Fantasy Baseball: 5 Under-the-Radar Pitchers to Target in 2017

Robbie Ray, P, Arizona Diamondbacks

ESPN Ownership: 22%

We were sort of on the hype train for Robbie Ray a year ago, and we dove all in midseason. What Ray delivered was a year that was frankly kinda bananas. The strikeouts spiked to 11.3 per nine innings, the walks stayed relatively the same and he made good on at least getting his ground-ball rate to league average.

This still resulted in a 4.90 ERA, but we’re taking solace in a 3.76 FIP and the fact that his home-run-per-fly-ball rate (HR/FB) was a ridiculous and unlucky 15.5%. Ray plays in a park that will give up home runs, and this year, Chase Field was a hitter's haven with a 116/105 home run park factor (where 100 is average, above means it favors hitters).

So what do we like about Ray? Well, for the second year in a row, the second half provided even more hope for the future. Nobody -- literally nobody -- struck out more batters in the second half than Ray’s 12.0 K/9, though Yu Darvish was close. He nudged his ground-ball rate up to 47.7%, as well.

The things that held Ray back in the second half -- besides his 5.03 ERA (3.61 FIP) -- were an even higher HR/FB rate (16.2%) and a meager 61.8% strand rate. The NL averages for those are 13.1% and 71.9%, respectively, and even if Ray can’t get to those numbers, he should still have room to improve. His career strand rate with this year included is 69.7%, and he’s actually got a HR/FB rate of 11.8% through 330 2/3 career innings.

Ray may not be an elite pitchers moving forward, but he can have sneaky value as a mid-fantasy-rotation kind of guy.