Fantasy Baseball: 5 Low-Cost Starters Who Are Innings-Pitched Assets in Rotisserie Formats

Ervin Santana, Minnesota Twins

Outside of their historically powerful second baseman, the lowly Minnesota Twins were hardly a font of fantasy glory in 2016, which might explain why Ervin Santana and his 188-plus frames of 3.38 ERA ball have flown decidedly under the radar heading into 2017 drafts, where the big righty is going undrafted in many standard leagues.

To be fair, Big Erv won't bowl you over with his 7.2 career strikeout-per-nine, nor will he wow you with his decidedly un-stingy 2.81 career walks-per nine. But what should get your attention is the fact that the veteran righty might be the only pitcher outside of the top-75 drafted starters to have 200 innings of mid-3.00 ERA production in his plausible range of possible outcomes.

Santana doesn't have any particular metric that grabs you by the collar (aside perhaps from a ground-to-fly ratio that has remained above 1.00 over each of his past five seasons), but what he does do with rugged consistency is show up, pitch deep into games, and throw reasonably hard. His fastball still averages near 93 MPH to pair with a strong mid-80 MPH slider that limited hitters to a .573 OPS.

The heavy slider usage and taxing accumulation of innings could certainly mean Santana is heading for a steep health decline. However, considering he's virtually free in most standard leagues, he makes for a no-frills, no-risk rotation filler, especially if you've stocked up on younger, more high-variance arms earlier in the draft.