Mike Leake (SP, SEA) - Week 12 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 18% of Leagues

ANALYSIS: Mike Leake hasn't exactly set the world on fire this season and he's never been a pitcher that fantasy owners can really get excited about in his entire 10-year career. This season, he has a subpar 16.7% strikeout rate, 91.4 MPH average exit velocity, 2.0 HR/9, and a brutal 8.2% swinging strike rate. For the year, Leake is 6-6 with a 4.14 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, and a 69/16 K/BB ratio over 95 and 2/3 innings.

Now on to the enticing stuff. Leake has been very solid in his last three starts, going 2-0 while giving up just six earned runs over 23 innings. He shut down Houston, Minnesota, and Oakland in those starts, and he's rocking a stellar 18/2 K/BB ratio during this recent stretch. What's even more exciting is the fact that he gets to square off against the bottom-tier Baltimore Orioles in his next start, on June 21st at home. The Orioles surprisingly have only hit the 12th-most strikeouts to date, but they rank near the bottom in most offensive statistics and are worth streaming against in most cases. While he's still giving up bombs at an alarming rate and a lot of his underlying statistics are hard to look at, a matchup with the Orioles coupled with his current form make the 31-year-old Mike Leake well worth the flier in 12+ team leagues.