Resurfacing: Deep-Draft Targets, Part 3

And now let’s finish our team-by-team plunge among the disregarded and forgotten—the guys who should be available for $1 or in the reserve rounds, the later the better as far as we’re concerned:

Milwaukee. Eric Lauer in Colorado, 2019: 18 IP, No Wins, 38 Hits, 8 Walks, 21 Earned Runs, 11 Strikeouts. Eric Lauer, everywhere but Colorado, 2019: 137 2/3 IP, 8 Wins, 120 Hits, 43 Walks, 53 Earned Runs, 127 Strikeouts. You do the math; Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell, who has a college degree in Accounting, certainly will, and respond accordingly.

St. Louis. At first glance, Tyler O’Neill looks like a sucker play. His Hard Hit Percentage, Exit Velocity, Barrel Percentage, and Average Fly Ball Distance were all way down from 2018. However: All but about a month of his season was compromised by injuries. During that month—i.e., July—he was excellent, hitting .300 (we’d settle for .260, which is likelier) with a home run about every 20 at bats. In other words, he replicated his 2017 rookie season. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that he’ll be the weak side of a left field platoon with Tommy Edman, but it’s easy to envision O’Neill going full-time, either because the Cardinals need Edman to take care of infield shortfall or because O’Neill replaces Dexter Fowler in right field.

Chicago. Craig Kimbrel will certainly open the season as the Cubs’ closer. But we see Kimbrel’s career following the arc of Greg Holland’s. In other words: top-tier closer; holdout and late signing; bad season (for Kimbrel, that’s 2019); good couple of months, then meltdown. So we figure that someone else will take over as the Cubs’ closer at about midseason, and we don’t see any real candidates to do so except Rowan Wick. (We aren’t believers in Jeremy Jeffress.) Read David Laurila on the subject of Wick and tell us we’re wrong.

Pittsburgh. Trevor Williams was a Fantasy-useful (though low-strikeout) pitcher in 2018, and the first six weeks of his 2019 were about the same. Then he got hurt—a “right side strain”—and, we surmise, came back too soon. He says he’s healthy now, and we envision a return to 2018.

Cincinnati. For five months last season, Wade Miley was among the top 30 or so Fantasy starting pitchers—3.06 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 13 Wins, about what you got from Patrick Corbin over a full season, minus the strikeouts. Then he apparently fell apart. Fatigue, we (and probably he) figured. Nope—after the season, a former teammate told him that he’d been tipping his pitches. (We concede that, for a Houston pitcher, this might be heavy karma.) We assume Miley can avoid doing this again. And now he’s in Cincinnati, where his career record is excellent.

Arizona. We wish we had something arcane to tell you about this team, but we don’t. The best we can do is Kevin Ginkel, who has a pretty good shot at becoming the closer. That position is currently held by Archie Bradley, whom we like (and have just drafted in our first league of the season) for various reasons, but who we note was one of the hardest-hit relief pitchers last season. Ostensibly ahead of Ginkel on the depth chart are Junior Guerra (who was great last year, but it was his first good season, really, and he seems more a multi-innings guy anyway) and Hector Rondon (whose strikeout rate plummeted alarmingly last season). Ginkel, meanwhile, has been essentially unhittable and has provided bountiful strikeouts in two straight seasons, including 24 major league innings last year.

Dodgers. Tough to find reserve-round value on this team, given how clogged their starting rotation seems to be at this point. Still, we can see things falling out as follows: Kenta Maeda finally departed. Ross Stripling will likewise get traded, as he supposedly was and then wasn’t. Julio Urias’s so-so record isn’t just an artifact of his continuing recovery from Tommy John surgery. Alex Wood’s sell-by date has passed. That leaves two vacant spots in the rotation. The obvious candidates are elite prospects Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May, who have also been quite good in their respective major league stints. Go ahead and draft them; we won’t stop you. But also in LA is Jimmy Nelson, poster boy for the Designated Hitter. Before he tore a labrum sliding into first base (which is sort of like breaking your hamate bone while pitching) in 2017, he was excellent for the Brewers. He was pretty bad when he finally came back last season, but at ADP 535 we’ll let him have a do-over.

San Francisco. It doesn’t look like this team is going anywhere, but if you can use its pitchers at home and keep them out of Coors, they can be worth getting if they’re cheap enough. Thus, Logan Webb. He’s young, he’s a top prospect, and he didn’t disgrace himself in 8 major league starts last year. Except, really, he was better than that. But for one atrocious start in St. Louis, he pitched pretty well (37 IP, 36 Hits, 12 Walks, 16 Earned Runs, 35 Strikeouts), including excellent road outings against Arizona and Atlanta—not enough, by itself, to grab him, even at his ADP of 533, but we figure he’ll improve.

San Diego. Here’s how we see the Padres’ rotation developing. Chris Paddack looks like he’s really good. Joey Lucchesi’s third season should be reasonably similar to his first two. We love Dinelson Lamet, though he’s a serious injury risk. After that, we’re dubious. Garrett Richards is intensely injury-prone, and was pretty bad in his few comeback games last year. Zach Davies is an innings-eater, but too often he lets the innings eat him. Cal Quantrill disappointed last season, and looks as if the bullpen might be his destiny. Mackenzie Gore looks like a superb prospect, but probably needs more time. The guy we like is Luis Patino. He’s even younger than Gore, but, we think, a bit more advanced, and has done pretty much nothing wrong on his way to Double A. Worth a shot if you’re in the 45th round (his ADP is 674), need a high-ceiling starting pitcher, and are otherwise at a loss.

Rockies. Two weeks ago, we touted Breyvic Valera as the Gio Urshela of 2020, whereupon the Blue Jays DFA’d him. The same fate could easily befall Chris Owings, but we’re sort-of recommending him anyway. He’s been pretty horrible in the majors the past two seasons, and the Rockies may not (all right—don’t) really need him. Nonetheless, four observations: (1) He’s only 28; (2) the major league equivalent for his 2019 Triple-A stats is solid; (3) he’ll get you a few stolen bases; and (4) his career slash line in Coors is .375/.400/.592.