Sleepers. It’s a term that you hear every year, but what does it really mean?

Well, in the past, it was about players who were legitimately under the radar, who you could target in your drafts hoping that you had info that others in your league didn’t.

Those days have been long gone for years now with all of the amazing tools and content at our disposal. Seriously, it’s a great time to be a baseball fan and a fantasy baseball player with all of the talented content creators out there.

What does sleeper mean now? It’s a term that fantasy sites use for SEO purposes where we highlight players that everyone has heard of, but we label them “sleeper” to drive traffic to our respective sites because people still use it.

It’s hard to find true sleepers unless you’re looking at a draft list of about 1,000 players, but you can still identify value players who are going later than they should in drafts with the ability to bring a lot of value to your fantasy team.

That’s who we are going focus on today, as we are highlighting pitchers going after the 200th pick who have the ability to make a fantasy difference. We highlighted sleeper hitters a couple weeks ago.

A quick note: I don’t feel comfortable writing about players who may benefit from a worldwide pandemic, so I’m going to approach the following players based on what we know, and not make any guesses about when the season will start or who gets pushed up.

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Josh James (HOU) ADP: 249
James was everyone’s favorite sleeper last year, as he was in line for a spot in the Houston rotation. But then a quad injury took him out of the running.

With Gerrit Cole now out of the picture and Justin Verlander recovering from groin surgery, there seems to be a spot open for James to claim this year. The walks will hurt, of course, but James has some of the best pure velocity in baseball, and it results in elite-level strikeout numbers. He’s a two-pitch pitcher, but if he can develop his changeup more this year, look out.

Aaron Civale (CLE) ADP: 253
Why am I excited about a pitcher who had a 7.18 K/9 in 10 big league starts last year? It has to do with the organization. How excited were you about Mike Clevinger or Shane Bieber when they got called up? Not at all, and look what happened with them.

There’s a chance Civale can take another step forward, too, as there is room for strikeout improvement — he had a 9.78 K/9 in eight Triple-A starts last year — without ruining his profile (his GB% went down as his K/9 went up). The key for Civale, who throws a low-90s fastball, will be improving his secondary pitches (specifically his slider and changeup) and relying on them more as out pitches.

Mitch Keller (PIT) ADP: 259
I wrote this in my analysis of CBS ADP, but it’s worth rehashing here:

“With Ray Searage gone, all of the Pirates pitchers should receive a boost. The change in philosophy to allow each individual pitcher to throw what works best for them instead of using an organizational approach. Keller has the tools to succeed at the big-league level, not to mention the velocity and secondary offerings.”

All told, Keller was one of the most unlucky pitchers last year in baseball when you look at his surface numbers vs. his peripheral numbers. The Pirates are going to allow their pitchers to be more individualized instead of relying on an organizational approach. Keller could break out in a big way as an SP3 for 2020.

Garrett Richards (SP – SD) ADP: 312
Remember when the Padres signed Richards to a two-year deal last offseason, and it seemed weird for a team that was hoping to contend to sign a pitcher who just got Tommy John surgery? Now they are banking on that gamble paying off, as Richards is set to return to the mound for San Diego in what is a true competitive year for the franchise.

Usually with pitchers coming off of the surgery, we have to worry about innings limits (think A.J. Puk in Oakland and Lance McCullers in Houston this year). However, it’s different with Richards. He’s a veteran who is in the last year of that aforementioned deal, so the Padres have less reason to limit his workload. They may pitch him until his arm falls off. Of course, staying healthy has been the biggest hurdle in years past for Richards, but when he’s on the mound, he’s been a must-start option.

Corbin Burnes (MIL) ADP: 400
Remember when everyone was obsessing over Freddy Peralta last season, even though he was a one-pitch pitcher? That fascination should be with Burnes this year, even though his numbers were terrible in 2019.

Why the optimism, then?

Corbin Burnes 2019 rank for average spin/velo (minimum 250 pitches thrown)

Fastball: 2nd/122nd
Sinker: 2nd/56th
Cutter: 1st/14th
Slider: 21st/54th
Change up: 181st/12th
Curve: 33rd/117th

🔥🔥🔥🔥

— Michael Waterloo (@MichaelWaterloo) March 8, 2020

That’s why.

Burnes’ stuff is just nasty, and outside of Brandon Woodruff, the Brewers really don’t have another pitcher locked into the rotation. Sorry, Eric Lauer.

Dylan Cease (CHW) ADP: 286
I wrote about Cease in my second-year breakout players column early in the offseason, and I haven’t changed my tune about him one bit. Here’s what I said in case you were still in football mode:

“So I’m going to try to get as many shares of Cease as I can this year – even though that groundball rate makes me nervous with the White Sox defense. The big reason? It’s the change at catcher. There was a 26-run difference between the framing of James McCann behind the dish last year (one of the worst framing catchers in baseball) and Yasmani Grandal (one of the best). Using FanGraphs’ FRM defensive measurement, Grandal (+17) graded out as the best catcher in baseball, while McCann was the worst among qualified catchers at -9. That brings us to Cease, who threw fewer pitches inside of the zone (45.7 percent) compared to the rest of the league (48.5 percent), but also lived on the edge a little bit less (41.6 percent) compared to the league (42.6). If he can live on the edge more with Grandal there, he can keep his strikeouts above one per nine. We know the skills are there, with his fastball velocity (93rd percentile) and fastball spin (87th percentile) ranking among the elite. If he can continue to develop a third pitch to go along with his fastball and slider, he could have a meteoric rise this year.”

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Michael Waterloo is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MichaelWaterloo.