Fantasy Baseball Rankings 2019: Optimal sleepers from model that nailed Scooter Gennett’s strong season

MLB spring training is here and there’s already plenty of news from around the league. Manny Machado just inked a $300 million deal with the Padres, but how effective he’ll be on his new team remains to be seen. Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant crushed a two-run homer in his first spring training game and could be poised to exceed expectations this season. He’s been moving around 2019 Fantasy baseball rankings everywhere. Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw has been sidelined, so should drafters avoid the 11-year veteran? And Athletics DH Khris Davis, who paced the majors in home runs last year, is out with a calf injury. Will he be able to bounce back by the start of the season? Before you start drafting, make sure to see the latest 2019 Fantasy baseball rankings from the unbiased team at SportsLine. They’ll help you locate the biggest Fantasy baseball sleepers who will give you value late, find breakouts who will come out of nowhere, and dodge busts who will sink your entire team.

Last season, SportsLine’s Projection Model identified several top Fantasy baseball sleepers, including Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett. Drafted No. 181 overall on average, Gennett hit 23 home runs and drove in 92 runs to finish as the No. 35 overall player in all of Fantasy.

The team at SportsLine was all over Gennett as a Fantasy breakout from the start. Their model had him listed much higher than expert consensus rankings, and anyone who listened to their advice was well positioned for a league title. 

Their model is powered by the same people who powered projections for all three major Fantasy sites. And that same group is sharing its 2019 Fantasy Baseball rankings and cheat sheets over at SportsLine, helping you find Fantasy Baseball sleepers, breakouts and busts long before your competition. Their cheat sheets, available for leagues on many major sites, are updated multiple times every day. Any time an injury occurs or there’s a change on a depth chart, the team at SportsLine updates its rankings.

In fact, when it came to ranking players in Fantasy Football, SportsLine’s Projection Model beat human experts last season when there were big differences in ranking. And the model was the closest to the hole overall, meaning it best pinpointed where every player would finish each week. That could literally be the difference between winning your league or going home empty-handed.

One of the Fantasy Baseball sleepers you need to be all over in 2019, according to the model: San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Dereck Rodriguez. 

The 26-year-old made his Major League debut last year and put up impressive numbers down the stretch. Rodriguez finished the year with a 2.81 ERA and 1.13 WHIP over 118.1 innings and didn’t show any considerable signs of wear despite approaching 170 innings for the first time in his professional career. 

This season, Rodriguez has the potential to generate more swings and misses than in 2018, when he struck out 18.3 percent of hitters. In the minor leagues, his strikeout rates were historically in the low-20s and he was punching out 25 percent of hitters in Triple-A before his call-up. Even if Rodriguez never turns into a dominant power pitcher, seeing his K/9 rate jump from 6.77 in 2018 to the high-7s or low-8s in 2019 would enhance his Fantasy profile significantly. 

Rodriguez is being drafted No. 70 among starting pitchers on average. However, SportsLine’s 2019 Fantasy baseball rankings say he’ll push towards the top 40, making him viable starting option every fifth day in most Fantasy formats.

Another sleeper that SportsLine’s Fantasy baseball rankings are extremely high on: Mariners catcher Omar Narvaez. 

During the offseason, Narvaez was traded from the White Sox to the Mariners in exchange for reliever Alex Colome. Now, Narvaez figures to slide in as Seattle’s everyday catcher, where his plate approach and developing power could make him a standout at the position. 

He slashed .275/.366/.429 last season and hit nine home runs in just 322 plate appearances, quadrupling his career home run total in the process. With more at-bats likely on the way in 2019, the SportsLine Projection Model says Narvaez will finish as the No. 11 catcher in Fantasy baseball. He has been the No. 23 catcher drafted on average so far, which makes him an impressive value worth targeting as one of the top 2019 Fantasy baseball sleepers. Look for him to vastly out-perform his ADP.

SportsLine is also high on a starting pitcher who didn’t finish in the top five in Fantasy points at his position last year but is ranked higher than starters like Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale and James Paxton. This pick could be the difference in winning your league or going home with nothing. 

So which Fantasy Baseball sleepers should you snatch in your draft? And which undervalued pitchers can help you win a championship? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy Baseball rankings for every single position, all from the model that called Scooter Gennett’s huge breakout last season, and find out.