10 Fantasy Baseball Assets to Buy in Dynasty and Keeper Leagues Before Opening Day

Lance McCullers, Houston Astros

We haven't yet gotten to see a full season of work from Lance McCullers, meaning his fantasy value remains a bit undefined. The sample we have seen, though, has been tremendous, and this will be just his age-23 season. Wipe that slobber off your mouth.

In the two seasons McCullers has pitched in the bigs, he's up to 206 2/3 innings, roughly a full-season sample. In that time, he has churned out a 3.22 ERA, 3.60 SIERA, 27.0% strikeout rate, and 50.5% ground-ball rate. This puts him 11th in strikeout rate over the past two years among starters with at least 150 innings, and none of the pitchers ahead of him can top his ground-ball rate.

McCullers' spring ERA is a bit shaky at 6.00, but ERA is an abominable stat in such a small sample. Instead, we should care only about strikeouts and walks, and he has been blowing dudes away at a 32.1% clip with a 3.6% walk rate. It's too early to say that we should expect that in the regular season, but those are ace-level numbers.

As with some of the other guys on this list, your leaguemates likely know they should be buying McCullers. That could also mean they view it as an opportunity to sell high. McCullers is a grand buy-high option, and we need to get him on our squads before people remember just how filthy he is.