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The news on Garrett Richards has been encouraging this offseason. He has reportedly been ahead of schedule in his recovery from surgery on his left knee, and the Angels hold out hope he can be in their rotation either on opening day or soon thereafter.
As of this writing, though, Richards had yet to begin throwing off a mound or doing fielding or lateral movement drills, so he is hardly in the clear. Fantasy owners targeting him in upcoming drafts have to be prepared for the possibility that he could miss a month or two.
That uncertainty is no reason to ignore Richards on Draft Day. He had a legitimate breakout season in 2014 in which he went 13-4 with a 2.61 ERA and 164 strikeouts in 168 2/3 innings. While Richards' soaring strikeout and whiff rates caught the attention of owners, his improvement on an already-low rate of allowing extra-base hits (.108 Iso allowed in 2013, .060 in 2014) is also worth noting. An enhanced swing-and-miss rate is a good thing in and of itself, but for a hurler like Richards who throws many of his pitches low, it means he generated a lot of positive outcomes. When he wasn't getting strikeouts, he was inducing grounders or weakly-hit flies.
Once he is healthy again, there is every reason to think Richards can approach a strikeout per inning and keep his ERA around 3.00. Even if he were to miss one-quarter of the season, he would generate enough value to be worth drafting among the top 40 starting pitchers or making a $10 bid. Richards could miss even less time than that, in which case, he could be an enormous value.
