Fantasy Baseball Rankings 2019: Top sleepers from model that predicted Scooter Gennett’s strong year

The 2019 MLB season is right around the corner, with the Japan Opening Series between the Mariners and Athletics scheduled for March 20 and league-wide MLB Opening Day on March 28. Spring training has been eventful, with mega contracts extended to Manny Machado (Padres), Nolan Arenado (Rockies), and Bryce Harper (Phillies). Those are established young stars and will be fixtures atop Fantasy baseball rankings for years to come. However, leagues are often won and lost by the players selected in the middle and end of drafts that can outperform their ADP. These 2019 Fantasy baseball sleepers are the players you’ll need to target in order to hoist a pennant of your own. With Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell, Chicago’s Jon Lester, and Minnesota’s Jose Berrios already named MLB Opening Day starters, there’s a lot to sift through before draft time. Accordingly, you’ll want to see the unbiased 2019 Fantasy baseball rankings from the team at SportsLine. They’ll help show you the biggest Fantasy baseball sleepers to target, breakouts to look for, and busts to dodge.

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: Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel. 

He had a late start to his MLB career, dominating the Cuban leagues and even playing in Japan for 15 seasons. The 34-year-old has hit .291 in his first three MLB seasons and has also provided positional versatility to the Astros at second base and third base. 

Fantasy baseball managers everywhere will hope he can get back to seeing the ball the way he did in 2017, when he hit 18 home runs and was barreling the ball up with more consistency. Gurriel hit five homers in September last season and raised his OPS by 45 points as he streaked down the stretch. SportsLine’s 2019 Fantasy baseball rankings are high on Gurriel’s upside, saying he’ll finish as the No. 13 first baseman despite an ADP of 24 at his position.

Another sleeper that SportsLine’s Fantasy baseball rankings 2019 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.