Our eight best fantasy baseball pitching sleepers — courtesy of our team of experts here at The Athletic Fantasy — range from fringe studs to those little-known options who most never saw coming. And if pitching isn’t your thing, we have 8 hitter sleepers here. Good luck!
Pitching Sleepers
Hunter Brown, SP, HOU — Jake Ciely
The Astros continually have an enviable problem of too many starters, but as the cliché goes, these things usually work themselves out. Between Lance McCullers’ injury history/risk and the likelihood that Brown out-pitches Jose Urquidy, Brown should easily reach 100+ innings. Similar to Ross Stripling, Brown can make 20 starts but add another 10+ long appearances out of the pen. And unlike Stripling, Brown has 10+ K/9 upside with the potential of a mid-3.00 ERA and solid WHIP. If Brown gets 140 innings — could be his ceiling with no more than 126.1 innings in a season to date — his ratios and strikeouts can push him into the Top 30-40 overall. Don’t fret about “where he fits,” and just relish in the terrific production at a reduced cost.
Ryne Nelson, SP, ARI — Eno Sarris
A four-seam fastball with plus ride, a slider with four inches more horizontal movement than average, and a changeup and curve that also both rate as above-average by Stuff+ means that Nelson has a legit four-pitch mix. He can also command all his pitches other than the change, so it’s a nice arsenal by process stats. Mediocre strikeout rate results have produced projections that don’t look good, and his rotation spot seems like it’s up for debate, but that just makes Nelson cheaper. He had great strikeout rates before Triple-A, and as he starts to mix in his secondary pitches more often (he was a little in love with his fastball last season), he should start to get back to those numbers again this year. His park is a pitcher’s park these days, he handled divisional opponents well in his debut, he’s got good pitches by Stuff+ and Location+ numbers, he has an opportunity, and he’s cheap. Ideal sleeper pitcher.
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Matt Brash, SP, SEA — Mike Kurland
This is a deeper league play, or more of a watch list-type name, but Matt Brash showed out last year in the second half. This was, of course, after he moved to the bullpen. Every year there are a couple of players who prove to be useful as a high-leverage or multi-inning reliever and Brash has the stuff to be just that. There were also rumbles of him getting stretched out as a starter before his committing to the WBC. Regardless, this is a team where he can be worked in as a starter by the second half or just have a very valuable relief role and fall into a few saves in the process — especially if certain pitchers are not ready at the beginning of the year. When he transitioned to a reliever role, we saw the K% spike to 33.9% and K-BB% increase almost 20 points to 21.3% — it’s safe to say he has a bit of a walk issue. All the underlying ratios were sub-3.00 as well. If it does not work out as a starter there is still a lot of strikeout and ratio help here as a relief pitcher in deeper leagues with the potential for wins out of the bullpen for the M’s.
Alex Cobb, SP, SF— John Laghezza
Cobb was actually my pick for dark horse fantasy MVP at last year’s All-Star break. Though he may have fallen short of that particular goal, I thought his performance was encouraging. There weren’t many other SPs to underperform their peripherals (2.89xFIP, 3.15SIERA, 29.4%CSW, 61.5%GB, 0.54HR/9) the way Cobb did. Upon arriving in San Francisco, he added more than two miles per hour universally across his arsenal, which includes two separate pitches that generate a +30%Whiff. He’s currently being drafted as SP68 (ADP around 250) despite an assured rotation spot and a crack at a full complement of cheap, quality innings.
Tyler Anderson, SP, LAA — Al Melchior
I thought Anderson might get overvalued after his career year with the Dodgers in 2022, but early NFBC ADPs have the lefty outside of the Top 250 overall. That’s a massive overcorrection. He has always been merely decent as a strikeout pitcher, but Anderson has been consistently good at getting high flies and avoiding hard contact. His career ERA (4.16) and HR/9 (1.26) don’t reflect those skills because of his four seasons in Colorado and an aberrant 2021 season with the Pirates and Mariners. Now with the Angels, it’s fair to expect Anderson to translate low BABIP, walk and home run rates into a mid-to-high 3.00s ERA with a sub-1.20 WHIP over 170+ innings.
Ross Stripling, SP, SF — Michael Waterloo
You would think that there would be more excitement about a player who posted a 3.57 xERA and .367 xFIP in 134.1 innings last year. Stripling is now moving from Toronto to San Francisco, but his ADP is at 290 — the same range as Craig Kimbrel, Bo Naylor, and Jarred Kelenic. As The Hurricane would say: What’s up with that? Sure, the strikeouts are part of the game for Stripling, as his 20.7 K% isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s the same K% as his new teammate Logan Webb, and Stripling’s season last year was arguably better than Webb’s. Facing the Padres, Dodgers, and Rockies (in Coors) isn’t fun, but the high ground-ball rate should be able to limit the damage — assuming the Giants aren’t hurt by the new shift ban (they were middle of the pack last year, shifting 31.6% of the time).
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Hunter Harvey, RP, WSH — Greg Jewett
Harvey has “closer” stuff, improved his velocity last year and worked this winter with his dad (Bryan Harvey), so add pedigree to the list. During 38 appearances in 2022 for the Nationals, he logged 39.1 innings with a 45:12 K:BB, six holds and one blown save. He also posted a 21 K-BB% and a career-best swinging strike rate of 12% while introducing a split-fingered fastball. This tweak in his arsenal, along with familiarity with the pitch clock, may result in 10+ saves this season. Over his last eight outings in 2022, Harvey produced nine scoreless frames with 10 strikeouts versus three walks and a 0.89 WHIP. Here’s hoping this carries over into 2023.
Jeffrey Springs, SP, TB — Chris Welsh
Springs is my favorite pitcher to draft outside the Top 150. If his value rises as the draft season goes on, I will follow. Springs put up a 2.46 ERA over 135.1 innings in 2022. His SIERA, which was 3.32 (if qualified), was tied with Zac Gallen. Springs struck out 144 batters with a 9.58 K/9, but his 26.2 K% was right after Zac Gallen and higher than Yu Darvish. Springs made some grip changes last year which saw two inches of vertical movement to his fastball, three inches of vertical movement to his changeup and a two mph increase in his slider. Springs was stretched out last year to become a starter. Most projections don’t seem to be projecting much of an increase in innings pitched, but if he can push 160-170, he should be an incredible value based on where he is going in drafts.
(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
