I love chasing upside as much as the next gamer, but it’s important to mix in predictable, boring, established talent with their more volatile counterparts. With that in mind, the following half-dozen players make for extremely attractive targets in drafts to compose the backbone of your fantasy squad. Only one has a top-75 average draft position (ADP), and just one more cracks the top 100. Given their respective ADPs, gamers can mix some affordable, high-upside players around them at all points of the draft while still securing a strong foundation with the following group.
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Nelson Cruz (DH – MIN): ADP – 82.0
Year | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG/OBP/SLG |
2019 | 454 | 81 | 41 | 108 | 0 | .311/.392/.639 |
2020 Zeile * | 513 | 84 | 38 | 106 | 1 | .277/.351/.547 |
*Projections
The biggest knock on Cruz is his eligibility, but that’s baked into his ADP. The veteran slugger is aging like a fine wine, and he’s a Statcast darling. Among qualified hitters last year, his 12.5 Barrels/PA% was the highest, per Baseball Savant. He also amassed the third-highest FB/LD exit velocity at 99.2 mph.
His glorious batted-ball data resulted in a .295 expected batting average (xBA) and .643 expected slugging (xSLG). Cruz’s .311 batting average exceeded his expected mark, which was excellent nonetheless. Since 2014, Cruz’s low-water tally for homers in a season is 37 in 2018 with the Mariners, and he’s reached at least 40 homers four times in that six-year stretch. Additionally, he’s hit .287 or better in four of his last five years. The 39-year-old Cruz remains an elite hitter who’s under-priced at his ADP and a reliable building block for fantasy offenses.
Elvis Andrus (SS – TEX): ADP – 149.4
Year | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG/OBP/SLG |
2019 | 600 | 81 | 12 | 72 | 31 | .275/.313/.401 |
2020 Zeile | 582 | 77 | 13 | 66 | 22 | .271/.316/.401 |
Andrus is a much different type of player than Cruz, but his speed is a welcome contribution to this featured group. The 31-year-old shortstop has stolen at least 21 bases in 10 of 11 seasons in the majors. If you bump that number up to a 24-steal minimum, he’s still hit that threshold in nine seasons.
The veteran’s batting average has bounced around a bit from season to season, but he’s a career .275 hitter coming off of a year in which he batted exactly .275. Although power was absent from his profile in his early years, he smashed 20 homers in 2017, six in just 428 plate appearances in 2018, and 12 last year. Andrus should also chip in runs and RBIs as part of a well-rounded stat line.
Justin Turner (3B – LAD): ADP – 148.8
Year | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG/OBP/SLG |
2019 | 479 | 80 | 27 | 67 | 2 | .290/.372/.509 |
2020 Zeile | 472 | 78 | 23 | 74 | 3 | .291/.362/.493 |
Third base is deep, and Turner’s often injured. Having said that, he’s quite good when on the diamond. Furthermore, he’s totaled at least 426 plate appearances in five straight seasons and bested 540 plate appearances three times during that time frame, so he fits in the nagging/minor-injury bucket as opposed to the severely injured category.
Last year’s .290 average snapped back-to-back seasons of hitting north of .310. From 2017 through last year, Turner’s .307 batting average is tied for the sixth-highest mark among qualified hitters, according to FanGraphs. He’s an elite contributor there.
He’s also slugged 21 homers or more in three of the last four years, and predominantly hitting third in a loaded Dodgers lineup enhances his run-production ability. Turner is a four-category contributor whose greatest impact is made in batting average. As such, he’s an outstanding target to offset hitters who are batting average liabilities.
Adam Eaton (OF – WAS): ADP – 183.8
Year | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG/OBP/SLG |
2019 | 566 | 103 | 15 | 49 | 15 | .279/.365/.428 |
2020 Zeile | 524 | 88 | 13 | 55 | 13 | .284/.355/.425 |
Eaton’s not in the same tier of a batting average helper as Turner, but he’s no slouch. He’s a career .285 hitter who has amassed a .288 batting average in 1,133 plate appearances since 2017. The veteran outfielder rebounded from back-to-back injury-marred seasons in 2017 and 2018 to play 151 games last year.
In addition to providing fantasy rosters a bump in batting average, his table-setting skills helped him pile up 103 runs last year and should keep him in the two-hole for the Nationals again this season. Eaton rounds his contributions out with a pinch of pop and a dash of speed. He’s a strong bet to reach double-digit homers and stolen bases. His lineup spot hurts in RBIs, but otherwise, he’s a box-score stuffer.
Yu Darvish (SP – CHC): ADP – 68.0
Year | IP | W | K | ERA | WHIP |
2019 | 178.2 | 6 | 229 | 3.98 | 1.10 |
2020 Zeile | 175.4 | 11 | 211 | 3.82 | 1.19 |
Darvish’s first season with the Cubs in 2018 was an injury-shortened nightmare. Last season got off to a sluggish start, but then he made adjustments to his pitch mix and reverted into a dominant front-of-the-rotation starter. In 23 starts spanning 142 innings from May 15 onward, Darvish spun a 3.61 ERA, 3.03 SIERA, 0.94 WHIP, 4.1 BB%, 33.0 K%, and 13.7 SwStr%, per FanGraphs. When including his messy beginning, Darvish’s final totals look a lot like his 2017 work.
The veteran righty’s 2018 is the outlier on his resume. For his career, Darvish owns a 3.57 ERA, 3.32 SIERA, 1.17 WHIP, 8.8 BB%, and 29.8 K%. Looking at just his post-Tommy John surgery stats starting from 2016 through last year — thus including his poor 2018 — he has a 3.90 ERA, 3.56 SIERA, 1.15 WHIP, 7.9 BB%, and 29.6 K% in 87 starts spanning 505.2 innings.
Darvish’s 2020 Zeile projections are in line with his post-surgery numbers, but last year’s electric finish points to even more upside. The 33-year-old fits the profile of reliable and established, but it might not be fair to call him boring given the way he concluded 2019. Regardless, he fits the spirit of this piece and isn’t just a solid SP2 target; he’s a viable SP1 whose ADP doesn’t fully reflect his staff-anchor ability.
Ken Giles (RP – TOR): ADP – 126.2
Year | IP | SV | K | ERA | WHIP |
2019 | 53.0 | 23 | 83 | 1.87 | 1.00 |
2020 Zeile | 62.0 | 30 | 83 | 3.21 | 1.12 |
Giles is one of a dozen closers whose job security earns a “strong” label on our closer depth chart. Closer jobs and bullpen roles in general tend to feature a ton of overturn year to year, and Giles hasn’t been immune to hiccups. In his first season with the Astros in 2016, Giles recorded a 4.11 ERA in 65.2 innings. In a 2018 season split between the Astros and Blue Jays, he tallied a 4.65 ERA.
For his career, however, he has a 2.67 ERA. Additionally, last year’s 1.87 ERA was his third ERA south of 2.00 in a season, having twice accomplished the feat to open his career in 2014 and 2015. Sandwiched between his two down years, Giles ripped off a 2.30 ERA in 62.2 innings.
He’s an elite bat-missing reliever with a career 33.3 K% and 17.0 SwStr%, and he eclipsed both of those marks last year with a career-high 39.9 K% and 18.7 SwStr%. He’s in good form coming off of a spectacular season, yet he’s an affordable top reliever target for gamers. Excluding relief-eligible starting pitchers, Giles is the 10th reliever off the board in ADP.
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.