Fantasy Baseball: Top Sleepers For 2016 Pitchers Edition

Jerad Eickhoff

Roto-rank: Unranked

Points rank: 150th/8.8 points per game

The Philadelphia Phillies had a very highly touted prospect last season in Aaron Nola. Nola didn’t disappoint in his limited time with the big team, but there was another rookie pitcher who outperformed Nola.

Jerad Eickhoff was part of the package that sent Cole Hamels to the Texas Rangers last year. With the Phillies’ season being over from opening day, Eikhoff got his chance to start almost immediately following the trade.

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In his eight big league starts, Eickhoff only failed to finish the sixth inning of a game one time. He also posted seven quality starts in those eight outings.

He only pitched 51 innings in his debut but he struck out 49 batters in the process. He also only walked 13 batters so his control is above average, especially for a rookie pitcher.

His ERA was 2.65 and his WHIP was just 1.04 in his 51 innings of work. Among starting pitchers who threw at least 50 innings last season, Eickhoff ranked 11th in WHIP and ninth in ERA. That’s a very small sample size and he’ll have to perform over the course of a full season for those rankings to have any value.

Perhaps the most impressive thing, is that he managed these numbers in spite of playing for arguably the worst team in baseball last year. Don’t let the fact that he plays in a strong division make you shy away from Eikhoff at the end of the draft or as an emergency addition from the waiver wire.

He made four of his eight starts against the Mets and the Nationals. All four of those starts resulted in a quality start and his last two starts of the season came against each of those teams. Each game saw Eickhoff go seven innings and strikeout ten batters. He earned a win in each of those games.

If he can sustain a full season of these types of performances, he could be considered a steal in the late rounds. In deep keeper leagues, he could be valuable for a long time.

Next: Sleepers Abound