2020 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: 10 WHIP sleepers for Rotisserie and categories leagues
Need WHIP help late in a draft? Plenty of control pitchers are still available there, according to Scott White.
By
Scott White
•
1 min read
My focus here is on pitchers who can help in the WHIP category late in Rotisserie drafts.
But I'll l echo the sentiment I expressed in my ERA sleepers column: Targeting an upside pitcher with breakout potential — like a Mitch Keller or Nate Pearson, let's say — might make more sense than targeting a category specialist. When a pitcher breaks through during an era when the disparity between good and bad is ever so stark, the effect is often wholesale, impacting his production across all categories.
Pitchers who are already good at limiting baserunners and still fall in drafts have some notable shortcomings. In all but a couple of these cases, you may be limiting your pitching staff's overall upside by targeting them. Then again, you may also be limiting its downside — which may be a priority for you, depending how your draft has unfolded.
We analyzed why everybody loves Rich Hill now and other WHIP sources Tuesday on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast. Subscribe to the podcast here.
Only starting pitchers with an ADP of 160 or later, according to FantasyPros, were considered.
WHIP sleepers
Questions surround Sean Manaea's dominance in his abbreviated return from rotator cuff surgery last year, but one area where you can count on him excelling is strike-throwing. In 32 starts the past two years, he has issued 1.8 BB/9, accounting for a 1.03 WHIP in spite of him having just 6.5 K/9. That walk rate would have ranked in the top 10 among qualifying pitchers last year, and a 32-start sample isn't exactly small.
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While home run issues have made him an unreliable ERA play, Masahiro Tanaka has been an elite control pitcher across six big-league seasons. He's actually the active career leader with 1.8 BB/9. So it should be no surprise, then, that he's had only two seasons with a WHIP above 1.20 -- one coming last year, when he struggled to find his splitter and didn't miss as many bats as a result.
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Control is the name of the game for Jose Urquidy as well, and it goes beyond him issuing just seven walks in his first 41 big-league innings last year. The last time he averaged more than 2.0 BB/9 in a minor-league season came way back in 2015. He may struggle to keep the ERA down with his fly-ball tendencies and iffy breaking ball, and we still don't know how deep he'll be allowed to pitch into games. But limiting baserunners is kind of his selling point.
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Are you getting the sense that limiting walks is the key to having a low WHIP? Joe Musgrove does it, too, and in fact has done it better than ever since joining the Pirates, issuing 2.0 BB/9 across two seasons. He's kind of a trendy sleeper, as he always seems to be, based on a strong finish that corresponded with a velocity spike, but whether or not he takes a step forward overall, know that a 1.20 WHIP is more or less a given.
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There's no breakout potential for Ryan Yarbrough, whose upside is limited by his marginal stuff, but he sure knows how to limit the damage, delivering the sort of walk rate normally reserved for pitchers like Hyun-Jin Ryu and Zack Greinke -- two others whose overall production exceeds their raw stuff. Those two have some other gifts Yarbrough lacks, but his WHIP would have ranked right in between them last year, if he had the innings to qualify. The leaderboard would have been Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Jack Flaherty, Jacob deGrom, Greinke and Yarbrough.
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Is Aaron Civale sort of the right-handed version of Yarbrough? He did a lot of the same things last year, small though the sample may have been, and it demonstrates one of the ways a pitcher can survive in today's environment without swing-and-miss stuff. Basically, Civale did two things: He limited hard contact and threw a lot of strikes. His minor-league track record suggests he could do even more of the latter moving forward. Across four seasons down there, he issued just 1.4 BB/9.
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Miles MIkolas didn't have as much luck in the BABIP and home run departments last year, but he still managed to put together competent numbers because he only once issued more than two walks in a start. His 1.6 BB/9 was fourth-best in baseball. He had a 1.07 WHIP in 2018 when his 1.3 BB/9 was tops in the league.
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Yonny Chirinos is yet another pitcher whose ability to limit baserunners is the key to his success, so you can count on him continuing to meet that need in the late rounds. It'll come at the expense of strikeouts, which limits his ERA potential, but he generally keeps the ball on the ground and induces weak contact. The Rays let him throw six-plus with some regularity last season, but often following an opener. And who knows how it might change in a shortened season? The WHIP should be there, though, thanks to an elite strike-throwing profile that dates back to his minor-league days.
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Alex Wood's control has been merely above-average throughout his career, and only twice in seven seasons has he delivered a WHIP below 1.20. So why am I putting him with this group? Because the way he was throwing the ball this spring, after working with Driveline Baseball to raise his velocity this offseason, points to a high ceiling that would span all categories. The last time he was throwing that hard was the first half of 2017, when he went 10-0 with a 1.67 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and 10.8 K/9.
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Rich Hill's ADP is sure to rise once drafting renews in earnest. He was originally expected to miss so much time at the start of the season that he wasn't worth drafting at all. Tells you how much of the season we've already lost, because he should be good to go now. At age 40 and coming off a fairly significant elbow procedure, there are no guarantees, of course, but considering he has 3.30 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 10.7 K/9 over the past three years, it would be foolish to pass him up, whether you need WHIP help or not.
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