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Kyle Bishop analyzes young MLB starting pitchers in the AL, undervalued sleepers poised to break out for fantasy baseball in 2016. RotoBaller has all the best sleepers and breakouts.
The wait is finally over – pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training. Of course, here at RotoBaller we’ve been cranking out tons of preseason content for some time now. We might be a little obsessed with baseball ‘round these parts. But that’s okay, because so are you!
And what better way to celebrate the advent of draft season than to profile potential breakouts and busts? Last week’s series focused on players who fell into those categories in 2015 and their outlooks for this season. This week and next, we’ll take a closer look at the guys who are most likely to delight, or disappoint, fantasy owners in 2016.
Editor's Note: Be sure to also head over to our fantasy baseball rankings assistant. We have released our new rankings tool - you can easily filter, sort, and export all sorts of rankings - mixed leagues, AL/NL only, top prospects, dynasty formats, keeper values and more! It's all in one place, and all free.
2016 AL Starting Pitcher Breakout Candidates
After dominating throughout the minors and an impressive showing as a rookie, Stroman was a popular breakout pick in 2015. Unfortunately, he tore his ACL in spring training. Originally expected to miss the entire season, Stroman instead made it back to the bigs for four September starts. In that small sample, he showed no ill effects from the injury. The gaudy strikeout totals from his time on the farm haven’t carried over to the majors so far, but Stroman’s fantastic five-pitch arsenal, aversion to walks and heavy ground ball tendencies have him poised to join the ranks of the elite this season.
It certainly doesn’t hurt his fantasy stock to have the powerful Blue Jays lineup backing him, either. With Jose Bautista and his merry band of bat-flipping sluggers providing support, wins should be plentiful for Toronto’s de facto ace.
Like Stroman – and for that matter, like the next pitcher we’ll discuss – Walker got a fair amount of hype heading into 2015, though he wasn’t quite as impressive in his first taste of big league action. Unfortunately for fantasy owners who paid an expectant price, Walker absolutely faceplanted in the early going, carrying a hideous 7.33 ERA through his first nine starts. Then, something clicked. Walker stopped living up to his surname and cut down drastically on the free passes while also raising his strikeout rate. In his final 20 starts, Walker posted a sparkling 1.04 WHIP and 6.94 K/BB.
Unfortunately, Walker had also struggled with keeping the ball in the yard during his early scuffles, and that problem didn’t resolve so neatly. Only seven other qualified starters allowed a worse HR/9 than Walker’s 1.33, which was the main reason he still finished the season with a lousy 4.56 ERA. Still, Walker is a former top prospect who A) showed demonstrable improvement as the season wore on and B) will only be 24 in August.
Smyly missed most of last season with shoulder problems, but when he did pitch, he made those of us who had predicted a breakout look good. While he had issues with the long ball, Smyly also posted a double-digit K/9 and limited walks enough to keep his ratios respectable (3.11 ERA, 1.17 WHIP). In fact, had he pitched enough innings to qualify, his 20.7 K-BB% would have ranked in the top 10 in baseball, just behind teammate Chris Archer and ahead of such luminaries as David Price, Matt Harvey, and Gerrit Cole.
Therein lies the rub, of course – Smyly has only thrown more than 100 innings once in his four major league seasons. To be fair, he spent one of those years as a reliever and another as a swingman. But volume does matter, and as we saw last season, the Rays aren’t shy about pulling their starters early to avoid the times through the order penalty. They’re likely to be even more inclined to give Smyly the kid gloves treatment considering his shoulder, which would limit his fantasy ceiling. He lands outside the top 50 SP in both our rankings and current ADP, though, so there’s still profit potential to be had.
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