Use Fantasy Baseball R.O.I.D.S to Identify 2015 Draft Sleepers

Do you remember the 197th pick of your last fantasy baseball draft?

It was around 10pm, and there you were, sipping a good beer in a slight panic.

After 15 rounds of fierce draft scrutiny, your ability to process cognitive thought melted away. You were frantically trying to decide between Michael Brantley and Grady Sizemore and the stress of selecting your third outfielder was almost unbearable.

ESPN said Brantley is “reliable, durable and steady but unspectacular.” What a boring pick. Meanwhile, Peter Gammons is on the T.V. pontificating about Grady’s chances to steal the starting job in Boston from rookie Jackie Bradley Jr.

The fate of your fantasy season hinges on this pick.

Fast forward, Sizemore gets DFA’d and Brantley puts up an MVP caliber season. Who did you pick?

Were you harvesting the crops all year with Brantley? Or were you forced to oversell the hell out of Sizemore while he whiffed all over the first 40 games of the season? Hopefully, you found a sucker to take him off your hands. Perhaps you snagged a prospect, or a holds guy, or maybe you just dropped him.

Everybody wants to draft a Brantley type sleeper, but why is that so hard? How do players like Anthony Rendon and Dee Gordon slip through the draft cracks? Both players were chosen in the late rounds of fantasy drafts, and now both players are considered potential top 50 picks.

Luckily for fantasy dorks young and old alike, I have devised a helpful system to identify sleepers and avoid ever buying a Sizemore again. This system has five steps, better known as R.O.I.D.S. Once you get all “roided up,” you will be ready to identify the types of players that will consistently overproduce their draft position.

This week, we start with the first letter in R.O.I.D.S, or Ranking Anomalies.

It’s simple. You have to find mistakes in the ranking systems. Ranking Anomalies are usually players that are coming off an injury, a subpar season, have additional motivation, or were just overlooked for one reason or another. Find value.

In 2014, Johnny Cueto was listed by Yahoo as the 67th best available arm, behind ‘Big Ern’  Frieri. If you are drafting in Yahoo, you write that down. This year, I see one of my favorite young arms, Danny Salazar ranked around the 60th best starting pitcher. When you find a player as breathtaking as Salazar getting dumped on by Tristan Cockcroft, you write that down too.

If you don't remember, Salazar was nasty after his call up in 2013. He throws liquid fire with plenty of movement. He deals consistently in the high 90’s, with diversity and a plus plus change. He just strikes out everyone.

Unfortunately, in 2014, he gave up a bunch of dingers and was demoted after 10 starts.

After spending the next 10 games in the minors, he worked on his control. Justin Masterson went down with a chicken thigh and Salazar got the call up. He was at times masterful, but he was also very inconsistent.

Salazar ended up a disappointing 6-8 with a 4.28 ERA in 2014. However, over the second half, he improved. He posted a 2.83 FIP (fielding-independent pitching), which puts him on par with names like Adam Wainwright and Cole Hamels. Additionally, his 37 strikeouts in 31 IP in September was among the top 10 in baseball.

There’s no doubting he’s got issues. He has consistency problems and there are concerns with his mechanics, but so did Max Scherzer when he was 24. Tim Lincecum has control issues too. I see those two being Salazar’s high and low in terms of potential.

If Salazar can keep a consistent release point and rely on his change, his numbers will end up closer to Scherzer than Lincecum. He can dominate again, he’s done it before, and he has the inside track on a rotation spot in 2015.

When you are looking to land the Brantley type of sleeper, you have to draft a player with the potential to be great. So this year, when its the 14th round and you have the decide between Salazar or John Lackey, who are you taking?

Next week, we are discussing the “O” in R.O.I.D.S.  We will release another fantastic sleeper pick, and as a bonus, I will include some naked pictures of my Dad.