Scoring runs is the tenant of winning baseball games, and yet it’s often fantasy baseball’s most overlooked hitting category.

Drafters justifiably crave power and speed. Hitters who offer little of either with a high batting average can fall by the wayside, but they especially turn into values when translating those abilities into scoring opportunities atop a lineup card.

While the old guard still gets the warm and fuzzies about RBIs, abundant run tallies just don’t pop off the page. In fact, some high-end run providers nearly made this list due to a lack of recognition. Adam Eaton has a 182 ADP despite reaching home 103 times last season. Shin-Soo Choo never gets any love despite scoring 272 runs in the past three years.

The following sleepers go a bit deeper down the draft board. All of the players highlighted below have a consensus ADP below 250, as of March 8. Identifying sneaky runs contributors boils down to identifying contact skills and plate patience, which can yield a leadoff or No. 2 role. In some cases, a batter is already positioned to sit atop the order.

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Brandon Nimmo (OF – NYM)
There are plenty of valid reasons not to target Nimmo in a league using standard categories. How excited can you get about a career .254 hitter with 31 homers and 14 steals across 310 career MLB games? By the way, he’s dealing with a lingering neck issue and will likely platoon with Jake Marisnick in center field.

Nimmo, however, does one thing exceptionally well. He walks. Well, technically, he sprints to first after every base on balls, but the outfielder has notched a superb .387 OBP over his major league career. Even when batting .221 in a disappointing 2019, he still registered a .375 OBP on account of drawing 46 walks in 199 plate appearances. Take a look at the company he keeps for walk rate over the last two seasons:

 
The majority of fantasy leagues no not credit walks. Those who play with the category should treat Nimmo less as a sleeper and more as a strong mid-draft target. Everyone else should still consider the ripple effect of his patience. As long as he keeps taking his free passes, Nimmo should commence the Mets’ lineup against right-handed pitchers.

Back in a breakout 2018, Nimmo plated 77 runs across 140 games. Even in limited work, he should score enough when setting the table for Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso, and Michael Conforto. If healthy and productive, the owner of a 119 wRC+ against lefties could also quickly nix the need for a timeshare. At a 311.4 ADP, he’s often available as the fifth outfielder in a 15-team mixed league or the closing pick of a 12-teamer.

Hanser Alberto (2B/3B – BAL)
Baltimore’s lineup stinks. It also stunk last year, but Jonathan Villar nevertheless scored 111 runs as their typical leadoff man. Now that he’s changed allegiances to another last-place squad in Miami, the Orioles need someone new to occupy the role.

The easy front-runner is Alberto. While his 2.9% walk rate makes him the sharpest detour from Nimmo imaginable, the infielder instead batted .305 with the lowest strikeout rate of any qualified hitter in 2019.

 
It still amounted to a mundane .329 OBP, but take a look at Baltimore’s lineup. Is Jose Iglesias really a better choice? Alberto excelled under the spotlight last year, hitting .349 with 30 runs in 49 games when batting first. He also attempted six of his eight steals, getting caught four times, when leading off.

A 337.3 ADP pays no mind to Alberto’s strong contact skills, so it’s certainly not taking a potentially high run output into account. Bad teams are often a terrific source of fantasy value, so don’t be shocked if the 27-year-old hits .290 with 80 or more runs because of all the plate appearances presented his way.

Shogo Akiyama (OF – CIN)
The Reds had a surplus of outfielders before signing Nick Castellanos, the one lock for everyday playing time among them. In his arrival to the United States, Akiyama must earn his keep over Jesse Winker, Nick Senzel, Aristides Aquino, and Phillip Ervin for one of two vacant spots.

At a 268.8 ADP, drafters aren’t undergoing a tremendous risk for the 31-year-old newcomer. Perhaps he starts in the strong end of a platoon, but there’s a path to him topping a power-packed lineup. Roster Resource projects as much, which is understandable given his profile.

Over his last five seasons in Japan, Akiyama hit .321 with an OBP never slipping below.385. Mike Bolsinger, a former Dodgers pitcher who faced Akiyama in NPB, compared the lefty to Adam Eaton. While the projection systems don’t anticipate as high of a batting average, Steamer forecasts a .350 OBP with a comparable ISO (.154) to the Washington outfielder’s .148 from 2019.

An unclear role clouds Akiyama’s value, and Winker also has a keen batting eye that would play well atop the order against righties. If given the right opportunity, he could follow in Eaton’s footsteps as a boring value who pieces his way to 15 homers and 10 steals with a solid average and OBP. None of that will entice drafters, making runs his possible meal ticket if the Reds oblige.

Tommy La Stella (2B/3B – LAA)
Andrelton Simmons (SS – LAA)
How would you like the guy who bats above Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon? It looked like Joc Pederson for a second, but the jettisoned deal once again vacates the Angels’ highly valuable leadoff spot. They have two high-contact infielders up for the task if they rebound from injuries.

Nobody captured the absurdity of last year’s rabbit ball more than La Stella, who surpassed his previous career tally of 10 with 16 in 321 plate appearances. Let’s forget about the bizarre power boom and instead appreciate the elite contact skills exhibited in 2019. His 8.7% strikeout rate would have bested Alberto if he qualified. David Fletcher — another leadoff candidate if he fends off La Stella as the starting second baseman — and Michael Brantley were the only qualifying hitters to best his 89.8% contact rate. The 31-year-old could return from a fractured right tibia as a valuable late-career success story.

Due to his elite defense at shortstop, Simmons has a more secure starting job in his comeback from a season ruined by ankle and foot injuries. Although only a .268/.316/.380 career hitter, he has struck out less frequently than anyone since joining the Angels in 2016. He’s batted .280 with a .327 OBP during that span, and the contact trends give him a decent chance of replicating 2018’s .292 average if healthy.

La Stella and Simmons are going around the same range at 306.2 and 331.6, respectively. The former makes the better late-round flier in a standard mixed league while the latter is particularly appealing in deeper formats. Either one would shatter value on his current ADP if spending most of 2020 in the leadoff spot.

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