White: Sleepers 1.0 | Breakouts 1.0 | Busts 1.0
Melchior: Sleepers 1.0 | Breakouts 1.0 | Busts 1.0

Sleepers ... you know what they are, right?

Granted, everyone has a slightly different interpretation, but I keep mine simple: Any player who I expect to outperform his draft position is a sleeper.

Of course, these aren't all my sleepers. I had to reserve some for my Breakouts column still to come. To me, it's kind of a rectangle-square thing, as in all breakouts are sleepers but not all sleepers are breakouts. You remember? From school? Math? No?

Aw, forget it. Just embrace the value.

And be on the lookout for the updated version of this column in March. Perception changes as we get closer to the season, and so do my opinions -- some of them, anyway.

Jorge Soler, OF, Cubs

Kris Bryant casts a long shadow -- and not just because he's 6-foot-5.

With the spotlight fixed on the Cubs' future third baseman during the latter days of the team's lengthy rebuild, the talent the Cubs have assembled elsewhere on the diamond is easily overlooked, including the guy standing way out in right field.

But here's the thing: It might be a toss-up who's actually better.

See for yourself. In 200 at-bats last year, mostly between Double-A and Triple-A, Soler hit .340 with 15 home runs and a 1.132 OPS. In 492 at-bats between the same levels, Bryant hit .325 with 43 home runs and a 1.098 OPS. He had the better totals because he had a full season's workload, but the percentages were eerily similar.

Of course, Bryant has never been less than that player in his two years in the minors while Soler just broke out last year. But Soler was the one who got called up and has now already shown he can handle major-league pitching, batting .292 with five home runs and a .903 OPS in 89 at-bats. Plus, it's not like he's lacking in pedigree. When he and Yasiel Puig came over from Cuba at about the same time two years ago, the scouts considered Soler the better prospect of the two.

If Bryant already had a job going into 2015, as Soler does, people would be drafting him in the fourth or fifth round, and they wouldn't be wrong to do so. A full season of him vs. a full season of Nolan Arenado ... even with Arenado being a safer bet, that sounds like a toss-up to me.

And yet here Soler is, despite the successes of Puig, Yoenis Cespedes and Jose Abreu in recent years, being valued on the same level as Kole Calhoun and Brandon Moss.

It doesn't make sense to me.

Rusney Castillo, OF, Red Sox

That was an impressive list of names I rattled off, wasn't it? Those defectors come to play, I tell you.

So what does it say that Castillo got the most money of all of them when he signed with the Red Sox in August?

OK, so it says he owes something to players like Puig and Abreu, whose prior successes made him seem like a surer thing. Still, what kind of player gets more than $10 million a year when the most anyone has to go on is word of mouth?

Answer: The kind scouts have compared to Andrew McCutchen.

It's a dangerous comparison because it makes anything less than MVP-caliber production a disappointment, which is an impossible standard for success. Fortunately, Fantasy owners aren't buying into it fully, which is why Castillo appears on this list.

I'm not going to say he'll be as good as McCutchen because I don't think he will be, but the skills point to him being a similar type of player. Most scouts agree he has 20-20 potential, and he makes contact at such a high rate that he should hit for average as well.

And honestly, those 36 at-bats he got late last year may have been the most revealing 36 at-bats in major-league history. Forget that he hit .333 with two homers and three steals. In his first look at the best pitching the world has to offer after only a handful of minor-league at-bats to shake off a year's worth of rust, he struck out six times, one every six at-bats.

He wasn't flailing at pitches way out of the zone. He wasn't hitting a bunch of weak grounders and popups. He didn't give any indication he was the least bit overmatched. He looked like a player who's about to take this league by storm, as Abreu and Puig did.

And yet you can get him as late as you got Abreu last year, in Round 9 or so. Will we ever learn?

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Gregory Polanco, OF, Pirates

Another rookie outfielder? You betcha. And this one might actually catch people by surprise. See, while Soler and Castillo were validating themselves late in the year, Polanco was getting swept under the rug.

Not that he deserved it. When he was starting for the Pirates, which was about mid-June to mid-August, he averaged more Head-to-Head points per game than Hunter Pence and Yoenis Cespedes, among others. But that included a 1-for-26 stretch at the end that brought his season batting average down to .244. And with the Pirates fighting for a wild card spot and Travis Snider heating up on the bench, sacrifices had to be made, namely Polanco's development.

It was just a short-term fix, though. General manager Neal Huntington declared Polanco the Pirates' starting right fielder early this offseason and then backed it up by trading Snider to the Orioles. Guess he didn't want to leave manager Clint Hurdle any temptation.

For as much as Polanco "disappointed" last season, he still performed at a 15-homer, 30-steal pace. So what if he hit .235 as a rookie? George Springer hit only .231, and you don't see everyone backing down from him. The difference is Polanco didn't strike out every 2 1/2 at-bats. More like half that, actually, which suggests, along with his .272 BABIP, that batting average could soon become one of his strengths

So I'm still at the same place I was last May, when Polanco was hitting about .400 at Triple-A and Fantasy owners were positioning themselves to make a play for him on the waiver wire. With his statistical profile and the Pirates' renewed commitment, I don't think it's long before he becomes the second most valuable Pirate in Fantasy, surpassing even Starling Marte with his superior power and plate discipline. I'll take a shot on it happening this year.

Justin Verlander, SP, Tigers

Haven't we been down this road with Verlander before -- just last year, in fact? "Yeah, he's coming off a bad season, but he still throws hard and has been one of the best pitchers in baseball for, like, ever. So whatever, he's fine."

Except then he turned in an even worse season -- one that made him droppable, actually, in some leagues.

So it's an open-and-shut case, right? No use holding out for a lost cause.

That's what I thought at first, but there was that one period at the end of 2013 that didn't fit the narrative. For a five-start stretch, playoffs included, to end the year, he had a 0.26 ERA, 0.74 WHIP and 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings. How do you reconcile those numbers?

And then I saw this from the Detroit Free Press in late January:

"At this same time a year ago, I was barely a few days removed from having [core muscle] surgery," he said.

That's right. He did have surgery before last season.

"I couldn't generate the power I needed from my hips and lower body. My strength doesn't come from my arm."

Wait, time out. Verlander couldn't drive the ball with his legs last season and was basically just slinging the ball every pitch?

"I was a twisted mess last season."

Well, that explains the drop in velocity. Even though he was still throwing hard, his fastball lost about a mile per hour. It's amazing that's all it lost. It also explains a loss of command, which would affect not only his control but his hittability.

For all stats can tell us about a player, they miss a crucial aspect of his identity: He is his mechanics. If he's not moving the way he's supposed to, he's not himself, so you can't expect the same results.

Why would we expect Verlander results from a pitcher who isn't Verlander?

You'll see plenty of vague best-shape-of-my-life stories this spring, but this is different. This is a concrete explanation that makes all too much sense. And now, when everybody else has already given up on him, is the time to pounce.

A.J. Pollock, OF, Diamondbacks

Look at this list. So outfield-heavy, which maybe reveals which position you can leave for the middle rounds.

But that's a different discussion for a different day. Today, Pollock and what he did in a season divided by injury.

What he did was average the 18th most Head-to-Head points per game among outfielders. Or at least he would have if he had the at-bats to qualify. He didn't, of course, because he missed three of the last four months with a fractured hand.

My guess is it's the only reason he's affordable now.

For two months, he looked like one of the season's biggest breakouts, piling up extra-base hits while wreaking havoc on the base paths (not to mention playing a mean center field, which helps with job security, but I digress).

Considering he was a nobody in Fantasy coming into the year, the performance would be easy to dismiss, especially since it was confined mostly to those two months. But if you look at his minor-league numbers, you'll see he did the same thing there, collecting 41 doubles and 36 steals in 2011, the year he got his most at-bats, and hitting over .300 basically every step up the ladder.

He has what I call the Shane Victorino skill set -- the capacity for 12 homers and 30 steals with a bunch of doubles and a high contact rate. And Victorino, you'll remember, was more or less a Fantasy stud even during that period when everyone who was anyone was hitting 20 home runs.

Because Pollock doesn't stand out in any one category, he's more likely to slip through the cracks, and because he missed so much time last year, he might slip all the way to the bottom of the startable outfield crop. But you know he's capable of more than Ben Revere and Michael Morse.

Steve Pearce, 1B/OF, Orioles

You mean that flash in the pan from June? Get real. He's 31, a Quadruple-A player, and didn't he lose his job just a few weeks after that hot streak?

Yeah, because nobody ever said that about Jose Bautista, Brandon Moss or J.D. Martinez before they broke out.

Pearce was a thumper in the minor leagues, hitting 33 home runs in his most complete season there and compiling an .888 OPS over his entire career. Yet for all that production, he never really got a chance to prove himself at the major-league level. Prior to last year, his career high in at-bats was only 165.

And another thing: He wasn't just hot in June. True, he did cool off and lose his job soon thereafter, but he quickly regained it and finished the year with an even better stretch, batting .320 with 10 home runs and a 1.144 OPS in his final 100 at-bats.

That doesn't sound like a flash in the pan to me. That sounds like a player streaking his way to a breakout season. His final OPS was .930, which would have ranked sixth among hitters if he had the at-bats to qualify, ahead of Bautista himself.

Is he that good? Probably not, but he has power and gets on base. And unlike last year, he doesn't have any threats to his playing time with Nelson Cruz and Nick Markakis out of the picture. For a middle-round pick, I'm anxious to see what he can do.

Xander Bogaerts, 3B/SS, Red Sox

Here we go again. Xander Bogaerts is the next Troy Tulowitzki, right? We've heard that one before.

Well, hear this: The most common mistake Fantasy owners make in evaluating players is assuming now or never.

Bogaerts is 22 years old. Not every player is Mike Trout and arrives in the big leagues ready to deliver on the full extent of his potential right away. Sometimes it takes a few years of buildup, like Anthony Rizzo. Sometimes it takes just one, like Adam Jones.

Nobody knows exactly when it's going to click for Bogaerts, but I do know he's capable of a lot more than most of the shortstops available at the same stage of the draft. I also know he had a couple stretches last season when he more or less delivered on the hype.

One was at the very end, when he hit .320 with four home runs and an .824 OPS over his final 100 at-bats. True, he had 20 strikeouts to just two walks during that stretch, but the first number isn't so bad on its own. Sometimes, particularly over short stretches, a lack of walks is just a reflection of how well a player is hitting. Can't blame a guy for swinging at pitchers he knows he can throttle.

He showed he knows how to take a pitch over the first two months of the season, when he reached base at a .397 clip. The struggles that followed were to be expected for a 21-year-old.

Maybe Bogaerts hits .220 in April and gets sent to the minors for two months, wasting your pick. What have you lost, really? But then, maybe he picks up where he left off and hits .290 with 25 home runs this year ... as a shortstop. It's a likely enough scenario for me to take the chance.

Brandon McCarthy, SP, Dodgers

The argument in McCarthy's favor is as clear-cut as any sleeper's.

What makes it clear-cut? His cutter, clearly.

It was instrumental in his breakthrough for the Athletics in 2011 and 2012, when he compiled a 3.29 ERA over two seasons. But the Diamondbacks said, "Cut it out," discouraging him from using the pitch in his year and a half in Arizona, and the result was a 4.75 ERA. So a little before the trade deadline last year, the Diamondbacks dumped him on the Yankees.

Or that's what they thought they did, but a quick change to his arsenal, namely the reintroduction of the cutter, yielded a 2.89 ERA in 14 starts. And there wasn't anything fluky about it. McCarthy also had a 1.15 WHIP and 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings during that stretch. He was a changed pitcher, a pitcher not unlike that one we saw in Oakland in 2011 and 2012.

Maybe the strikeout rate was too good to be true -- McCarthy hadn't shown much swing-and-miss potential previously -- but if you account for some regression there, you also have to account for his move from Yankee Stadium to Dodger Stadium, which should help reduce his home run rate, the one sore spot from his time with the Yankees.

Give or take a little in those two areas, I'm predicting the McCarthy we saw late in 2014 is the one we'll see in 2015. And that one was basically a must-start option. Not bad for a late-round pick.

Steven Souza, OF, Rays

You Souza, you louza.

You'll hear me say it probably every time someone mentions his name on Fantasy Baseball Today or the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast. It's a reflex. I can't help it. My brain is prewired to associate names with common expressions. It's like a vending machine: When you press a certain button, you can expect a certain something to come out.

Which is unfortunate because that name association couldn't be further from what I actually believe.

I believe the Rays knew what they were doing when they traded Wil Myers primarily for Souza. They saw enough risk with Myers and enough reward with Souza that they were happy to make the swap, pick up a few extra players and save a few dollars over the next couple years.

Of course, the Rays' reputation -- they've demonstrated in recent years that they generally know what they're doing -- comes into play here. Even with Andrew Friedman out of the picture, my brain is also prewired to believe in them.

But the numbers would seem to validate their decision. Souza hit .350 with 18 home runs and 26 steals in only 346 at-bats at Triple-A Syracuse last year, showing power, speed and on-base ability. And though he's just now finding his way at 25, he's one of those prospects who would have been better from the get-go if not for what Baseball America described in its 2014 handbook as "maturity issues."

You can dispute the Rays' ingenuity, question Baseball America's authority or pick apart Souza's minor-league numbers, but disregard all three and you're really going against the grain.

Marcus Semien, 2B/3B, Athletics

This offseason, Semien has gone from being a fringe sleeper to a sleeper to a fringe sleeper to a super sleeper.

When he was competing for the White Sox's starting second base job, he was intriguing. Then, he looked like he might have a job already won when he was traded to the Athletics. Then, he looked like he'd be pushed aside when the Athletics acquired two middle infielders from the Rays. Then, he got his strongest endorsement yet when the Athletics traded one of those middle infielders, Yunel Escobar, to the Nationals.

General manager Billy Beane more or less declared Semien his starting shortstop that day, saying "he's got a chance to be a guy who plays shortstop and hits 20-plus home runs."

I think so, too. I mean, he did it in the minors in 2013, his last full season there -- and not in the California or Pacific Coast leagues, which have a way of inflating power numbers. He also stole more than 20 bases that year and reached base at a .383 clip, walking 108 times.

When someone says a shortstop has a chance to hit 20-plus home runs, I assume that's the full extent of his abilities, like a Jhonny Peralta or J.J. Hardy. But judging by those minor-league numbers, Semien's upside may be closer to what Ben Zobrist used to be. Or maybe Ian Kinsler is a more appropriate comparison, just one the other side of the keystone -- the more important side, the side where you're liable to reach for a player three or four rounds early just because there are so few good ones to go around. And by the way, when Semien does gain shortstop eligibility, he'll still be eligible at second and third base.

Assessing a player on minor-league stats alone is dangerous because they don't always translate, but given what else is available at those three positions late in the draft, why not take a flier on Semien?

Jason Hammel, SP, Cubs

Now, now ... Hammel was already exposed as a fraud at the end of last season, remember? The Cubs swindled the Athletics out of Addison Russell by tossing him in with Jeff Samardzija, and he immediately went back to being 4.50 ERA guy.

Oh, I remember, but I also remember the tale-of-two-seasons narrative didn't apply so neatly. In fact, as ugly as Hammel's stint in Oakland began, he righted the ship about four starts in, compiling a 2.49 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 7.5 strikeouts per nine innings in his final nine appearances, including eight starts -- numbers oddly in line with the ones he put up that first half-season with the Cubs.

Hammel's 2014 wasn't a tale of two seasons. It was a breakout interrupted by a four-start rough patch when he was undergoing one of the biggest transitions of his career. Remove it from the equation, and you know what Hammel's final numbers would have been? A 2.82 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings.

That's in 25 starts (and that one blasted relief appearance), the exact number Jake Arrieta made last season. So why are we taking Arrieta's numbers at face value, but from Hammel, we're demanding more?

Yeah, Hammel had a few lousy seasons prior to last year's "breakout," if that's what we're calling it, but the same is true for Arrieta. Hammel's fastball velocity was maybe 1 mph lower on average, so it's not like Arrieta blows him away in terms of stuff. True, some of Arrieta's ratios, particularly the home run rate, were better, which perhaps further legitimizes his breakout, but nobody's suggesting Hammel is as good or trustworthy as Arrieta. It's just that while Arrieta is getting full benefit of the doubt, Hammel is being ranked alongside Hail Mary picks like Clay Buchholz and A.J. Burnett.

All because of four bad starts. What happened to sample size?

I'm thinking nothing did. I'm thinking it's an issue of people giving up on Hammel early in his Oakland stint and then never bothering to check back in.

Tell me: If the Cubs were so lucky to cash in on Hammel when they did, why did they go back for seconds this offseason, outbidding everyone else in the process?

Travis Snider, OF, Orioles

Wait a minute. Haven't we seen this name before? That's right! Snider was the one blocking Polanco in Pittsburgh. Good thing he got out of his way, huh?

Good thing ... for both of them. Now that they won't be cannibalizing each other's at-bats, they can each show the full extent of their potential.

That's right: I said potential for Snider, who to most Fantasy owners probably has the look of a journeyman outfielder by now. But baseball junkies will remember him as one of the most hyped prospects in the game about half a decade ago, when the Blue Jays rushed him to the majors at age 20.

The verb "rushed" is a carefully chosen one. It implies Snider wasn't ready for the responsibilities handed to him even though he mashed at every level of the minors. It's just that those levels -- or at least the three highest ones -- were all crammed into one season. What Snider missed was repetition, a chance to develop the habits that would sustain him against the highest level of competition, and developing them on the fly, with mostly discouraging production in between, is a daunting task.

Better late than never, right?

Snider appeared to turn the corner last year, not only setting a career high in batting average but also OPS to finish with a higher mark than Bryce Harper, Christian Yelich and Kole Calhoun. And if you think his success was all in the platoon splits, as is often the case for left-handed hitters, you couldn't be more wrong. Snider hit .381 against lefties last year, bringing his career splits to about even.

Makes it easier for the Orioles to play him every day, doesn't it? That seems to be their plan. And considering he hit more than two-thirds of his home runs on the road last year, the change in venue can only help, too.

To me, Snider is a perfect case of talent meeting progression meeting opportunity, and yet I'm guessing he goes undrafted in the majority of leagues.