For years, the mantra in fantasy baseball drafts has been to wait to select your starting pitchers, as pitching is deep, pitchers suffer more injuries, and pitching is too inconsistent to waste high draft picks on in non-auction leagues. I subscribed to that viewpoint, I will confess, but my experience is that those premises are no longer valid. Hitters get injured just as often as pitchers, there is plenty of inconsistency to go around in baseball that pitchers no longer have a lock on up and down seasons, and while I agree that if you are savvy enough to study starting pitchers, you can find gems in the later rounds, there is still plenty to like among the top 20-25 starters in any given season to make them a part of your draft or auction strategy. In fact, my preferred strategy is to see if perhaps a Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, or Max Scherzer (those are my top three, but others could easily be included depending on your league setup) is available in the latter part of the first round or in the second round to provide my lock-down ace early on.

These articles that will be published prior to Opening Day, however, are not about the stud starting pitching options available in your drafts or auctions. What we are looking at are those very good options that for one reason or another are being ignored in early drafts and mock drafts. What sorts of hidden values are dropping below the 12th round in most drafts that you can snag for great value with an eye to dominating your league this season? Note: I am operating on the assumption you are drafting in a 12 team league, so all pitchers profiled here will be below the 144th pick.

I will be profiling one (or at most two) mid- to late-round options in the starting pitching realm on a bi-weekly basis (that is twice a week, not the alternate definition of every two weeks-why is English so difficult and confusing?). If you have questions about any pitchers and their viability as a “sleeper” pick, hit me up at ia@fantasyalarm.com and I will do my best to provide some insight. Also, I am always available to answer starting pitching (or other fantasy baseball) questions all season long.

Drew Hutchison– RHP – Toronto Blue Jays

2015 Stats: 13-5, 150.1 IP, 5.57 ERA, 129 K’s, 1.48 WHIP

Current ADP

Mock Draft Army ADP: 329.6 (based on current ADPs generated by Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army results)

National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC): 385.22

FSTA Draft on January 14th, 2016: Drafted 25th round (322nd overall)

Availability

With the inflated ERA and WHIP in 2015, it is hardly surprising that Hutchison is going at the end of drafts to open the 2016 draft season. Based on his lack of success in 2014, he is no lock to make the Blue Jays rotation this season out of spring, either.

Upside

He posted an average 7.72 K/9 and 2.63 BB/9 last season, leading to some hope that he can bounce back from the disaster that was 2015. He features a 92 MPH fastball to go with a slider and changeup, and his three-pitch selection should be enough to allow him to be successful on the hill. He generates a fair amount of groundballs, with a 1.21 GB/FB ratio in 2015. His home/road splits were dramatic, posting a 2.90 ERA/1.12 WHP at home, with a horrific 9.83 ERA/2.06 WHIP away from Toronto. If that trend continues this season, then you need to seriously consider him as a Rogers Centre-only pitcher.

Downside

His FIP, while better than his 5-plus ERA, is still nothing to get excited about, sitting at 4.48 over the course of a forgettable 2015. He also sported an ugly .347 BABIP, thus leading to the conclusion among most drafters this season that he is best left for someone else to sully their starting pitching numbers. While he is a decent groundball pitcher, his HR/9 rate of 1.32 helps to explain why the wheels fell off his cart last season.

Summary

It is hard to understand how Hutchison faltered so badly last season, especially when you consider the run support he received from his offense: 6.86 runs/game started. The home/road splits help to explain some of his poor performance, but the home runs he gave up are also a big part of his failure to pitch well. Unless he shows a lot of improvement this spring, it would be best to let him dangle on the wire or pollute another owner’s team in 2016.