What’s Ice T’s favorite pastry? Cruellers, cruellers, cruellers, cr-cruellers. Who’s Ice T’s favorite pitcher? Lance McCullers, McCullers, McCullers, Mc-Cullers. Sorry, if I didn’t get that out of the way up front it would’ve gnawed at me this entire post and I never would’ve been able to write it. Now, into the actual post, you know how they say you can’t fold a piece of paper more than seven times? (Yes, I know MythBusters folded a football field-sized piece of paper eleven times, but the myth is seven-plus times.) That myth is how I feel about starting pitchers. There’s so many guys that I like late that I feel like I can’t fold them all into a singular fantasy team. Maybe this is subconsciously the reason why I manage upwards to ten fantasy teams. This way I can have a little taste of all of the late-round starters that I like. One such pitcher is Lance McCullers. Last season, he had a 3.22 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 9.2 K/9 and a 3.50 xFIP. If you know a thing or two about a thing or two, you’re saying to yourself, “How is this guy a sleeper? He was great last year.” Good question, Voice In Your Head. He shouldn’t be a sleeper, which is why he is a sleeper. Wrap your noodle around that, stick it in some boiling water and stir it so it doesn’t stick. You feel me? Okay, seriously, stop touching me, it’s weird. Anyway, what can we expect from Lance McCullers for 2016 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Well, what makes him a sleeper is even if the world catches on to him, he’s still not going to be drafted anywhere near where he should be. He has legit top ten starter overall ability, he won’t be drafted in the top 40 starters off the board, is my guess. (Note: I’m writing this about three months before drafts, so I’m guessing as to when he’ll be drafted, but I’m a good guesser in everything but the lottery. Stupid exception to the rule!) Any guesses to his age? Too late, he’s 22. Just turned it in October. Any guess to his average fastball speed? Too slow, it’s 94.5 MPH. He regularly had a 10+ K/9 in the minors. How does he do it? A sick curve, which is sick as in very healthy. I’m going to now list the pitchers who produced better numbers with their curve last year: Felix Hernandez. That’s it. In at least 120 innings, McCullers had the 2nd highest runs above average for his curveball. Better than Kluber, Kershaw, Arrieta, Carrasco…Okay, above everyone but F-Her, seriously. A pitch that a 21-year-old threw 36% of the time was unhittable. I mean, untouchable. I mean, I closed Thesaurus dot com, but I’m sure there’s other adjectives to describe it. In 161 curveballs, hitters had a .125 average against and had a strikeout percentage of 49% with his curve. That’s a goofy number. For all pitches, he had a 24.8% strikeout percentage, Matt Harvey and Cole Hamels can be found on both sides of him for strikeout percentage. For McCullers, what’s not to like is easier to list than what there is to like. His control can be wonky. Or maybe that’s walky. Here’s his previous three years of walk rates: 4.2, 5.2, 3.94. Oh, sorry, that was prior to his last year in the majors. Last year his walk rate was 3.1. If you can’t spot a good trend there for his command, I can’t help you. One more thing that I’ve already mentioned…He’s only 22! Don’t you think his command is going to keep getting better? Okay, so McCullers may not be a sleeper as much as an actual top twenty starter, but if he’s ranked low by others, he’s a must have. For 2016, I’ll give him the projections of 13-8/3.37/1.15/186 in 180 IP, which is better than Carrasco last year. Well, hello there!
