Fantasy Baseball: 4 Undervalued Pitchers Who Own Superb Swinging-Strike Rates

One thing that virtually all great pitchers have in common is a solid swinging-strike rate. Sure, pitchers can do other things that will give them success, such as inducing grounders or popups or be exceptionally good at inducing weak contact, but very few things will predict success as good as getting opposing batters to swing and miss.

It seems pretty simple -- pitchers with swinging strike repertoires will get more strikeouts, and those are the outs with the biggest margin for error. A passed ball or wild pitch might allow a hitter to reach, but grounders and fly balls can fall for hits or be booted, or at the very least allow runners to advance or even score.

So one exercise we can use to look at late-season surgers or even to get a jump on next season’s research is to see some of the pitchers who have healthy swinging-strike rates but might be lagging on the results side. As a result, those pitchers are also likely to be on the lower side of ownership figures, and they could be underdrafted next spring.

For a frame of reference, the MLB average swinging-strike rate for starters is 9.7 percent, and we'll be looking at starting pitchers who have thrown at least 50 innings this season.

Here are four less-heralded guys who are getting whiffs.