Fantasy Baseball 2018 Sleepers Outside the Top 200: Mike Clevinger
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 Indians SP Mike Clevinger.
Looking ahead at Clevinger, there’s one huge problem with forecasting a breakout season for him. He’s currently not in the Cleveland rotation. I’m choosing to ignore this, because I think it will be pretty tough to keep banking on Mike Tomlin, who posted a 4.98 ERA in 26 starts last year.
Clevinger, who is six years younger than Tomlin, checked in with a 3.11 ERA last season over the course of 121.6 innings, posting a 12-6 record. His FIP was 3.85, so he doesn’t fit that major category of predicting sleeper success, but a 3.85 ERA is still solid as long as there are other positives. While Clevinger’s FIP doesn’t stand out, his strikeout stuff does. That’s why I’d be happy to spend the 215th overall pick on him.
In 2017, Clevinger whiffed more than 10 batters per nine innings, and despite a fairly ugly walk rate (4.4 per nine), his hits per nine (6.8) kept his WHIP at a reasonable level (1.25). Clevinger, impressively, is able to do all this without the benefit of a killer fastball. Instead, he rides a devastating slider which was 9.3 runs above average per Fangraphs, and an effective curveball; both of those pitches play well off his mediocre heater, and make him very, very tough when he has his command.
If Clevinger can figure out how to control his stuff just a bit better, he could provide dominant strikeout numbers as well as strong ratios, making him an awesome value this late in drafts. Plus, pitching for one of the best teams in the American League, he’s an attractive bet to notch a solid win total.