A 7.25 ERA in a season can do wonders for your sleeper status. Mike Fiers can attest to that. Fiers was limited to just 22.1 major league innings in 2013 after a batted ball struck and broke his arm, but that was enough time for him to allow eight home runs and 18 earned runs. It’s a pretty alarming streak, especially for a former 22nd-round draft pick who tops out just shy of 90 mph. Perhaps that’s why I can’t find Fiers in the top 250 for 2015 on ESPN or anywhere else I look.

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Episode 181

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix talk about, among other newsy topics, the trade of Josh Donaldson for Brett Lawrie, Franklin Barreto, and others, as well as the Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager, Yasmany Tomas, and Torii Hunter agreements. We also delve into end-of-season SP rankings, which went up on Monday. We discuss Julio Teheran, Andrew Cashner, Drew Hutchison, and the faulty top-25 pitchers on the list.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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Lance Lynn did it. He held down left-handed batters a little more often in 2014. Those freaks hit .243/.325/.372 in 378 plate appearances, for a .314 wOBA (26 points better than last year’s rate, which was also an upgrade to the previous season’s), against the St. Louis Cardinals’ right-hander this year. That, my friends, is about league average for batters from the north. And that is really all this hurler needed in order for him to be good instead of fantasy-league-average, or even league-average. He overcame his fatal flaw.

As a result, Lynn was, for fantasy baseball players, a top-25 starting pitcher by the standards of Sr. Zach Sanders. Overall, the pitcher struck out men less frequently this year, but he still fanned more than 20% of those he faced, and, once again, he also walked them less often. These leaps forward helped him to post a 2.74 ERA, a 1.26 WHIP, and, yet again, 15 wins. He earned double-digit dollars in mixed leagues in a season for the first time.

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The 2014 season was a cruel one for Justin Verlander. To the fantasy baseball players who owned him for most of it and drafted, bought, kept, or traded for the formerly elite right-hander, the 2014 season felt approximately as cruel.

The pitcher surely expected more after a relatively – extra emphasis on relatively – disappointing 2013 effort that saw his walk rate jump above 8% and his average heat velocity dip below 94 mph for the first time since 2008 on his way to a 3.46 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. He and fantasy owners didn’t get it, though. The 4.54 ERA (117 ERA-, his worst mark in the category since his debut season), 1.40 WHIP, and 17.8% strikeout rate tell the tale of a mostly abysmal season, in fact.

Now what? The last time Verlander had fantasy owners this puzzled was, incidentally, after his 2008 campaign. The next year turned out to be pretty good. That hurler was 26, however, and his four-seam fastball averaged 95.6 mph. This guy will be 32, and … who knows?

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In 2014, Jeff Samardzija had the best season of his career as a starter, finishing with an ERA under 3, a 3.06 SIERA and a miniscule 1.8 BB/9, all during a campaign in which he was traded between leagues.

That’s pretty good. Put another way, it’s so good that even though Samardzija finished 21st in Zach Sanders’ end of the season rankings for starting pitchers, it’s hard not to feel that he was still a bit cheated from fully realizing his fantasy potential.
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• I am going to dissect the DL data since 2002 in any possible way. I already plan on examining team trends, position trends and how certain injuries affect production. Is there anything else you would like look at while I am going over the information?

• At MLB TradeRumors, I examined if the amount of career pitches makes a difference on a pitcher’s health and came to the following conclusion.

Boras continues to mention Scherzer’s pitching odometer as an advantage over Lester and Shields. However, the number of pitches thrown is not indicative of future injury. A high number shows the pitcher can hold up to the grind of being able to successfully throw for full seasons. The main issue between the three pitchers is age. Scherzer is four years younger than Shields. Scherzer’s body may still be able to hold up a bit better than the other pair, but they are still some of the healthiest pitchers in the league. The debate about the trio’s durability should begin and end with age.

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A.J. Burnett was an absolute revelation with the Pirates in 2012 and 2013, as he followed up two lost seasons with two of the best years of his career. In 2012, a 35-year-old Burnett walked just 2.76 batters per nine innings, his best-ever mark in a career that dates back to 1999. The next season, he struck out more batters than ever before, punching out well over a batter an inning.

This year, the 37-year-old Burnett moved across Pennsylvania to Philly, and in many ways, reverted back to the guy he was in his last two years in New York. Suddenly, he was once again serving up more meatballs than the Olive Garden out by the mall, pitching to an unsightly 4.59 earned run average in his 34 starts.

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At first glance, the question posed by this article’s title might seem a bit strange; Hunter Pence, if anything, comes to mind as a prototypical — perhaps the quintessential — No. 2 outfielder in fantasy. He doesn’t hurt you in any major category, he never gets injured and the final results, while rarely flashy, get the job done — especially if you have a true bopper anchoring your outfield and can afford to make Pence more of a supporting part of your fantasy squad.

In fact, Pence was ranked No. 15 in Zach Sanders’ preseason outfielder rankings, which, in a sense, was the definition of a No. 2 outfielder in standard leagues. But in his age-31 season, the Marv from Home Alone lookalike contest winner put together another solid, well-rounded effort, finishing with a .277 average, 20 homers, 106 runs, 74 RBIs and 13 steals — nothing flashy, perhaps, but good enough to finish 10th among players at his position.
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Episode 180

Happy Thanksgiving! The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix talk about, among other newsy topics, the Boston Red Sox’s signings of Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez as well as the Chicago White Sox’s notable addition, Adam LaRoche. We also delve into a few listener questions presented to us on Twitter or in the comments – debates about keepers, things like that. We then put a bow on the discussion of end-of-season OF rankings, which went up a couple of weeks ago.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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The Milwaukee Brewers’ outfield is home to a pair of highly sought outfielders in fantasy baseball leagues. Khris Davis, after a .279/.353/.596 showing in 153 plate appearances in 2013, was the clear favorite to hold down the third spot coming into the 2014 campaign. He was a pretty popular sleeper (among outfielders, ADP: 46^th, RotoGraphs consensus rank: 43^rd) as well.

For the most part, he didn’t disappoint. Davis finished 40^th among outfielders in money earned thanks to his .244/.299/.457 slash line, with 22 home runs and four stolen bases, in 549 PAs. Fantasy owners, especially those in OBP leagues who probably took a bit of a loss, might have hoped for a little more, but the left fielder’s traditional rotisserie production was a clear win, even if it wasn’t much of one.

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