2020 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: 10 pitching targets with an average draft position between 200 and 300
Targeting high-end pitching seems like a winning strategy these days, but there are promising arms available much later in drafts.
By
Chris Towers
•
1 min read
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it nonetheless needs to be said again and again: You can't have enough pitching when building your Fantasy team in 2020. In an era where power is abundant and pitchers throw fewer innings than ever, the lack of reliable pitchers around MLB is more noticeable than ever.
Of course, opinions range on how to best go about acquiring that pitching. Our own Scott White has taken the idea of "you can't have enough pitching" literally:
Last year was ridiculous, yes, but my takeaway from each of the previous two years was also "I underdid it with pitching" even as I was pushing for more. In other words, it took something like last year to get me all the way over a hump I was already climbing. https://t.co/qZALQy98kS
— Scott White (@CBSScottWhite) February 21, 2020
Scott will often drafted four or five pitchers in his first six or seven picks, and I've seen him draft a bench starter before the 10th round in a H2H points league. He's going all-in on the idea that you can't have enough early-round pitching.
But that's not the only way to build an elite pitching staff, obviously. After all, pitchers get hurt; pitchers struggle unexpectedly; many of this year's most expensive pitchers are ancient, by baseball player standards; plus, good pitchers emerge from the late rounds every year. Just look at this year's crop of top-30 starters: Shane Bieber, Mike Clevinger, Charlie Morton, Chris Paddack could all be found after pick 100; Tyler Glasnow, Mike Soroka, Brandon Woodruff and Lucas Giolito were going even later than that.
You shouldn't build your team expecting to pass on the elite pitchers and end up with a good pitching staff later in the draft, but you'll also need to hit on at least some late-round gems to build a winning pitching staff, given the attrition rate at the position. So, let's focus on some late-round pitchers with the potential to make an impact.
Here are 10 pitchers with an ADP from FantasyPros.com between 200 and 300 overall who could be rotation fixtures for you in 2020.
Late-round pitching targets
We saw how good Smith can be when things go right early in 2019 -- he had a 3.10 ERA with 80 strikeouts in 61.1 innings in his first 11 starts. And then we saw how thin his margin for error can be when he suffered a hip injury in June and struggled to a 5.46 ERA in his final 17 starts. Smith is a flyball heavy pitcher, so he needs to generate tons of whiffs; the question is, whether his first two months were to be believed, and the struggles afterward were just the result of the hip injury.
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Certain corners of the Fantasy baseball community have been chasing Musgrove's upside for years, and it usually ends up being a disappointing chase. However, there are always reasons to buy in, usually thanks to better peripherals than his season-end numbers would make you think. In 2019, it was a 3.82 FIP compared to a 4.44 ERA. However, he also saw a significant jump in velocity toward the end of 2019 that coincided with an increase in strikeouts (28.1% strikeout rate over the final five starts). If Musgrove can sustain the mechanical adjustments that helped unlock that added velocity late in the season, the upside is significant. Notably, he has been sitting 92-94 mph in early spring work, per MLB.com, so that will be something to keep an eye on — 95 mph might be the magic number here.
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By ADP, May is the highest-ranked of the Dodgers pitchers listed here, and there's both good and not-so-good reasons for that. On the one hand, some of it is just standard prospect hype — and May is quite a good one, ranking as Scott White's No. 34 Fantasy prospect coming into the season. However, I think I'd rather have Alex Wood among the Dodgers fifth starter hopefuls, especially because May isn't guaranteed a spot in the rotation and hasn't shown the elite strikeout upside you'd hope for from a young fireballer. Still, the Dodgers seem to get the most out of everyone on their staff, and if May does break camp in the rotation, you're probably looking at something like a strikeout per inning, a mid-3.00s ERA and plenty of wins, with some room to grow from there.
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Canning follows a lot of the same playbook as Smith, with a surprising number of strikeouts for his just-decent velocity, but some real trouble keeping the ball in the yard. Canning has a bit of a deeper repertoire and a better supporting cast around him, and he's also five years younger, which helps when projecting improvement. He will have to improve to be much more than just a low-end Fantasy fill-in any given week, but with one go-to pitch in his slider, Canning may have the hard part down. Now, it's just getting to the point where he can use that put-away pitch more — and avoiding the elbow issues that derailed him late in 2019.
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Chalk another one up to the Astros' developmental staff. Urquidy took a huge step forward in 2019, racking up 174 strikeouts across 144 innings between Double-A, Triple-A and the majors, and it looks like he could be locked into a rotation spot this spring. Urquidy is another fly-ball pitcher, however unlike Smith and Canning, he actually did a pretty good job limiting damage on contact, which could make him less prone to the kind of blowups that made them so tough to trust last season. Urquidy racked up a healthy amount of swinging strikes, which could give his 24.0% strikeout rate in the majors room to grow. There's' a potential mid-3.00s ERA with tons of strikeouts and wins here.
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Puk is one pitcher who could see his ADP soar with a strong spring. He was largely as advertised in his big-league debut last season, striking out 13 and walking five in 11 innings out of the bullpen as part of his recovery from Tommy John surgery. He could end up a weapon out of the bullpen down the road, but the plan is to give him every opportunity to start in 2020, and Puk's combination of a high-90s fastball and high-90s slider from his 6-foot-7 frame could make him devastating in any role. There's a lot that can go wrong with Puk given his injury and control issues, but if it all goes right, there's Fantasy ace upside — think 2017 Robbie Ray.
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The Pirates aren't exactly streets ahead when it comes to getting the most out of their young pitchers, so here's hoping it won't take a mid-career trade to the Astros or Rays for Keller to figure out his potential. Keller, like Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow before him, sports a big fastball and swing-and-miss secondaries, but the fastball got absolutely shelled in his MLB debut last season — opposing hitters hit .461 with a .719 slugging percentage against the pitch, and I promise that is neither a typo nor Ted Williams' 1941 line. Keller will need to improve on that, obviously, and he has acknowledged this offseason that he grew too predictable with the fastball and has been working with data-driven pitching coach Oscar Marin, a good sign given the Pirates' issues with trying to force pitching to contact above all else. The talent here is obvious — it's about figuring out the best way to harness it. Hopefully the Pirates have learned from past mistakes.
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Another big win for the Indians near-unrivaled pitcher development system, Civale was dominant no matter where he pitched in 2019. In 130.1 innings between the majors, Double-A, and Triple-A, he posted a miniscule 2.35 ERA and 1.066 WHIP with 116 strikeouts. I don't expect Civale to be a big bat-misser, so don't expect him to go all 2019 Shane Bieber on us here. However, he is a spin-rate maestro with command of five different pitches, and sported one of the lowest barrel rates and expected wOBA on contact rates in the league, a good sign of how hard he was to hit. Pitchers without 200-strikeout potential don't quite get the blood going as much these days, but the Kyle Hendricks' of the world have value even in 2020 — and they often tend to get overlooked on Draft Day.
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Kopech isn't quite as far along in his recovery from Tommy John surgery as Puk, but it's not out of the question that he could be in the White Sox rotation early on in the season. Like Puk, Kopech comes with big question marks surrounding his control as well as health, but Kopech has also averaged a massive 31.1% strikeout rate in the minors and might actually be the hardest thrower in professional baseball. He was also showing signs of figuring out some of his command issues before the injury in 2018, walking just six batters in his final 11 starts (58.1 innings) between Triple-A and the majors. If Kopech has even average control, there's significant upside here.
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Houser is one of Scott White's top sleepers for 2020, and for good reason. Houser brings elite groundball rates to the table with good-enough strikeout numbers that helped him rank 19th in xFIP among qualifiers last season, at 3.60. He'll have to prove he can do it as a full-time starter, but with a 3.28 ERA and 9.82 K/9 over 12 starts to close out the 2019 season, there are certainly reasons to be optimistic.
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So which sleepers should you snatch in your draft? And which undervalued first baseman can help you win a championship? Visit SportsLine now to get rankings for every single position, all from the model that called Kenta Maeda's huge breakout last season, and find out.
