Want more sleepers for your Fantasy draft? Head to SportsLine.com and check out the all-new ACES metric to find overlooked starting pitchers. You'll find some names from this list ranked surprisingly high.
For a variety of reasons, spring training stats are mostly meaningless. To me anyway.
First, the sample size is tiny. Even if a player is playing every day, he's unlikely to get a month's worth of plate appearances. Second, the level of competition is uneven. Do we really care if someone hits a home run off a guy who is going to be in Double-A for all of 2019? Finally, we have no idea what players are working on. Some pitchers may be working in a new pitch, hitters may be trying out a new approach. There's just too little data and too much variance for me to care much at all. But my opinion isn't near as important as the manager's.
The players below have a legitimate chance to win a job either on Opening Day or shortly after. Their production has been so good it's impossible to believe the manager hasn't noticed. And they're all close to free on draft day. Keep an eye on these spring surgers. They may be starting when it counts.
It's easy to get excited about anyone with a starting job in Colorado. That's why the Fantasy world has spent much of the offseason salivating over Garrett Hampson. Ryan McMahon seems to have other ideas.
Hampson and McMahon have both torn up spring training with a barrage of hits, but as Hampson has started to cool off McMahon has kept going. And his manager has definitely noticed.
It's definitely possible (maybe even likely) both of these players make the Opening Day roster, but McMahon looks like the slight favorite at this point. McMahon has played a higher percentage of his innings at second base and has experience from playing there last year. He's also made more a little more contact at the plate and shown more pop, even though he only has one home run.
Despite his struggles in 2019, McMahon had a .297 average and an .877 OPS in 2,654 minor league plate appearances. If he wins this job and plays every day, he has a legitimate shot at being a top 10 second baseman.
With the addition of Paul Goldschmidt, the Cardinals were already struggling to find a place for all of their hitters. Jose Martinez had been pushed to the outfield, which was already occupied by Marcell Ozuna, Harrison Bader and (presumably) Dexter Fowler. But don't tell Tyler O'Neill there's no room.
O'Neill has come out hot to start the spring with four long balls in his first 26 plate appearances. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has even seen him swing a bat. He launched 35 home runs in 415 plate appearances between Triple-A and and the majors last season and hit 32 in 106 games as a 20-year-old. The pop has always been there.
What has been encouraging early is that O'Neill has only struck out seven times. If he lowers his strikeout rate anywhere below 30 percent and plays regularly, he has a chance to challenge the top home run hitters in the league. In 2018 he had a 45 percent hard hit rate and a 48 percent fly ball rate. That's the stuff of 40-plus homer guys.
The path to playing time involves Fowler continuing to deteriorate as a player (he was worth -1.2 fWAR last season) and Martinez continuing to be awful in the field. Fowler's started the spring 2-for-16 and Martinez will be a 31-year-old coming off a -6 DRS season in just 335 outfield innings. The opportunity could definitely present itself.
One problem with spring stats is their propensity to encourage confirmation bias. So fair disclosure; Jesus Luzardo was one of my favorite rookie pitchers before the games started. He's done nothing to change that.
Luzardo has baffled opposing batters in his first three appearances, allowing just five base runners and whiffing 10. It's also served to highlight the wide chasm between Luzardo's upside and that of anyone else on this staff.
Oakland's current projected rotation on Roster Resource includes Mike Fiers, Marco Estrada, Brian Anderson, Daniel Mengden and Frankie Montas. There is plenty of room. The bigger question comes from when they want to start the clock on what figures to be an innings limit for the talented lefty. Bob Melvin has acknowledged the difficulty of their decision while heaping praise on his prospect.
Luzardo threw 109.1 innings in 2018, a career high. A reasonable limit on his innings would be around 160. That could be enough to keep him from starting the season with the big league club, but he'll be must-start once he's there.
Domingo German doesn't have the upside of Luzardo, but he may have a better opportunity in April. With Luis Severino's injury and CC Sabathia's recovery, there definitely appears there will be at least one opening on the roster to start the season.
German had an uneven 2018 that resulted in some ugly numbers, but he still struck out 102 hitters in 85.2 innings. He's outpitched his main competition (Jonathan Loaisiga) thus far in camp, but he'll have to do more to lock down a role.
German was a dominant pitcher in the minor leagues and could absolutely be someone who grabs on to a role and doesn't let go. While the Yankees don't look like a team that has an opening in their rotation past April, they have enough guys with injury histories that it should probably be the expectation.
Dominic Smith is not the Mets first baseman we were supposed to be getting excited about this spring. That would be Pete Alonsowho is still the favorite and has the most upside. He's mashed the ball this spring. But it's also still the Mets. Holding Alonso back due to service time would be unsurprising for anyone who follows this team.
Smith has been generating good reviews, and says he owes to to overcoming sleep apnea. He's a former top-100 prospect who has produced a .300/.361/.460 slash line at Triple-A over the past two seasons. If we start to get indications the Mets want to delay Alonso's arrival, Smith could be the beneficiary, especially if he keeps hitting.
Also worth watching:
Sandy Alcantara - 9 Ks and 2 ER in 7.2 IP
Garrett Hampson - .943 OPS and 3 SB in 10 games
Kyle Wright - 6 Ks and 0 ER in 5 IP
Greg Bird - 1.300 OPS and 4 XBH in 18 plate appearances
So which Fantasy Baseball sleepers should you snatch in your draft? And which undervalued pitchers can help you win a championship? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy Baseball rankings for every single position, all from the model that called Scooter Gennett's huge breakout last season, and find out.
