February is one of the worst months for professional sports. Football is over. Basketball is in the middle of its drawn-out, meaningless season (I mean, half the teams make the playoffs. Half!). Baseball games that count don't start until April. One might even call it the "sleepy" part of the sports year.
But with pitchers and catchers reporting, that means baseball - and more importantly, fantasy baseball - is right around the corner. So, in honor of the sleepy sports season, here are some of my favorite sleepers for this year:
Chris Snyder, C: Geovany Soto is the trendy sleeper at catcher this year, but you can get better value for Snyder, who is practically unknown. Someone will reach for Soto in round nine or 10 in a 12-team league, but you can wait on Snyder until the very last round.
Just look at his stats last year in only 326 at-bats: .252, 13 homers, 47 RBI. He hit fifth for the Diamondbacks in the playoffs, and they're already talking about him taking on more of a leadership role this year (which means more playing time). Give this guy 500 AB, and 20 homers with 80 runs batted in are well within reach.
Rickie Weeks, 2B: Weeks' minor league coach once said he had more power than Prince Fielder. He showed that pop when he first came up, but he's since struggled with wrist problems, which are notorious for zapping a player's power. Weeks was bothered by a bad wrist for most of last year, hitting .235 with only 16 homers. But he still showed his speed with 25 steals, and he learned how to take a walk, totaling 78 in only 409 AB.
Even better, he seemed to recover from his problems late in the season, hitting nine of his home runs in September. You probably shouldn't hope for an average better than .260, but 25-25 is a modest projection. Plus, with his newfound ability to draw walks, expect him to score plenty of runs hitting at the top of the order.
Alex Gordon, 3B: Gordon was one of the top prospects in all of baseball last year, and he was a popular fantasy sleeper despite being a rookie. He went on to burn fantasy owners, hitting .247 with just 15 HR and 14 steals in 543 AB. However, it's fair to say Gordon was quite unlucky last year. Usually, when a player hits 15 home runs, anywhere from three to seven of them are less than 400 feet. They leave the park because they're hit to a convenient location.
When Gordon jacked 15 last year, 14 of them went 400 feet. He didn't get lucky home runs. Combine Gordon's likely increase of luck with the improvement he should display with a year of action under his belt, and that could mean breakout.
Francisco Liriano, P: Liriano was potentially on his way to a Cy Young in 2006 when he had arm troubles and needed Tommy John surgery. His totals for that year are ridiculous: 121 IP, 2.16 ERA, 144 K. It normally takes players about 18 months to fully recover from the procedure, which would mean May for Liriano.
Reports are he's already hitting 97 on the radar gun in camp, but it is often said that the first thing to come back for pitchers is velocity. Liriano clearly has his fastball back, but he'll likely need time to develop his other pitches and get a feel for them. You can expect a sloppy April, but he could be one of the league's elite pitchers by the halfway mark. He's slipping down to round 10 in some drafts, which could prove a fantastic value, especially come playoff time in head-to-head leagues.
David Heck is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at David.Heck@tufts.edu.
