Deeper NL Starting Pitcher Sleepers - Undervalued ADPs

March 28, 2018

Elliott Baas identifies some deep ADP sleepers for 2018 fantasy baseball drafts at starting pitcher. These NL SP should be draft targets in mixed leagues.

Nothing helps deepen a fantasy rotation like scooping up late-round values. Having a few sleepers in your back pocket allows for a heavier investment in hitting earlier in the draft, and gives you some names to target once the player pool gets thin.

For those who love to do last-minute drafts, start their league a bit late, or want a leg up on the race for priority waiver wire sleepers, this is for you.

This article will look at five National League starting pitchers going after pick 200 (Per NFBC ADP, as of 03/22) that make for nice sleepers at their current draft cost.

NL Starters Who Could Be Bargains

Kenta Maeda, Los Angeles Dodgers

198th Overall, 73rd Pitcher

Okay so this one’s cheating a little, but Maeda deserves some attention. After an impressive rookie season coming over from Japan in 2016, Maeda took a step back in 2017. His ERA ballooned from 3.48 in 2016 to 4.22 in 2017, though his 3.89 xFIP in 2017 wasn’t too far off his 3.70 xFIP in 2016. The culprit for these struggles was the long ball. Maeda surrendered 1.42 HR/9 last season. Despite those struggles, Maeda made gains in both dominance and command. His strikeout rate went up to 9.38 K/9, his swinging strike rate improved to a stellar 12.5%. His walk rate also decreased down to 2.28 BB/9. Many of Maeda’s improvements were due to the cutter he added in 2017. His new cutter had an 18.05% whiff rate, and along with his slider gave him two strikeout pitches. Maeda’s repertoire is now five pitches deep, and each one has been effective at different times for him.

Maeda’s arsenal and ability to get swings and misses give him a lot of upside. In terms of fantasy value it’s easy to compare him to other high-upside Dodgers starters like Rich Hill and Alex Wood. This trio may provide a high volume of innings but the innings they do provide should be quality. Relative to those two Maeda doesn’t get as much attention for his potential to provide high quality innings. Maeda has had the highest swinging strike rate of the three, and has provided the most innings over the last two seasons. His draft cost (199^th) compared to Wood (114^th) and Hill (125^th) make him a nice value. Home runs may always be a problem for him, but he’ll be a good source of strikeouts and WHIP for the cost. And if Maeda can translate his playoff bullpen success to the rotation he’ll be in for quite the season.

Dinelson Lamet, San Diego Padres

205th Overall, 79th Pitcher

Lamet made his major league debut in 2017, and he got attention with a 28.3% strikeout rate in 114.1 innings. Lamet’s 2017 strikeout rate was higher than aces Yu Darvish, Carlos Carrasco, and Justin Verlander. Lamet got it done with a combination of his four seam fastball and devastating slider. Batters hit .141 with a .098 ISO and 19% whiff rate against the slider last season, and the pitch drove his success. His overall numbers weren’t as pretty, however. Lamet had a 4.57 ERA, 4.35 FIP, and 11.1% walk rate. He also surrendered a staggering 1.42 HR/9. With a 35.3% hard contact rate and 43.1% flyball rate against, the ball was bound to fly against him. Petco didn't soften the blow either, as he gave up just as many homers (9) at home versus on the road.  His pitching style is reminiscent of Rays ace Chris Archer. Archer has had over 230 strikeouts each of the last three seasons, but also has his share of issues with home runs, hard contact, and left-handed hitters. Archer has also primarily relied on just his four seamer and slider throughout his career.

Lamet’s biggest hurdle will be developing and commanding a third pitch. He used either the slider or fastball 95% of the time in 2017. He’s been working on a curveball during the spring, and has experimented with a changeup last season. His changeup actually got a 15.48% whiff rate in 2017, though he only threw the pitch 84 times. His fastball slider combo is enough to handle righties, who had just a .537 OPS against him last season. Without a third pitch he’ll be unable to get lefties out, who had a .867 OPS against Lamet. In a division where he’ll face the likes of Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger, Charlie Blackmon, and Jake Lamb regularly this creates an even bigger problem. If he feels comfortable enough to use the changeup occasionally Lamet could make huge leaps forward. At the very least there will be strikeouts, with the upside for more. Lamet is one serviceable off-speed pitch away from ascension.

Michael Wacha, St. Louis Cardinals

226th Overall, 84th Pitcher

Wacha was a solid fantasy pitcher in 2014-15, but a shoulder injury and bad luck (.334 BABIP against, 64.7% LOB) derailed his 2016 and caused his stock to plummet. Because of his inflated 4.13 ERA Wacha’s 2017 bounce back went under-the-radar. Last season he had an increased 22.5% strikeout rate and a 3.63 FIP. Wacha also upped his fastball velocity nearly two MPH from the previous year, averaging a career high 95.1 MPH on his four seamer in 2017. The real diamond in his arsenal is the changeup, which has an 18.42% whiff rate lifetime. Wacha doesn’t have near the strikeout upside that someone like Dinelson Lamet has, but there’s enough here to make him interesting.

Wacha’s 4.13 ERA last season seems a little higher than expected based on the way he pitched. His 3.63 FIP and 3.88 xFIP suggest that his ERA should have been below four. Wacha also had a .327 BABIP against in 2017. BABIP doesn’t necessarily need to regress to the league average of .300, but Wacha never had a BABIP over .288 prior to 2016 and surrendered only 28.0% hard contact last season. The acquisition of Marcell Ozuna, who had +11 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) last season will help to lower that BABIP. So will moving Dexter Fowler, who had -18 DRS in CF, to a corner outfield spot. With the injury more than a year behind him there aren’t any major red flags in Wacha’s game that would suggest that his skills have deteriorated. There is a good possibility that Wacha returns to the pitcher he was prior to 2016, and at pick 226 that would be a good value.

Sean Newcomb, Atlanta Braves

318th Overall, 121st Pitcher

If Dinelson Lamet’s ADP is too rich for your blood, Newcomb makes for a cheaper high risk/high reward pick. Like Lamet, Newcomb got the call in 2017 and had impressive strikeout numbers, but poor control inflated his ratios and ultimately wrecked his overall performance. Newcomb had 9.72 K/9 in 2017, but it came with 5.72 BB/9, a 4.32 ERA, and a 1.57 WHIP. Unlike Lamet, Newcomb has three pitches he feels comfortable using. His impressive four seamer clocks in at 93.7 MPH. Newcomb’s curveball is his out pitch, batters hit just .200 against it with a .078 ISO last season with a 14.4% whiff rate. Newcomb’s changeup also possesses some big swing-and-miss potential, with a 22.91% whiff rate in 2017. Unfortunately, when batters made contact with the changeup they hit .400 against it.

It all comes down to command with Newcomb. Poor command is the reason the former top prospect didn’t debut until he was almost 24. It was the root cause of nearly all his problems in the majors. Take for instance his .327 BABIP against. Normally when we see a high BABIP against for a pitcher we think he got unlucky. But when a pitcher mislocates pitches as often and as poorly as Newcomb does it comes back to bite them. To demonstrate this we’ll have a look at some heatmaps of Newcomb’s changeup against right handed hitters. These charts were taken from brooksbaseball.net.

When Newcomb can keep the pitch down he can get righties to swing and miss, an important trait for a young left-hander. But he leaves it up in the zone far too much, and gets punished for it. Those pitches in the zone and away from righties will be swung at, and will likely go for hits. His BABIP was above .300 at both Double-A and Triple-A the past two years, and it will likely remain above league average.

Newcomb’s spring training has been encouraging, he’s walked just five and struck out 15 in 15.1 innings for a 2.35 ERA and .91 WHIP as of 03/22. He’s worth a stash because if any of those command gains translate to the regular season he could make a big leap forward. If he can maintain even a palatable walk rate, say below 4 BB/9, there is big fantasy upside in this arm.

Tyler Glasnow, Pittsburgh Pirates

374^th Overall, 153^rd Pitcher

Another young pitching prospect with wicked stuff and control issues? It may seem repetitive, but project pitchers like Glasnow make for perfect sleepers. Since Glasnow has the lowest ADP between him, Newcomb, and Lamet it makes sense that he has the most problems. Last season couldn’t have been worse in 62 major league innings. He had with a 7.69 ERA, 1.89 HR/9, and a nauseating 6.39 BB/9. In contrast, he couldn’t have been better at Triple-A. In 93.1 innings he had a 1.93 ERA, 13.5 K/9, and 0.58 HR/9. Why is there such a disconnect between his Triple-A and MLB performances? For starters, major league hitters are much more capable of punishing mistakes, which Glasnow had plenty of in 2017.  His sinker, which he added in 2017, got crushed in the majors. If he was trying to get more groundballs the pitch wasn’t effective enough, because he only had 43.2% groundball rate, decidedly average. Against the sinker batters his .422 with a .241 ISO against the pitch, and that is because Glasnow couldn’t keep the pitch down. Let’s have a look at his sinker heatmaps against all hitters, which demonstrate his issues. These charts were taken from brooksbaseball.net.

He simply can't keep the ball down consistently enough. Major league hitters will feast on those pitches. The good news is that through all the trouble Glasnow’s curveball has been effective in the majors. Even though batters hit .313 overall against Glasnow in 2017, they only hit .206 against the curveball and whiffed at it 14.44% of the time. Batters did have a .250 ISO against the pitch, and that’s because Glasnow has a tendency to hang it from time to time. Regardless, it’s a silver lining to Glasnow’s atrocious 2017 performance. This curveball fits well with the 95 MPH heater he’s

Glasnow’s spring training looks poor on the surface, he has an 8.03 ERA in 12.1 innings, but he's only allowed five walks, which is encouraging. Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage recently raved about Glasnow and his progress, and if anyone can fix Glasnow it would be Searage. Even if Glasnow doesn’t start the season in the majors, he’ll surely dominate Triple-A and find himself with an opportunity soon. If he find any semblance of decent command he’d take a big leap forward and would be a good strikeout source. This is one to draft and wait for, but Glasnow isn’t as far away as his 2017 numbers make him seem.

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