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

Jerad Eickhoff, Philadelphia Phillies

You'd be forgiven for passing over Jerad Eickhoff on your draft board. Where he's going in drafts (outside of the overall top 230, per FantasyPros), there is no shortage of trendy sleeper picks -- the likes of Taijuan Walker and Dylan Bundy, for instance.

Sure, Eickhoff doesn't have the upside of these former top prospects, nor does he flash the dominant swing-and-miss stuff, with his career 7.83 strikeout-per-nine rate hardly moving the needle in our K-hungry fantasy environment.

But what the Philadelphia Phillies youngster did flash in 2016 was an ability to consistently pitch deep into games. Eickhoff's 20 quality starts -- one fewer that fantasy luminaries Noah Syndergaard and Kyle Hendricks -- tied for the 18th highest across the MLB last year.

The secret to Eickhoff's success is a plus curveball against which hitters managed a measly .158 batting average, inducing a 44 percent ground-ball rate and a 52 percent strikeout rate. Eickhoff leaned heavily on that curve in the final month of the season, resulting in a near-10-percentage-point increase in his strikeout-minus-walk rate.

So there's a chance that there's more than just high-volume innings in store for the young righty. A pitcher approaching his prime and fleshing out his arsenal, Eickhoff and his high-volume floor shouldn't fall too far outside of the top-80 overall pitchers, and in leagues that value quality starts, he's a clear top-50 starter.