[Ed. Note- Our RCL’s are under way! Go be a Commissioner, because there are really no other opportunities in life to have the title of Commissioner. Well, unless you are really into wildlife. In that case though, you can have two Commissioner titles, which is totally what you should be going for.]
Not gonna lie, I never thought I’d be writing a Fantasy Baseball article at 3 am. But when your boss calls you in for some OT late on a Sunday night and you’re thinking ‘nice, a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge and I move up the corporate ladder’ and they wonder why you’ve come to work in stilettos, lipstick and a ‘Spank me I’ve been bad’ pink t-shirt, you find yourself lying awake in the wee hours wondering if you’ll have a job in the morning. Of course, when talking about deep leagues, it’s almost like being an after-midnight infomercial. I mean, when you’re in the late hours of your draft, sometimes you get the Snuggie and sometimes you get the Tiddy Bear. It’s the nature of the beast. But with all that said, BILLY MAYS HERE AND I’D LIKE TO SHOUT AT YOU FOR A WHILE ABOUT AN UNDERRATED PITCHER! In all truthiness, I don’t know of a deep league that has pitching problems. Pitchers are just too abundant to ever say deep league rules apply but that doesn’t mean you can’t bargain hunt late and spend more time on your hitting earlier because of it. So let me introduce to you a pitcher who’s very much under the radar for 2014. Mr. Tyson Ross, c’mon down and see why you’re a contestant for sleeper for the 2014 Fantasy Baseball season…
Now maybe its the sleep deprivation but Ross’ name makes me think of chicken. Ok, ok Tyson foods is known for their chicken but for some reason Tyson Ross makes me think of Foster Farms…yeah, I’m sleep deprived. But not unlike the San Diego Chicken, Ross’ 2013 was fairly masked from the general public despite having numbers that normally don’t go unnoticed. Of course, not reaching the minimum innings pitched to qualify on most sites will do that. So here’s my suggestion. Go to your site of choice and reduce your minimums down to say 100 IP. Or if you wanna live dangerously, 125 IP. That’s how many innings Ross pitched last year and of those IP, 94 were as a starter. So here’s something you might want to nuzzle with in the late rounds of your draft: 9.29. Yeah, it’s odd to nuzzle with a number, let alone a number with a decimal. Those things are so fragile, might just fall off if you’re not careful. But that was Ross’ K/9 rate as a starter in 2013. I heard that. Your eyes just popped out and landed on the floor from reading that. That’s disgusting BTW, you need better eye discipline. To put that number into perspective, Stephen Strasburg finished the year at a 9.39 K/9 rate. So all this to say, there’s something to really like about Ross for 2014. When you tack on his other starter stats from last season – 3.06 ERA, 2.94 K:BB ratio and a 1.10 WHIP – you have to consider a top 25 finish for SP is possible if he can maintain his progress from last year. In fairness, he’ll probably have some form of innings cap for 2014 but I’ll take 160 innings of that any day, wouldn’t you? So go for a little infomercial love late and party like it’s $19.95…plus shipping and handling…offer not available in Utah.
Sky Sperling is a contributor for Razzball Football and Razzball Baseball. He’s also a lover of fine beer, fine women and fine-toothed combs. You can follow him on twitter @Sky_Razzball and in your most sweetest of dreams.
