2021 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers - Elieser Hernandez

The Marlins’ expected starting rotation is young, but ripe with potential. Sandy Alcantara is expected to be the anchor of the staff and he’s just 25 years old. RosterResource projects that the rest of the Marlins’ rotation will feature Pablo Lopez (25), Elieser Hernandez (25), and Sixto Sanchez (22). Trevor Rogers, Daniel Castano, Nick Neidert and Braxton Garrett are battling for the fifth spot in the rotation. Among those pitchers, Castano is the veteran at 25.

All four Marlins pitchers who’ve locked down a spot in the starting rotation are very talented and have upside. However, while fantasy managers have been busy drafting Sanchez and Lopez this preseason (ADP 121 and 139, respectively), Hernandez has been all but forgotten in many draft formats.

Let's look at Hernandez's skillset and why he could be a valuable draft sleeper in 2021.

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Hernandez Will Focus on Increasing His IP Per Start

Hernandez was enjoying his best season in the big leagues in 2020, but a strained lat muscle forced him to miss almost the entire month of September. He posted career bests in ERA (3.16), WHIP (1.013), K/9 (11.9) and BB/9 (1.8).

Hernandez’s career stats have steadily improved since his big league debut in 2018. However, in order to take that next step in his maturation process and be considered a top fantasy starting pitcher, he needs to be able to pitch deeper into games. Hernandez has only pitched past the fifth inning in eight of his 27 big league starts.

Hernandez spent the offseason refining his changeup, and plans on using it more this season. During the 2018 season, he threw it 15% of the time. In 2019 that rate fell to 11.3%, and last season he only threw it six percent of the time. He believes that using it more will help him increase his average innings per start.

The chart below (courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net) details opposing hitters’ batting average against (BAA) Hernandez’s offerings, and reveals why Hernandez should use his changeup more. As you can see, batters have been tattooing his fastball once they’ve seen it three or more times in a game.

As this article is being written Hernandez has made two spring training starts and has pitched to a 7.71 ERA in 4.2 innings. He used his changeup 25% of the time in his most recent spring start and it generated two strikeouts. It’s been an effective pitch, with hitters registering a paltry .189 BAA it thus far in his career. With his fastball often playing up in the zone, re-introducing his changeup while also continuing to feature his slider (.114 BAA last season) will reinforce a north-south pitch combo that should keep opposing hitters on their toes.

We’ve already discussed how effective his changeup and slider can be, but on the surface, his fastball, which averaged just 91.3 mph last season, is pretty pedestrian. However, Hernandez’s ability to paint the corners with his fastball makes up for its lack of electrifying velocity. In Thomas Harrigan’s (@HarriganMLB) article "This is a Dark Horse for MLB's Best Rotation" he noted that no pitcher who tossed at least 100 pitches in 2020 had a higher edge rate than Hernandez’s 51.4%.

According to Baseball Savant, 57.2% of Hernandez’s 2020 pitches were thrown in the zone. The league average was 49.9%.  Hernandez has been able to use that superior command to increasingly get the upper hand against opposing batters. His first-pitch strike rate has increased in each of the past three seasons. In 2018 it was 56.3 and in 2018 it jumped to 65.2. Last season his first-pitch strike rate reached a career-high 68.9.

As a flyball pitcher, it’s not surprising that the one area that has been a consistent problem for Hernandez has been his tendency to give up the long ball. He owns a 1.9 HR/9 rate for his career. MLB’s introduction of a potentially less lively baseball and Hernandez’s increased use of his changeup, could help to alleviate the problem. Hernandez’s changeup, has the second-lowest slugging percentage and ISO against from among his offerings.

2021 Outlook

Overall, Hernandez’s pitching performance and career statistics have been steadily trending upward.  Since his debut in 2018 his ERA, WHIP, xERA, and ERA estimators FIP, xFIP, and SIERA have all improved each season. With Hernandez's K/9 and BB/9 also improving each season as well, there’s definite cause to be optimistic that 2021 can be his breakout season.

With a FantasyPros' Expert Consensus ADP of 272 (as of March 9), he is virtually free in 12 team roto-league snake drafts. Hernandez could potentially be a draft-day bargain. Fantasy baseball drafters might initially select him in hopes of simply securing starting pitching depth, but by the end of the season he could end up helping them win a few pitching categories. Look for Hernandez to provide fantasy managers with lower double-digit win totals, an ERA well below 4.00, and a WHIP in the 1.10 range.

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