Fantasy Baseball: 2016 Bounce Back Pitching Sleepers

Drew Smyly

ADP: 45 pitcher – 157th overall (16th round)

Drew Smyly is another pitcher who has fallen down the draft boards because of his injury history. He’s missed time in each of the past two seasons including nearly the entire first half of 2015.

It’s what Smyly does when he’s on the field though that is so impressive. If you can pick up Drew Smyly in the 16th round, you shouldn’t hesitate to do so.

In the past two seasons, Smyly has struck out nearly a batter per inning. In 2015, his Ks/9 innings was at 10.4 which was good enough for eighth best in the league. His ERA was only 3.11 and his WHIP was only 1.17.

His strikeout rate was better than Noah Syndergaard and fell just behind Carlos Carrasco. Both of those pitchers had a much larger sample size last season than Smyly did, but both are going to go a lot earlier in the draft.

Both of those pitchers are being drafted in the sixth-round and if they’re available you should take them, but you may get similar production out of Smyly ten rounds later. It’s also worth mentioning that Smyly beat both of those players in ERA and fell just behind each of them in WHIP. Bottom line: Smyly is undervalued and you should take advantage of that.

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