The All Undrafted Rotation

Although lacking an iota of scientific investigation, the 2014 fantasy baseball season seemed to have an inordinate wealth of free starting pitching talent. I’m not one to draft starters very early in practice to begin with, rather targeting the early teen rounds in standard snake drafts to try and pluck solid, if unspectacular, starters. But it turns out, I really didn’t have to draft starters at all. I could have amassed a championship caliber rotation off of the waiver wire had I possessed some gift of forthtelling or psychic intuition or a super fancy magic 8 ball.

The 20-20 hindsight exercise at this point in the season is always a little painful, and frankly, probably not very healthy. But I can’t help myself. On some level, I’d like to think that it might train my drafting ability although I highly doubt there are many successful teams out there who drafted their starting rotation in the final five rounds. But regardless (or as former co-worker would probably say to watch me cringe, irregardless), let’s take a peek at a group of starters who went undrafted in one of my standard ten team leagues.

Somehow, Tyson Ross didn’t get drafted. He was picked up pretty quickly, but that doesn’t mitigate that he was, in fact, free. Maybe it was his 3-8 record over 125 innings the previous year, maybe his terrible run with the Athletics in 2012, who knows. But Ross was a fantasy force in 2014 with a 2.81 ERA (3.24 FIP), 1.21 WHIP, and 24% strikeout rate. He pushed his groundball rate up to 57%, second only to Dallas Keuchel in all of baseball, and Ross was just steadfastly very good all season long. In 22 of his 31 starts, Ross gave up two or fewer runs, and only gave up more than four runs three times. Objectively speaking, Ross never had a single blow up start. You can’t even say that about Clayton Kershaw.

I’m not convinced that half our league could have even told you who Tanner Roark, Dallas Keuchel, and Jake Arrieta were before the season started. And these three were about as valuable as guys like Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann. Roark turned in a tidy little 2013, but his role was somewhat undefined as late as spring training in 2014, and it wasn’t until the Nationals cut Chris Young that it appeared evident he might have a foot in the door. He came out proverbial guns blazing, winning his first three starts, and he never really slowed down, finishing with a 2.85 ERA (3.47 FIP), 1.09 WHIP, and a stout 15 wins. He doesn’t strike out a ton of opponents, but he doesn’t walk many either, and manages to induce pretty weak contact using a five-pitch repertoire.

Equally unknown, Dallas Keuchel had two major league stinkers headed into 2014. He struck out nobody in 2012 and posted an ERA over five and then in 2013 he struck out a few more, ran his groundball rate up over 50% and managed to get hardly anyone out, giving up 184 hits in 153 innings pitched. Not much for sleeper material there. And then the bell rang and Keuchel became the most prolific groundballer in baseball, and pretty quickly the ace of the Houston Astros. He finishes with a 2.93 ERA (3.21 FIP), 1.18 WHIP, and even double digit wins for a team scrapping for W’s all season long.

Jake Arrieta was just gross this year. Pretty terrible to downright awful with the Orioles over several seasons, he was so-so with the Cubs post-Feldman trade. There’s always been a bit of sleeper buzz with Arrieta because of his yo-yo relationship with the strikeout, but find me one person who thought Arrieta would post an ERA just north of 2.50 with a 27% strikeout rate, and you’re probably talking to Jake’s mom. In fact, among all starters who threw at least 150 innings, Arrieta’s 2.26 FIP places him just behind Kershaw, but ahead of the likes of Corey Kluber, Chris Sale, Garrett Richards, and Felix Hernandez. Nice company. And did I mention free?

Honorable mention goes to Kyle Lohse, Wei-Yin Chen, Henderson Alvarez, and Jose Quintana. All also undrafted, and all probably better than anyone our league drafted after the 12th round. Sickening.