6 years agoMost pitchers with Robbie Ray’s flaws would be ignored in fantasy circles. He walks way too many hitters (13.3% walk rate in 2018), batters crush him when they make contact (44.4% hard contact rate in 2018), and he can’t keep the ball in the yard (1.38 HR/9 in 2018). But those strikeouts (31.4% K rate in 2018), those dang strikeouts. They’re why Ray is ranked as the 32nd overall pitcher despite spending two months on the disabled list last season, failing to pitch at least six innings in more than two-thirds of the starts he made, and having the highest BB/9 among pitchers that threw at least 120 innings. Even with all those hurdles, Ray maintained a 12.01 K/9. To put things in perspective, Ray had more strikeouts than Cubs’ righty Kyle Hendricks despite pitching 75 fewer innings. It would be unrealistic to expect Ray to fix all his flaws over the course of one offseason; change is hard. But if he could just lower the walks to a manageably-bad rate, or reduce the home runs, or raise his average start length above 5.1 innings, he’d be a reliable source of strikeouts at the cost of WHIP. Right now, he’s a grab bag as an SP2 or SP3. You might get lucky and pull a 2017 Robbie Ray, or you might get the Robbie Ray of 2016, or 2018. Drafting Robbie Ray as a rotation cornerstone is a dicey pick, especially at his ADP of 116. As long as his owners understand the risk, it is fine as a strategy.--Elliott Baas - RotoBaller