You don’t win your fantasy league in the first couple of rounds of a draft, even though injuries and under-performance by those early picks can certainly take you out of the running. Competing for that top spot takes skilled balancing of your roster, finding value in the middle rounds, and sometimes finding those late-round deep sleepers.
Being an ex-basketball coach, I like to look at those deep sleepers like role players who are so necessary for a winning basketball team. They generally won’t offer all-around value but can give you a boost in one or two categories.
Today, I’ll examine two first-baggers with ADPs above 330 who seem very likely to outperform their current rankings and fill a role as a corner infielder or DH — or, at the least, serve as a usable bench player.
The first is Ryan O’Hearn of the Kansas City Royals, currently with an ADP of 335. As of now, O’Hearn seems to be the starter at 1B, with no indication that he’ll be part of a platoon. Although his 2018 debut was a relatively small sample size, there were some interesting indicators that point toward future success.
The two that stand out are a home run rate of 8.1% and a 42.3 hard-hit%. In a comparison of 15 first baseman with ADPs of 229 or higher, O’Hearn’s 8.1% of HR/AB was easily the best, with Tyler Austin coming in second at 7.0%. His hard-hit rate of 42.3% was second only to Ji Man Choi at 43.8%. In addition, O’Hearn’s batting average was a respectable .262, which came with a strikeout rate of 30.2%, or about average for this group.
While his 2018 minor league stats gave no indication of success at the next level, and his ability to hit southpaws is a question mark (32 AB, .108 Avg), O’Hearn definitely seems to be underrated and worth a shot based on his current ADP. Personally, I would be far more inclined to draft O’Hearn than Jake Bauers, whose ADP sits at 268. Bauers, in 332 at bats, hit only .201 with a HR% of just 3.4% and a K% of 32.2.
O’Hearn has enough potential upside based on his 2018 MLB numbers to provide a helpful boost in HRs and RBIs without killing your batting average. I would tend to move him up anywhere from 50 to 75 ADP spots, on a par with Houston’s Tyler White.
The other first baseman who deserves some attention is Ji-Man Choi. With a current ADP of over 500, he will go undrafted in most leagues. However, there are some things to like about Choi that might make you want to sneak him into your draft in one of the final rounds. For one thing, as I mentioned above, his hard-hit rate of 43.8% was best among the 15 first baggers with an ADP of 229 or higher. His batting average in 2018 was a respectable .263, and at the moment he seems to be the starting DH and a back-up to Yandy Diaz at 1B for Tampa Bay. With his ability to hit left-handers (.136 in just 28 AB) being a question mark, there is a possibility of a platoon situation.
However, Choi might be the perfect example of a solid bench player who can play a big role when inserted into your lineup based on match-ups. In the final four weeks of 2018, when I was battling for a money spot in a particular league, I picked up Choi and inserted him in the lineup occasionally, based on opposing pitchers. As a result, he netted me three home runs, just enough to gain me a point in the HR category and put me into a tie for third-place money, just a half-point out of fifth, which was not a money spot. At a minimum, that illustrates the value that Choi might bring to your team, and there is always the possibility that he could become more than just a streamer.
