MLB
Fantasy Baseball: 10 Surprises So Far in 2017
Not even two months into the 2017 MLB regular season, these 10 players have proved to be important pieces to fantasy baseball teams. Can they keep it up?

Wade Miley, SP, Baltimore Orioles

Preseason ADP: 628.61

The Start

If Wade Miley was legitimately on your radar back on draft day, then there was something seriously wrong with you. Or are you just a genius?

Miley's profile is very similar to Mike Leake, except for the fact that he's striking out more hitters than ever before. After struggling to a 5.37 ERA (and just a 4.21 SIERA) in 2016, the southpaw has surprised many with a 2.45 ERA (albeit with a 4.25 SIERA) through his first 36.2 innings of work. He sports a career 18.8% strikeout rate, yet he's whiffing batters at a 27.1% clip so far in 2017.

Whether his ERA is going to catch up to his SIERA is one thing, but all those strikeouts sure are valuable from a hurler that you likely picked up off the scrap heap.

How Sustainable Is it?

The thing is, we're just waiting for it to all come crashing down. Miley's 9.1% swinging-strike rate isn't much different than his career mark (8.6%), so it's hard to believe these strikeouts will just keep piling up. He's also managed to double his career walk rate (7.6% to 14.7%) while stranding runners at an unsustainably high 87.9% rate.

He's been awfully valuable to a few fantasy baseball teams and the Baltimore Orioles, but this seems like a ticking time bomb considering his peripherals and the fact that he has to pitch in the American League East.

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