Fantasy Baseball: Which Mid-Tier Pitchers Could Emerge as Aces in 2017?
Kenta Maeda, Los Angeles Dodgers
There’s a little bit of helium on Kenta Maeda heading into his sophomore season with the Dodgers -- he’s being drafted as the 26th pitcher off the board on average, in the range of more proven assets like Jose Quintana, Rick Porcello, and Julio Teheran. But is there a chance that the 28-year-old hurler is actually being under drafted?
Even without overwhelming velocity (his not-so-hot heater averages 90 miles per hour), Maeda’s quietly superb rookie year saw him tie for the 12th-best swinging-strike rate in the majors, along with a top-25 mark in strikeout-minus-walk rate (K-BB) and a bottom-30 hard-contact rate.
He might still be one pitch away from a truly dominant arsenal -- he surrendered a hair-raising 1.078 OPS with his curveball last year -- but his command of the fastball/slider combo is very impressive. He put up a 25.2% K-BB rate on the slider and a 22% K-BB rate on his fastball.
Maeda should provide a strong floor on a mid-tier investment, and if he can find a reliable third pitch, a wild lightning-in-a-bottle season is certainly in his range of possible outcomes.
