Fantasy Baseball 2018 Sleepers Outside the Top 200: Zack Cozart

It’s obvious that one of the most important components of a winning fantasy team is finding players late that produce like early picks. Those are “sleepers.” The deeper the sleeper, the more impactful they can be; that’s why I’m going to highlight sleepers outside the Top 200 ADP (Average Draft Position) throughout Spring Training as you prep for draft day. All ADP data is courtesy of FantasyPros.com.

Today, we look at Angels IF Zack Cozart.

Cozart is currently being drafted as the 18th SS, and at No. 213 overall. For a 32-year-old injury-prone shortstop, that sounds about right. Depending on health, he may even underperform this ADP. But at this point in drafts we aren’t drafting any sure things, we’re looking for players who can potentially outperform this ADP by a big margin. Cozart is a player whose ability grants him that potential.

2017 was an excellent glimpse at what Cozart’s capable of. He slashed .297/.385/.548 with 24 home runs in 122 games (507 plate appearances). He increased in just about every category from 2016 in essentially an identical amount of playing time, largely because of one key factor – walks. Cozart’s walk rate jumped from 7.3 percent in 2016 to 12.2 percent last year; both were career highs when he posted them. As Cozart has gotten older he’s clearly developed his batting eye, and turning himself into a sneaky high-OBP option with enough power to be relevant.

Another important factor for Cozart is that he will be playing third base for the Angels, not shortstop. This helps his value two-fold. First, after about a week he will have multi-position eligibility, which is invaluable for maximizing the amount of plate appearances your team gets as well as papering over inevitable injuries. Second, it should reduce the wear and tear on his body. Cozart has missed significant time for three straight years, topping out at 122 games (last season) in the last three campaigns. If playing third can keep him on the field for another 15 games or so, he could possibly flirt with 30 home runs instead of 20. SS is a fairly deep position in 2018, but if your big SS goes down wouldn’t it be nice to have a replacement who can reach mid-to-high 20s in the HR department?

It’s easy to look at Cozart’s 2017 as an outlier he’s due to regress from, but I think he’s a very talented player who finally scraped his upside. His .312 BABIP didn’t indicate extreme luck, his strikeout rate remained constant, and his batted ball stats did too with the exception of a semi-large home run spike. It’s certainly a home run to fly ball rate he can maintain if he continues to selectively swing at pitches in his wheelhouse.

Don’t rely on Cozart, but give him a shot this year.