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"Post-hype" has become a fancy buzz term across the fantasy industry over the years. Generally speaking, your model post-hype sleeper is a player who once carried high expectations but failed to deliver. These players tend to be in their second or third year, as they either began their careers as much-ballyhooed prospects and initially underperformed, or they were once rookie revelations that entered the following year with high hopes and fell flat.
Good examples from previous seasons are Edwin Diaz and Jesus Luzardo. Diaz was the 2018 AL Reliever of the Year, faceplanted in his 2019 New York Mets debut season, and has been one of baseball's most dominant closers ever since. Luzardo, the No. 1 Oakland Athletics prospect for 2019 and 2020, struggled mightily during his first full year in 2021, but has since settled in as an effective frontline starting pitcher for the Miami Marlins.
Each of the pitchers we're looking at here have three years of service or fewer in the major leagues. Now that their hype is back in check, let's see how they can leap toward stardom in 2024. Yahoo ADPs are accurate as of February 28.
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Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
ADP: 165.4
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who fits the post-hype mold quite like Hunter Brown. A 2022 September call-up, Brown burst onto the scene with a sparkling 0.89 ERA (1.98 FIP), 1.08 WHIP, and 22 strikeouts in 20 1/3 innings over seven appearances and parlayed that success into 3 2/3 scoreless frames during the Houston Astros' playoff run.
That stretch provided Brown, Houston’s top pitching prospect for 2023, with plenty of momentum heading into the following season, but he never fully recovered from a disappointing four-run outing at home versus an abysmal Detroit Tigers offense to open his first full year. Brown fired off back-to-back performances of seven no-run innings to get his ERA to 1.93 through three starts, but that marked the last time his ERA sat under 2.00, and that figure ultimately resided over 4.00 for the entire second half of the campaign.
The right-hander was solid in his four postseason showings for the Astros in 2023, allowing only two runs with seven strikeouts over his seven innings of work, and he's off to a nice start this spring.
#Astros starting pitcher Hunter Brown is done for the day. Here’s his final stat line over two innings.
31 pitches
2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 Ks#Relentless pic.twitter.com/bjhG1Ypoqk
— Full Seam Ahead (@FullSeamAhead) February 25, 2024
After Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, and Cristian Javier, Brown appears to have quite a long leash in the Astros' starting rotation in 2024. Jose Urquidy is one of the game’s softest tossers, while the returns of Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. are uncertain. Brown’s reliance on the fastball and lack of deceiving breaking balls will leave him prone to getting hit hard again, and he also needs to sharpen his command.
If he incorporates the split finger changeup more into his repertoire (67th-percentile offspeed run value) over the slider (first-percentile breaking run value), however, I like Brown's chances of taking a third-year leap. The hard-throwing 25-year-old missed enough bats (26.8% strikeout rate) to yield better fantasy results, and he’s also adept at keeping the ball on the ground (52.2% ground ball rate) despite poor secondary pitches.
Both his FIP (4.37) and xERA (4.27), although pedestrian, indicate Brown underachieved a year ago. Although he was cheaper in 2023 drafts, that was largely due to a lack of sample size, job security, and a back injury in spring training. With a full year of experience under his belt, Brown is your consummate post-hype sleeper in the early-to-mid double-digit rounds with league-winning upside in 2024 drafts if he can implement a more consistent secondary pitch.
Edward Cabrera, Miami Marlins
ADP: 379.07
Those who played Diamond Dynasty in "MLB The Show 2021" are already very familiar with Edward Cabrera’s game.
The Miami Marlins featured a triumvirate of Dominican right-handers as their top pitching prospects for 2022, excluding Max Meyer, with Cabrera topping the list. While Eury Perez has clearly usurped Cabrera at this point, the latter still carries as much potential as any hurler in the game. Tossed into the fire in the first start of his career, Cabrera launched six scoreless innings with nine punchouts at Coors Field and ended the year with an encouraging 3.01 ERA (4.59 FIP) over 71 2/3 frames.
Cabrera has always sported top-notch swing-and-miss stuff but just hasn’t been able to hone his command yet, dragging a 14.0% walk rate over his 192 2/3 innings. That’s a recipe for disaster. But do you know who else had a bottom-five percent walk rate in 2023? NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell.
Cabrera’s profile above parallels that of Snell’s in many ways, so while his floor is extremely low, his ceiling could spike for a special kind of campaign. The 23-year-old righty's changeup quietly produced one of the most effective offspeed pitches in baseball last year, featuring a top-five percent run value (nine) on Statcast.
If he can improve his heater location -- and gets a bit luckier with his curveball -- the sky is the limit here. Cabrera is my super dark horse Cy Young contender for 2024, and a top-25 positional finish firmly lies within his range of potential outcomes. With workhorse Sandy Alcantara out for the year and a pitcher-friendly ballpark to boot, there’s just way too much that waters the mouth to let this guy go undrafted in fantasy this spring.
Update: Cabrera was diagnosed with a right shoulder impingement over a week ago. He threw a 20-pitch bullpen session on Wednesday and will continue to ramp up his activity. There is no timetable for his return, and the 25-year-old is considered day-to-day. Despite the shoulder issue, Cabrera is worth a late-round flier at his current 379 ADP in March.
Garrett Whitlock, Boston Red Sox
ADP: 235.9
This one’s a little tenuous, considering Garrett Whitlock is penciled in as a reliever for the Boston Red Sox to start 2024. But Tanner Houck, their projected No. 5 starter, has fared far better as a reliever (2.68 ERA) than as a starter (4.17 ERA) in his career, so that experiment may be short-lived. Some would perhaps side with Houck as the post-hype sleeper, since he was once a highly-touted prospect, but Whitlock has demonstrated better stuff, which should bode well for him no matter what role he occupies.
Garrett Whitlock’s first start of the spring is done.
2 IP
1 H
1 ER/R
2 K
0 BB
1 HRSays he was happy with how his stuff looked outside of the homer to Rutschman.pic.twitter.com/jkOwrp56TD
— Tyler Milliken ⚾️ (@tylermilliken_) February 24, 2024
2023 was a rough go for Whitlock, who spent three separate stints on the injured list following a very promising 2021 and 2022. With a sharp 4.9% walk rate for his career, limiting traffic on the bases is clearly the 27-year-old's calling card. He’s going to need to establish a secondary pitch to complement his sinker, as he’s yet to settle on a consistent option between the sweeper and changeup. Based on 2021 and 2023, his sweeper was more effective, but in 2022, the changeup was more valuable.
A guy with Whitlock’s blend of top-tier control and solid bat-missing material (25.7% career K% rate) could spur some strong results across the board as a ratio stabilizer in fantasy. Even if he doesn’t beat out Houck for a starting role, Whitlock would be a candidate to close games for the BoSox if Kenley Jansen is ultimately moved at July’s trade deadline. Whitlock is a swingman we should want at the end of deep-league benches for his versatility.
Emmet Sheehan, Los Angeles Dodgers
ADP: 461.57
Update: Sheehan was placed on the 15-day injured list with right forearm inflammation. The 24-year-old will be sidelined until at least mid-April. Despite the forearm inflammation, Sheehan is worth a late-round flier at his current March ADP of 461.57.
Catching the baseball world’s attention, Emmet Sheehan fired six no-hit innings in his major-league debut versus the San Francisco Giants on June 16, 2023. His first big-league appearance couldn't have gone much better, but he generated only a 4.5% swinging strike rate in that one. Following an overachieving June, regression hit Sheehan hard to the tune of a 5.84 ERA from the Fourth of July on, and he also surrendered three runs in 3 2/3 frames in his postseason debut.
Although the Dodgers sound opposed to a six-man rotation in 2024, four L.A. starters will begin the year on the injured list. Ouch. Walker Buehler is closest to returning to the mound, with Sheehan likely battling with James Paxton to keep his spot in the rotation until then. While I like Paxton as a late-round sleeper after he looked sharp last year, the oft-injured southpaw might be better suited in a long-relief role to maintain his health. Sheehan’s profile is more impressive overall, anyway.
With the negative regression hopefully out of the way, the young righty is now in for some progression after attaining a .186 xBA last season, ranking in the top-two percent of baseball. Sheehan's 3.50 xERA was far superior to his 4.92 ERA, and only 13 pitchers out of 372 with at least 99 balls in play had larger positive discrepancies in this area.
Sheehan was only the No. 13 prospect in L.A.'s farm system in 2023, so they have no real marriage to the idea of giving him starts. But if he improves on locating his fastball to induce more whiffs in his first full year, the 24-year-old could lock up a starting role for a large fraction of 2024. Just don’t expect him to maintain the spot all year long, considering the Dodgers rotation is going to get healthier as the year elapses. There's still very little risk involved with his late-round price tag, even if he gets beat up again.
Sheehan's chances of becoming an early-season sell-high candidate look pretty promising as well, and there’s a clear upside for more here than just a crafty wheel-and-deal commodity.
Honorable Mentions
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