpark effects).  ZiPS gives him a 15% chance to achieve an ERA+ greater than 130, which would make him a roughly top-10 starter in the NL.  The ninth and tenth best NL ERA+ totals in 2010 were Jonathan Sanchez, 133, and Clayton Kershaw, 132.  That would be a pretty big deal, both for next season and the future.

Additionally, Danny Espinosa is projected to have a 12% chance to hit 30+ HR and an 11% chance to steal 30+ bases.  Yes, that is a greater than 1% chance of him being a 30/30 guy next year:

With Wilson Ramos slated to take over full-time catching duties at some point, that would be another suitably interesting player to talk about.

I could go on, but the point is that on a team with as many young players and question marks (the two often go together) as the Nationals, there is really no excuse to highlight Collin Balester as your breakout candidate.


Bonus Material
I enjoyed this Balester-related dispatch from spring training on several levels.