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 I subscribed to that viewpoint, I will confess, but my experience is that those premises are no longer valid.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.

Chris Tillman– RHP – Baltimore Orioles

2015 Stats: 11-11, 173 IP, 4.99 ERA, 120 K’s, 1.39 WHIP

Current ADP

Mock Draft Army ADP: 367 (based on current ADPs generated by Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army results)

National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC): 441.32

FSTA Draft on January 14, 2016: Undrafted

LABR Mixed Draft on February 16, 2016: Undrafted

Availability

You see that Tillman is not generating any early interest in the drafts, mock or real, that are taking place to open our 2016 fantasy baseball season. He pitched in 31 games last season as a starter, so it does not appear that any major injury caused his troubles on the mound. He is coming off an ugly season, but he also was a quality option at SP in 2013-14, so some may remember his better days and will push him up the ADP charts as drafts go forward.

Upside

His BABIP jumped in 2015, up to .298 after being in the .270 range the prior two seasons, but still settled in right around league average. He also improved his GB/FB ratio significantly last season, pushing it up to 1.30 from 1.09 the prior year. The right-hander also is successful in keeping the ball in the park, posting a 1.04 HR/9 in 2015, up just slightly from his excellent 0.91 rate in 2014. He relies mostly on a low-90s fastball, with a change up and knuckle curve as his complementary offerings. His hard hit ball percentage dropped in 2015, from 29.5% in 2014 to 26.5% last season, which gives some hope that the bad numbers from 2015 can return to his career averages. He should again toss somewhere in the neighborhood of 190-200 innings, so you will get use out of him if he is part of your rotation.

Downside

2015 was the first year in the past four that Tillman posted a FIP below his actual ERA, with a 4.51 FIP against his 4.99 ERA over his 31 starts. Both his walk and strikeout rates headed in the wrong direction in 2015, with his K/9 dropping to 6.24 and his BB/9 rising to 3.33. Those trends hurt his production, even with his improved ability to generate ground balls from hitters. His fastball does not fool most batters, and he pitches to contact as shown by his less that exciting K rate.

Summary

Tillman is a rebound candidate in 2016, and you can snag him late in drafts. Or just let him sit on your league’s waiver wire until you need a replacement starting pitcher due to injury or ineffectiveness by one of your drafted players.  The lack of strikeouts and control make him a risky option, however, and you can expect that his elevated ERA will be more harmful to your team’s stat line than you would prefer.