Entering the season, some fantasy owners thought Corey Kluber could turn in a good year – I bet a lot of them frequent these pages. He was coming off a below average 3.85 ERA, but FIP, xFIP, and SIERA all estimated a figure closer to 3.25. Given a decent strikeout rate of 8.31 K/9 and solid 2.02 BB/9, he made for a tidy mid-late draft target. His average cost was $5 (I generally paid about $8).

Now we know that the Klubot was a lot better than “good.” After all, he earned a great nickname like Klubot. Generally, you don’t earn a cool moniker with mediocre performance (unless it rhymes, i.e. Big Game Games). His 18 wins, 269 strikeouts (10.27 K/9), 2.44 ERA, and 1.09 WHIP ranked him as the fourth best fantasy pitcher, worth $28. Talk about profit.

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Nearly a year ago, I introduced you to my 2014 Andrew Cashner. If you had forgotten, Cashner was my favorite sleeper heading into 2013. Although the strikeout rate was a disappointment, he certainly delivered. The 2014 version (before Carlos Carrasco took over as my favorite sleeper) turned out to be Cashner’s rotation mate, Tyson Ross. And boy did he make his fantasy owners happy by posting a 2.81 ERA and punching out 195 batters, while winning 13 games.

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Coming off a pretty fantastic 2013 season, many were bullish on the mustachioed baby-faced Ranger for 2014. But after a freak accident with his pooch left him with microfracture surgery on his knee, Derek Holland was pretty much a lost cause in both real and fantasy baseball. By the time he returned, the Rangers were in the cellar and there wasn’t much reason for Holland to go out there and be quite as fine as he was in years past. Rather, he was merely getting his work in — in preparation for 2015.

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It’s been a few years since Doug Fister was first able to legally drive a car, however 16 still represents a significant number for the right-hander. Last year he accrued 16 wins en route to being ranked as the 19th best starting pitcher, while torpedoing one of my Preseason Bold Predictions. Fister managed to crack the top-20 mark despite a weak 5.38 K/9, the second lowest mark seasonal average of his career, minimum 100 innings pitched.
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Some fantasy baseball players here and there, sort of, in a way, kind of think that already. But they may not be eager to draft Alex Cobb like one, and they shouldn’t need to do so. In terms of performance, there haven’t been too many hurlers better in the last couple of years. He finished 34^th in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for the position. The right-hander has yet to pitch even 170 innings in a single campaign at any level, however. He likely doesn’t strike the populace as dependable.

There really isn’t a need to make the case that Cobb is good. Fantasy owners know that he’s good. But would they call him an ace? Probably not. For now, then, I’ll call him a pseudo ace.

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There were few expectations placed on Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura last season. While he was considered the favorite to open the year as the team’s fifth starter, Ventura had only made three starts in the majors. The potential was there, but Ventura came with a lot of uncertainty. Once he got the job, Ventura proved he was a fifth starter in name only. Over 183 innings, the 23-year-old posted a 3.20 ERA, with a 3.60 FIP. By the playoffs, Ventura had emerged as the Royals second most dependable starter behind James Shields. With Shields expected to leave town during the offseason, Ventura will enter 2015 with enormous expectations. Will he provide an encore?

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Yesterday, the Athletics continued their wheeling and dealing this offseason by trading the pitcher they just traded for over the summer. Jeff Samardzija will now be calling the South side of Chicago home and given the perception of each home park, this is seemingly a bad move for his fantasy value. Let’s check out the park factors.

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This past spring, Jake Odorizzi had an opportunity, but not much in the way of expectations from fantasy baseball players. He hadn’t yet been exceptional at anything. There had existed a decent chance that he would eventually lose his rotation spot. For the first couple of months of the season, he struggled in each outing after his first time through the opposition’s lineup. Rotisserie owners might even consider his 76^th-place finish in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for starting pitchers a bit of a coup. According to the list, he earned a buck – on the nose. How exciting.

But Odorizzi also did something interesting: strike people out more frequently. He finished with a 4.13 ERA and 1.29 WHIP, but the 174 K’s (24.2 K%) in 168 innings were quite nice. They lowered the right-hander’s FIP, xFIP, and SIERA, naturally, to more eye-catching figures and raised the level of interest of the fantasy population. How great should that interest be in 2015?

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By the time James Paxton left in the sixth inning of his second start of 2014, he had done little in his young career to dampen expectations of him becoming a solid major league starter. After all, between the four starts he made in September 2013 and his first two in April, Paxton had gone 5-0 with a 1.75 ERA, an 8.5 K/9 and flashed an especially encouraging ability to generate ground balls, displaying some of the ingredients that comprise the finest fantasy starters.

Unfortunately, a strain of the left latissimus dorsi muscle curtailed his outing on April 8, causing him to miss nearly four months and finish 102nd among starting pitchers, according to Zach Sanders’ end of the season rankings. But upon returning, Paxton was able to redeem what was left of his season, enough so to make 2014 a step forward for the southpaw and perhaps, at the age of 26, setting him up as a breakout candidate for 2015.

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It may be an understatement to claim that fantasy owners were excited about Danny Salazar heading into the season. And who could blame us? After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2010, he returned with a new arm and rose swiftly through the Indians farm system. He then hinted at his vast potential during his 2013 MLB debut, as he struck out nearly 31% of batters faced, while displaying strong control. And that performance was backed by a sizzling 96 mph fastball, lethal changeup and good slider. It was enough to get us RotoGraphs rankers to place him 24th among starters, despite having just 52.0 Major League innings under his belt.

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