Fantasy Baseball: Gambling on Dinelson Lamet

Late last season, mired in a fifth place finish in my prize fantasy league; I decided to pick up Dinelson Lamet. I had the chance to see Lamet pitch a couple of times and liked the look of his stuff. He had a power arm and a wipeout slider.

I’m sitting here trying to decide who my second keeper should be as a pitcher during these winter nights, and I think I’ve decided to gamble on Lamet. After poking around the internet a little bit, I see that my reasoning may not be that far-fetched.

Dinelson Lamet – For pitchers with at least 110 innings pitched last year, only seven had a higher K/9 than Lamet. There’s some bar trivia for you. Lamet, who leaned on his filthy slider (41.3 percent K rate), struck out 10.94 batters per nine innings. What’s Lamet’s ceiling as a Fantasy pitcher? Well, he’s a safe SP3-SP4, with the upside to be a Top 30 guy if everything breaks right. Add in the ballpark factor and the lack of competition for a spot around him, and Lamet is a solid value in redraft leagues in the 14th round or so. In dynasty leagues, he’s a nice get to add some stability to your rotation, even if he’s still trying to harness his control.

Fangraphs’ STEAMER has him projected for that sterling 10.14 strikeouts per nine that I crave. They have his ERA improving to just over four at 4.16 which isn’t hard to imagine getting to pitch his home games in Petco and getting a few starts in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Lamet has me intrigued, and I’m going to be in the hunt for a few more just like him. Every year it’s my guilty pleasure to find a value, junk-heap pitcher who emerges. Lamet is at the top of the list.