Indians Sleepers and Breakouts - Multiple Pitchers You Need to Watch for in 2020 for fantasy baseball. The team has some young arms, and these arms could be critical as you go into your fantasy draft for the (hopeful) upcoming short season in the Majors.
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00:00 Major League Baseball could soon be back.
00:03 That means fantasy baseball could soon be back.
00:05 I'm Corey Pawson with SI.com.
00:07 Joining me to talk some Cleveland Indians is SI fantasy and gambling analyst, Sean Childs,
00:13 and Cleveland baseball insider, Matt Lodi.
00:15 Matt, let me start with you.
00:17 Do you see a potential breakout player on this pitching staff?
00:20 Well, there's no question that this pitching staff is very deep.
00:25 That's what's given them the ability over the last 10 months to trade two major starters
00:30 in Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer.
00:32 One pitcher that you have to look for is reliever James Karinczak, who last year at the AAA
00:36 level struck out 42 batters in just 17 innings.
00:40 He's a fireballer, a guy that Terry Francona in the front office really liked, and a guy
00:44 that I think could have a big impact out of the bullpen this year for the tribe.
00:48 Sean, let's dig a little bit deeper.
00:52 Do you see any possible sleepers on this Indians roster?
00:56 A guy I'm really, really intrigued about is Tristan McKenzie.
00:59 I've really followed him last year.
01:01 I thought he would help in the fantasy market, maybe in the middle of the season, but he
01:04 had an upper back injury, ended up missing the whole year.
01:06 And then coming into spring training, there was really not much press about him.
01:10 Nobody really talked about him.
01:11 So he was really, really flying under the fantasy radar.
01:14 But over his career in the Myers, he's gone 26 and 16, ERA under three, 394 Ks in 329
01:21 innings.
01:22 He has a big fastball plus curveball.
01:24 It's kind of thin on the side of like a Chris Sale, but not as the same motion and stuff
01:29 like that, more upright.
01:30 But he has high upside and he's going to come quickly.
01:33 And he did make some progress and I did find some reports later on.
01:36 It's just a matter of, he's probably going to come into the season, maybe the six or
01:39 seven starter.
01:41 If they go with the double headers, he could get pushed a little quicker.
01:44 So I'm really, really intrigued about him this year because he could really, really
01:47 be an impact player when he comes.
01:50 And as far as a sleeper, Domingo Santana is a guy that really played well in the first
01:54 half of last year, had an injury.
01:57 So his stats got really knocked down after the all-star break.
02:00 So he's really flying under the radar, especially with Cleveland, a little cloudy in the outfield.
02:04 So he's a guy that's probably, you can get well over pick 300, has a potential for it
02:08 to hit home runs, steal some bases.
02:09 Batting average has a little bit of risk, but he hits, you know, when he puts the ball
02:12 play, he has a high contact batting average, even that, that somewhat offsets his high
02:17 strikeout rate, which is close to 30% in his career.
02:21 He's really good, really good back end filler, especially if they is, if Cleveland is willing
02:25 to play him every day.
02:26 All right.
02:27 Thanks a lot, fellas.
02:28 For all the latest news from the majors, make sure you keep a lock right here to si.com.
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