It is fantasy baseball season! Today we’re focusing on fantasy baseball sleepers at the starting pitcher position.
Coming off the shortened 2020 season, starters will be plentiful in number if not innings pitched. Every team will be looking to be creative in utilizing their pitching the best way they can. Some starters will pitch in a more traditional role, but we could see openers and three-inning guys, six-man rotations, and a slew of frequent spot starters.
There is a scarcity of reliable starters who will fill the traditional slots, but a lot of room to fill in with sleepers and projects around the margins.
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Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: Starting Pitchers
LHP Jordan Montgomery, New York Yankees
Montgomery returned to action last season after missing most of the previous two seasons due to Tommy John surgery. The large lefty flashed improved velocity and worked three pitches (fastball, slider, changeup) into bat-missing performances while making 10 starts.
Montgomery registered a swinging-strike rate of 12.9% while doing well to avoid hard contact (28.4% hard hit). A post-hype candidate, the Yankees southpaw was undone by a .320 BABIP and a 65.0% left-on-base figure. Baseball HQ projects a 4.03 ERA and 142 strikeouts for 2021.
RHP Ian Anderson, Braves
Anderson is a talented 22-year-old right-hander who dominated Class High-A and AA in 2018-19. He is one of the most talented young arms in the game.
The changeup is the Atlanta hurler’s bread-and-butter pitch and he deftly crafted it and a decent fastball and curve into a 29.7% strikeout rate and a 52.5% ground-ball rate in a 32 1/3-inning 2020 season. Anderson is also tough on lefty-hitters; that and the ground-ball stuff should help him maximize his innings in 2021 and beyond.
RHP Triston McKenzie, Cleveland Indians
The former first-round draft choice logged a 3.24 ERA in 33 1/3 IP for Cleveland in 2020. The sample was small, but the talent looms large.
McKenzie benefited from a .217 opponent batting average on balls in play, but he was also somewhat undone by a lofty home run rate on fly balls. The 23-year-old exhibits impressive command of a fastball-slider-curve-changeup mix. That mix yielded a nifty 12.4% swinging-strike rate bolstering an 11.34 K/9 figure.
LHP John Means, Baltimore Orioles
Means added over two miles per hour to his fastball last year and put up solid Statcast measures, but much of his growth was overlooked due to a 4.53 ERA. The soon-to-be 28-year-old left-hander throws strikes at a 34% rate and can get righties out. He logged a big September with a .601 OPS against.
The fourth-year major leaguer is a “sleepier” sleeper based on the club he plays for and his status as a late bloomer but the potential is certainly there for above-average production at a fraction of the cost.
RHP Elieser Hernandez, Miami Marlins
Hernandez gets overlooked in a Miami rotation including RHP Sixto Sanchez, RHP Sandy Alcantara, and RHP Pablo Lopez in a rotation full of talented 20-somethings. The 25-year-old has strikeout and walk rates trending the right way and last season he logged 11.92 strikeouts and 1.75 walks per nine while posting a career-best 13.w% swinging-strike rate.
Hernandez made just six starts last year due to a lat strain which ended his season Sept. 1. His repertoire might fit nicely into a short-inning starter role.
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