When I first moved to Baltimore, there is/was an awesome Greek place, Samos. Best gyro I have ever had. Place was a hole-in-the-wall, but cheap, awesome, and BYOB. The dining room was small and generally crowded, so to reduce noise, the owner stapled mattress pads to the ceiling. Yeah, that type of place. Anyway, fast forward 8 years and everyone knows about Samos and they have opened a second shop in a strip mall. Kinda metaphorical for sleepers in fantasy these days … everyone knows about everything now. It amazes me every year at just how much more information is out there on sleepers. For example, I was hoping that Byron Buxton might have flown under the radar this year after his season ended prematurely with a broken wrist, then I see 47 sleeper articles out there about him and I get to my big-time auction and he goes for $4.2 million billion dollars when I have $4 left. Hector Neris as the likely successor for the closer role in Philly (not so sure it’s not going to be Joaquin Benoit at this point), drafted in 90% of leagues. Mitch Hanniger might have some sneaky value, but, oh, someone reached for him well before the final rounds of your draft. And on and on and on. It’s getting harder and harder to find under-the-radar-players that you can nab in the late rounds or for $1 in auctions that can provide some real value.

With that in mind, I am going to take a look at some players that are owned in less than 50% of Fantrax leagues that I have some real interest in. I am new to Fantrax and have been a bit blown away at the depth of the leagues and the ownership rates. For example, the first guy we’re going to look at is Andrew Toles is owned in 4% of Yahoo leagues, but that number jumps to almost 40% in Fantrax leagues. What I mean to say I guess is if the ownership is under 50% in Fantrax the player is very, very likely available in shallower Yahoo or ESPN leagues. Again, with the amount of information out there, everyone super-sexy has likely been drafted or sniped off the waiver wire. While these guys might not be so sexy, I think they could turn into reliable players on almost any fantasy team.

As a side note, I will probably be doing pitchers and hitters in separate articles going forward, but we’re through 5 games at this point … so, not a whole lot to look at just yet. It will be more of a buy/sell thing too, but I cannot really give you too many buy/sells in early April.

HITTERS

Andrew Toles (OF, Dodgers, 39.9% owned in Fantrax as of 4/5)

Toles was a third-round pick of the Tampa Bay Rays in 2012 and had a very solid season in A-Ball in ’13, slashing .326/.359/.466 with 2 homers and 62 steals over 552 plate appearances. That was, however, his last and only full season with the organization and he was eventually released in 2014 because of apparent character issues. Andrew Friedman, the current General Manager of the Dodgers and former General Manager of the Rays when they drafted Toles, gave the 24-year-old a second shot with the Dodgers organization and he came through with a .321/.339/.518 line in AAA before getting the call up and posting a .314/.365/.505 with 3 homers and a steal over 115 plate appearances. If you listened to the radio show two Sundays ago I identified Toles as a deep-sleeper I was interested in, given that Forsythe did not strike me as someone the Dodgers should be putting in the lead-off role. (Look out, some horn tooting coming). Lo and behold, Toles looks to have secured the leadoff spot against right-handed starters. You should be interested. I do not think that we are going to see anything close to the 62 steals Toles had in A-Ball, but I think there is a bit more pop than his 2 homers that year indicated. He will also platoon, but will be on the strong-side of said platoon. I don’t think, if everything breaks right, that 8 homers and 20 steals with a .280 average is out of the question over 400 ABs this year. The Dodgers lineup is a bit underrated in my opinion, so he should score a boat load of runs. Gimme, gimme.

Steve Pearce (OF, 1B, Blue Jays, 41.9% owned in Fantrax as of 4/5)

Pearce has always had injury concerns, but he could always do one thing … crush left-handed pitching. Guy has a career 131 wRC+ against lefties. I can say though, that as someone who watches a lot of Orioles, that it struck me that Pearce is kinda unfairly pegged as a soft-side platoon guy. He is an underrated hitter in other words. We will cherry-pick a bit here, but in his last two fully healthy seasons in ’14 and ’16 he has posted an OPS of .930 and .867 in 383 and 302 plate appearances. Those numbers are a bit skewed as he was facing a lot of lefties. It does not strike me as out of the realm of possibility, however, that he could put up something in the .830 OPS range over the course of 400+ at-bats with the Blue Jays. He looks to be getting his shot as he has started in the outfield to begin the season even against righties. Something in the range of .275 and low-twenties homers is doable for Pearce. Like I said, not sexy, but still helpful especially in OBP, OPS, or leagues beyond the typical 5×5. He is a must-start against lefties, but I think there is more there. We shall see.

Tyler Saladino (SS, 2B, White Sox, 28.7% owned in Fantrax as of 4/5)

Sick ‘tache. I am kinda stealing this pick from my colleague Kyle Amore who talked about him in Sunday’s show. While he was someone that I had looked into and brushed aside, Kyle’s interest made me take a second look and I like what I saw. Not sure what I was looking at the first time around. Anyway, thanks Kyle. Saladino, in just 319 plate appearances last year, hit .282 with 8 homers and 11 steals. For a guy that was on pace for close to a 20/20 season from the shortstop and second base position, I am surprised at the low ownership rate this year. I do not think that he will go 20/20 this year, but 10 homers and close to 20 steals seems doable. He is not a great real-life hitter (posting a wRC+ of 93), but out of the hitters highlighted today, I think he has got the best shot at being a starter in 80% leagues by year end. The White Sox are going to play him no matter what cause they are terrible and he should remain at the top of the lineup posting acceptable, but not great counting stats. You gonna complain about .270 10 homers and 20 steals from a guy off the waiver-wire with SS and 2B eligibility? Not me.

Seth Smith (OF, Orioles, 21.9% owned in Fantrax as of 4/5)

Smith is a platoon hitter where, unlike Pearce above, he is on the strong side of that platoon and also deserves to be. Dude is a career .202 hitter against southpaws. Ew. Good news is, he owns a career .272/.355./.472 line against righties and even better news is that he appears to be in the leadoff role for the better-than-average Orioles offense. I am not really going to waste too much of your time talking about Smith the hitter, here’s his player page. He is who he is at this point. This little blurb here is all about the lineup position and ballpark. He will call Camden home and be travelling to some of the more friendly parks in the league in the AL East. I said these picks were not going to be sexy, but talking about Smith here is taking this to a whole new level. He is the anti-sexy. That being said he should be pretty useful if he retains the leadoff role with high-teen homers, an average that won’t kill you, and a good amount of runs per plate-appearance.

PITCHERS

Charlie Morton (SP, Astros, owned in 47.2% of Fantrax leagues as of 4/6)

There has been a fair bit written about Morton in the off-season. He has always kept the ball on the ground, which is a plus (right around a 60% GB for his career). He never missed a lot of bats though throughout his career, leading to an average k-rate of about 6 per 9 — not a plus. Then he came out last year with an average fastball up a few ticks to just over 94 MPH in 17 innings with Philly last year before tearing his hamstring. The increased velocity led to a 27% strikeout rate. I do not think he will maintain that number, but he looked sharp in his season debut limiting the Mariners to two runs over six innings, striking out four. More important to me was the velocity gains from last year seem to have stuck. Bottom line, strikeouts and ground balls are a great combo. I am buying hoping for a mid-3 ERA, somewhere around 8 k/9 and a WHIP in the 1.30 range for a good Houston team that should give him the opportunity for some wins.

Only one pitcher this time around, not enough to go off of at this point. ‘Till next time.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Click the RED link below to listen)

Major League Fantasy Baseball Radio: Join Corey D Roberts, and Kyle Amore live on Sunday April 9th, 2017 from 7-9pm EST for episode #82 of Major League Fantasy Baseball Radio. We are a live broadcast that will take callers at 323-870-4395. Press 1 to speak with the host. We will be previewing the coming week’s key matchups and discussing key fantasy information.

Our guests this week are Craig Mish, and Professor Mark Rush. Mark is the Chief Editor for MLFS, a writer, and occasional guest on our shows. Craig Mish is the host of a fantasy baseball show on Sirius Satelitte Radio along with Jim Bowden from 9-11am EST Monday through Friday. Craig is also the host for a show on Sirius every Sunday morning with FSWA Hall of Famer Lenny Melnick from 7-10am EST.

You can find our shows on I-Tunes. Just search for Major League Fantasy Sports in the podcasts section. For Android users go to “Podcast Republic,” then download that app, and search for “Major League Fantasy Sports Show”

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