Red Sleeper

[RedsManRick]

I concur with your analysis but he is #6 in line for starts right now (so it has been said). While I don’t doubt he will get opportunities, will he be able to establish any sense of a rhythm short of a major injury to another arm?

On most teams, the 6th-in-line starter ends up making plenty of starts. If the 5 guys ahead of him all stay healthy and he doesn't get the opportunity to break out, I can live with that.

[BluegrassRedleg]

I'm going with Tucker Barnhart. We saw signs of it late last season.

[TRF]

Brandon Finnegan makes the team on the last day of cuts in ST. Becomes the primary LH setup guy supplanting Garrett. 65 IP 93 K's 1.79 ERA.

I'm optimistic. I also think because of his time at Driveline he'll be given every opportunity to succeed.

[bifteckboy]

I’m going to go against the grain here, and say both Freddy Galvis & Alex Blandino will break out and put up a 5+ WAR between the pair.

[Umkubas]

i’m going to go against the grain here, and say both freddy galvis & alex blandino will break out and put up a 5+ war between the pair.

Go Stanford Cardinal Baseball

[Tadasimha]

Jesse Winker and Philip Ervin will spend a great deal of time sleeping on the bench as Akiyama, Senzel and Aquino get most of the starts in the OF.

Okay, seriously, I think it will be between Barmhart and Mahle who will put up much better numbers than expected.

[mth123]

Brandon Finnegan makes the team on the last day of cuts in ST. Becomes the primary LH setup guy supplanting Garrett. 65 IP 93 K's 1.79 ERA.

I'm optimistic. I also think because of his time at Driveline he'll be given every opportunity to succeed.

Not sure I'd go this far, but I think Finnegan is a good pick as a sleeper in relief.

[Kingspoint]

All good choices. I’ll go with these two.

Trevor Bauer will do what Sonny did in 2019

And Joey Votto will say I’m not done yet. He’ll produce better than last year and be an .800+ bat.

Ditto on both accounts.

[marcshoe]

Every time I see this thread I think Red Sleeper is the name of the poster who started it.

I haven't decided. None of the guys I think will rake qualifies as a sleeper these days. Maybe PHS Bob-Louie Stephenson will step up and take the closer role, but I'm still not sure about his control.

[Spike]

This is the most refreshing thread I have read in a very long time. Keep it up!

[Kingspoint]

Using just one criteria, the bell curve career growth that Bill James discovered in the early '70's, steroid-era being thrown out because of no reality being involved in it, then the greatest sleeper should still come from a player just entering his peak bell-curve years, and for hitters, that's going to be age 25-26, and for pitchers 26-27. These are the years when they take their first huge jump in OPS and OPS-against. A guy like Aquino doesn't qualify because he was the guy last season. Was 25 for the entire season and had an .891 OPS with a 1.4 WAR in just 225 PA's. For him to be a sleeper this year, he's have to hit an OPS of 1.000, just not repeat what he did last year with more Plate Appearances.

Same goes for Robert Stephenson. He was a Sleeper last season. He far exceeded anyone's expectations. Not a single Redszoner would have placed a wager that he would have an OPS-against of .634 and a WHIP of 1.036 last season in 262 PA's-against. Those are fantastic numbers. If he matches that in 2020 that would be phenomenal. He never had a WHIP below 1.583 or an OPS-against below .805 in any of the three years before that. His K/BB rate of 3.38 doubled his previous best. Robert Stephenson was last year's RED Sleeper if ever there was one as he had three previous Major League seasons going into the year unlike Aquino, who had one plate appearance. Stephenson doesn't qualify any more that Suarez and his 49 homeruns qualify. Both players should do as well, if not a little bit better than they did last season, when they both put up All-Star worthy numbers. Stephenson wasn't noticed because he was put into situations that don't get noticed, but if I was the Manager, I would have him closing games this year. I can't believe they haven't jettisoned their terrible Closer from last year by now. Such a horrible decision to keep him on the team this late into the off-season. He should have been traded away with whatever it took to have to pay someone to take him off of the team's hands. Too many better options at handing the ball to than him.

So, a sleeper is someone who surprises everyone, someone everyone was sleeping on and not expecting to do as well as he did, and in fact, exceeded all reasonable expectations with his accomplishments. To increase productions by 25% should qualify, where about 15% is expected according to James' bell curve of career development for the beginning of the peak of the bell curve where back-to-back 15% increases occur for about a 35% gain from two years earlier. These are my estimates from a brain that has to remember almost 50 years ago when I first read about them and memorized them at the time.

So, my list is this...

Hitters that qualify are:

Van Meter
Senzel
Winker
Aquino (if you want to include a .900+ OPS and 450+ PA's as qualifying, then sure)

Pitchers that qualify:

Herget
Mella
Romano
Sims
Reed


There is one more person who qualifies...

Amir Garrett. So far, his career has developed slower than expected, but there has been steady improvement and he could just be a late bloomer. His OPS-against in his three seasons has gone from .937 to .734 to .695 on 321 to 246 PA's-against each year. He would have matched Stephenson's RED Sleeper performance from last year if not for his unexpected poor walk-rate which dropped his K/BB rate from 2.84 to 2.23, where it should have increased to 4.00+. For this, and that he technically is still 27 when the season begins not turning 28 until May 3rd, Garrett is a candidate for being this year's RED Sleeper because there are not reasonable expectations now that he will solve the problem that plagued him last year regarding the walks, an issue he has dealt with before. This is why I would make Stephenson the Closer and Garrett the Setup Man/8th Inning. Stephenson is more trustworthy, just like Randy Myers over Dibble. Iglesias has got to go.


My choice, simply because I think he'll get the opportunity, is Senzel. But, if I wanted to pick someone who really isn't expected to have a huge increase in production, as I believe many feel that it is expected of Senzel, then I would say Winker. With the signing of our Japanese player, Winker is now in a fight for his life for playing time and will have to earn it through production out of the gate, especially against LH's, where I could see his OPS rising 200+ points above his lifetime major league OPS vs LH's; and, he will need to maintain the production throughout the first half of the season. I just don't think any of those pitchers will get the opportunity unless there are some major injuries to our Starters. If there are, then my first choice is Sims. My second choice is Herget. Herget could save this bullpen with a performance like Stephenson gave it last season.

[Kingspoint]

[Kingspoint]