RADIO
Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Triston McKenzie is a 2021 fantasy baseball draft value. His ADP is undervalued, making him a potential draft bargain and late-round sleeper to target.
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 165
CURRENT ADP: ~185 overall
ANALYSIS: Triston McKenzie was ranked as a top-100 prospect from 2017 through 2019. He missed the 2019 season due to strains of his lat and pectoral muscles, but his career 30.4 percent strikeout rate, 0.997 WHIP and 2.68 ERA over four seasons in the minors was enough to convince Cleveland to give him a shot in 2020.
Despite missing a year, McKenzie looked good in his debut campaign — going 2-1 with a 3.24 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and an 11.34 K/9. His 33.1 percent strikeout rate was also the highest among rookie pitchers with at least 30 innings, and his 12.4 percent swinging strike rate was his best mark since 2017 at High-A. The biggest concern is that his ERA might rise this year, as his 3.90 FIP and 3.60 xFIP suggest McKenzie got a little lucky at times, and batters were able to make solid contact off him to the tune of a 12 percent barrel rate and 36 percent hard-hit rate. But managers who are willing to risk his ERA going up will be rewarded by a plethora of strikeouts —especially pitching in a division with three of the top 13 teams in the league in batter strikeouts in 2020. McKenzie should be a solid No. 3 starter in almost any format.
More Fantasy Baseball Values and Sleepers
Rookies To Stash: Top Prospect Performances
Welcome to the Week 22 edition of the top prospect performers. In this weekly piece, we take a look at some of the top-performing minor leaguers who could matter in fantasy down the road. While some may be promoted more quickly than others, it's important to stay up to date on recent prospect performances so […]
Fantasy Baseball Hitter Streamers, Pickups
For most fantasy baseball managers in head-to-head formats, these are the final few weeks of the regular season before the playoffs start. And for those in Yahoo roto leagues, we are officially 35 days out from the end of the year! There's no time to waste, and if you need some extra bats for the […]
Top Pitching Prospects To Stash
Welcome back to our list of top starting-pitcher prospects to stash for Week 22 of the 2026 MLB season. With the season winding down, several top pitching prospects could be close to getting the call. A few of these arms could make a real difference for fantasy teams over the final few weeks, so if […]
Top MLB Hitter Prospects To Stash for 2026
Another week, another wave of top prospects on the verge of a call-up to the majors. Over the weekend, we finally saw St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Joshua Baez earn his promotion, and now I expect another round of call-ups once rosters expand in September. Here are the top five hitting prospects to stash now for […]
Bargain Basement Hitters: Waiver Wire Adds
Welcome, RotoBallers, to another edition of our Bargain Basement Hitters for Week 21 of the fantasy baseball season. We're in the thick of the stretch run now, so it's time to upgrade our teams with some useful pickups. We're either focusing on players with seven-game weeks or exploitable matchups. As usual, we will look at […]
Download Our Free Draft App
Like what you see? You can download our free fantasy baseball mobile app for iPhone and Android which includes more draft sleepers at very position, 24x7 player news, notifications, injury alerts and daily articles... all free!
Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App
Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy baseball app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, sleepers, prospects & more. All free!
Check out RotoBaller's entire fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups and sleepers list, updated daily!
