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 I subscribed to that viewpoint, I will confess, but my experience is that those premises are no longer valid.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

Matt Shoemaker– LHP – Los Angeles Angels

2015 Stats: 7-10, 135.1 IP, 4.46 ERA, 116 K’s, 1.26 WHIP

Current ADP

Mock Draft Army ADP: 347.8 (based on current ADPs generated by Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army results)

National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC): 417.81

FSTA Draft on January 14th, 2016: Undrafted

Availability

As shown by his ADP above, Shoemaker should not be a problem to pick in your drafts. He suffered some severe regression in 2015 after pitching lights out in 2014, which was expected, although probably not to the extent that he suffered. Right now, look to him as a late round fill-in that you can take a flier on, hoping he can right the ship in 2016.

Upside

Despite a major uptick in ERA from 2014 to 2015 (3.04 to a whopping 4.46!), his BABIP was consistent between the two seasons, staying essentially static (.294 vs .295). Thus, he was probably a bit unlucky in 2015, but expecting a repeat of his stellar 2014 was wishful thinking. He will hold down a rotation spot to open the season, most likely, although he will slot in to the back end of the rotation and may miss some early starts until a five-man rotation is needed. He has been consistently more dependable at home than on the road, so be prepared to sit him when he pitches away from Anaheim.

Downside

He saw his HR/9 rate balloon from 0.93 to 1.60 last season, and his K/9 ratio also significantly fell, from a useful 8.21 in 2014 to an average 7.71 in 2015. He is not a flame thrower, with a fastball sitting at around 90 MPH, so he needs to rely on his control and command to be successful on the mound. His strand rate also dropped over five percentage points in 2015, which hurt his production. He has had problems keeping the ball in the park over the course of his minor league career, so the increased long ball tendency was not unforeseen. He was sent to the minors for a short stint in 2015, and was inactive in September for several weeks with a forearm issue, which also led to his decline in production last season.

Summary

Shoemaker is going extremely late in drafts early this season, not at all surprising considering his fall back to earth in 2015 after soaring so high in his first full season in the majors. He is going to be a part of the Angel rotation, although he figures to be the fourth or fifth starter to open the season. He is a better option when pitching in his home park, where he also has a great deal more success keeping the ball out of the outfield seats. In a deeper league, he is worth a late round selection, but do not expect a resumption of his success from 2014, and expect something more middle-of-the-road from him in 2016.