Fantasy Baseball: Two-start pitcher rankings for Week 23 identify Clay Buchholz, Junior Guerra as sleepers

A light schedule will have Fantasy owners hurting for two-start sleepers in Week 23 (Aug. 27-Sept. 2). Our Scott White identifies the best of the bunch.

Used to be we'd see 35-40 pitchers in line for two starts in a given week. With the extra off days built into this year's schedule, it's been more like 35.

This week, it's 30. There's the potential for 31 if Eduardo Rodriguez doesn't return over the weekend, allowing Brian Johnson to start twice, but either way, it's a low number.

And more than half of them are too high-end to qualify as sleepers.

Generally, the sleeper cutoff is 80 percent ownership in CBS Sports leagues, which is pretty generous but necessary in weeks like this one. Clay Buchholz, Kyle Gibson, Zach Eflin and Trevor Cahill are all in the gray area between 75 and 80 percent, and they're all easy choices even though Gibson, Eflin and Cahill are coming off terrible starts. So does that make them sleepers? Again, it's a generous application of the term.

Junior Guerra, meanwhile, is owned in less than 60 percent of leagues, which I guess makes sense given the way he has stumbled since the All-Star break. The overall numbers are still respectable, though, right down to the strikeout rate, so he's the pitcher in Week 23 (Aug. 27-Sept. 2) I'd come closest to calling a sleeper.

If you're feeling unusually brave (or desperate), you could roll the dice on Sam Gaviglio, who's only 10 percent owned and has dream matchups this week. He also has an ERA near 5.00 for the year, but three of his past four starts have been pretty good. It'd have to be a points league for me to consider it, though. In fact, I'm not sure I'd start anyone outside of the top 15 in categories leagues.

Two-start pitchers for Week 23
Rank	Pitcher	Start 1	Start 2
1	Patrick Corbin, ARI	at SF	at LAD
2	Carlos Carrasco, CLE	vs. MIN	vs. TB
3	Gerrit Cole, HOU	vs. OAK	vs. LAA
4	Noah Syndergaard, NYM	at CHC	at SF
5	Jack Flaherty, STL	vs. PIT	vs. CIN
6	Charlie Morton, HOU	vs. OAK	vs. LAA
7	Masahiro Tanaka, NYY	vs. CHW	vs. DET
8	Jon Gray, COL	at LAA	at SD
9	Walker Buehler, LAD*	at TEX	vs. ARI
10	Stephen Strasburg, WAS	at PHI	vs. MIL
11	Clay Buchholz, ARI	at SF	at LAD
12	Kyle Gibson, MIN	at CLE	at TEX
13	Julio Teheran, ATL	vs. TB	vs. PIT
14	Zach Eflin, PHI	vs. WAS	vs. CHC
15	Lance Lynn, NYY	vs. CHW	vs. DET
16	Carlos Rodon, CHW	at NYY	vs. BOS
17	Jon Lester, CHC	vs. NYM	at PHI
18	Junior Guerra, MIL	at CIN	at WAS
19	Sam Gaviglio, TOR	at BAL	at MIA
20	Brett Anderson, OAK	at HOU	vs. SEA
21	Anthony DeSclafani, CIN	vs. MIL	at STL
22	Ivan Nova, PIT	at STL	at ATL
23	David Hess, BAL	vs. TOR	at KC
24	James Shields, CHW	at NYY	vs. BOS
25	Felix Hernandez, SEA	at SD	at OAK
26	Jacob Nix, SD	vs. SEA	vs. COL
27	Chris Stratton, SF	vs. ARI	vs. NYM
28	Edwin Jackson, OAK	at HOU	vs. SEA
29	Francisco Liriano, DET*	at KC	at NYY
30	Odrisamer Despaigne, LAA*	vs. COL	at HOU

*RP-eligible