Sleepers and busts. That’s the nature of fantasy baseball, isn’t it? Not every player is like Albert Pujols in his prime, with month-to-month splits that are virtually carbon copies of one another. Production ebbs and flows for every player, not only month-by-month and half-by-half, but also season-by-season. Sometimes we can see a breakout coming; a guy might have suffered through a season with a lower-than-expected BABIP or a line drive rate which didn’t match his production.
For pitchers, we have a number of ways to forecast someone who came out on the short end of the luck stick. As a result, we can attempt to forecast some of the guys who might be sleepers at the position, which is extremely helpful considering how deep it is. Today, we bring you our starting pitcher sleepers.
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Robbie Ray (ARI)
Right now Ray is going as the 57th starter off NFBC boards, right around 214th overall. For the casual fan, it might be hard to see why he’s even going there. He was 8-15 last year and had an ERA close to 5.00. He has a career record of 14-31. He pitches in a strong offensive park. So why all the hubbub? Only the dearly departed Jose Fernandez fanned more batters per nine innings among qualified starters last year than Ray (11.3 K/9). And when you’re working with stuff like that, it should buy you a lot of equity elsewhere. Clearly, it didn’t with Ray, whose FIP was more than a full run lower than his ERA (3.76), while he posted an above-average groundball rate (45.7 percent) and respectable walk (3.7 BB/9) and home run (1.2 HR/9) rates. Those could stand to come down a touch, but he’s also working with a much better defensive catcher this time around, with defense-first receiver Jeff Mathis looking to take the bulk of the work back there. That’s the kind of guy who could reel in a wild stallion like Ray, who carries an absurd whiff rate on his slider (20.5 percent) and more than solid marks on his other offerings (9.3 percent on four-seam fastball; 8.5 percent on two-seamer). Also of note with Ray is that he skewed more groundball heavy in the second half (47.7 percent) than the first (44.2 percent). That’ll help keep the ball in the yard.
Jon Gray (COL)
Coors Field starters can be scary, but Gray put some solid work on the tape last year. His ERA, like Ray’s, was iffy (4.60) but it was also backed by a sturdy FIP (3.60) that showed he fanned a ton of batters (9.9 K/9), kept the walks more or less in check (3.2 BB/9) and most importantly, he kept the ball in the park (1.0 HR/9). Gray’s splits were a bit strange last season, as he allowed more fly balls but fewer home runs per fly ball in the second half, so that’ll certainly be a trend worth monitoring as he pitches half his starts in the thin Denver air. Last year at Coors, opposing batters hit just .235/.291/.383 against him — yet that still resulted in a 4.30 ERA. That seems to be due for some positive regression. The top fantasy starter in Colorado might be a little like winning Homecoming King as a homeschooler, but this is a guy who throws a legit 95 mph fastball with a terrific slider (24.1 percent whiff rate). I’ll take a chance on that as the 47th pitcher off the board (No. 182 overall).
Kevin Gausman (BAL)
Gausman is coming off the board 35th among starters (No. 147 overall) and is in an interesting tier of pitchers who are either like him and looking to take that next step — like Marcus Stroman, Steven Matz, and Jameson Taillon — or are guys looking to bounce back toward previous glory — like Matt Harvey, Dallas Keuchel, and Felix Hernandez. In Gausman’s favor here is that he was already really, really good last year. He made 30 starts for the first time in his career, and posted a solid, if unspectacular 3.61 ERA with 8.7 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, and a groundball rate right around league average. The home run rate was a bit disconcerting (1.4 HR/9), but this is still a guy with all the physical talent in the world looking to take the next step. He came within an out of throwing 180 innings last year, mixes in the 94-95 mph heat and looks to be getting the feel for a splitter that has potential to be a real plus pitch for him. He mixed it in three times as frequent last year (663 instances) than the year before (203), and each time was able to sustain a whiff rate in excess of 22 percent. With a 5.0-percent bump to the whiff rate on his slider and a respectable worm-burning two-seamer in his back pocket, all the tools are in Gausman’s toolbelt for a huge breakout at age 26 this year.
Jerad Eickhoff (PHI)
There’s nothing incredible about Eickhoff, but he’s just so solid. He’s going one spot behind Ray among starters at 214 overall, and is a spot ahead of the Drews (Smyly and Pomeranz) — both of whom have durability issues. Eickhoff, meanwhile, quietly missed 200 innings by eight outs while fanning 7.6 batters per nine, walking just 1.9 per nine with a respectable groundball rate (40.7 percent). Nothing jumps off the screen — the home run rate could use a little work — but he’s just a steady righty who works in decent velocity (91-92 mph with the heat) with excellent whiff rates on the curve (15.4 percent) and the slider (17 percent). Eickhoff may need to move away from the slider in favor of the curve moving forward; nine of the 30 home runs he allowed last season came on it, as opposing batters hit just .232 on the pitch but still slugged .518. The curve was a much more reasonable .158 batting average with a .281 slugging percentage. The skillset is here for a very well-rounded No. 2 fantasy starter, and he’s going 30 picks behind teammate Vince Velasquez, who is very boom-or-bust with his durability woes.
Want to dig a little deeper? We like these guys a bit further down the list, too:
- Mike Foltynewicz (SP-ATL) – No. 86 SP
- Ervin Santana (SP-MIN) – No. 91 SP
- Brandon Finnegan (SP-CIN) – No. 93 SP
- Tyler Anderson (SP-COL) – No. 99 SP
- Archie Bradley (SP-ARI) – No. 118 SP
- Brock Stewart (SP-LAD) – No. 142 SP
- Kyle Gibson (SP-MIN) – No. 149 SP
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: First Base
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Second Base
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Third Base
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Shortstop
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Outfielder
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Catchers
- Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Starting Pitchers
Brandon Warne is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Brandon, check out his archive and follow him @brandon_warne
