Fantasy Baseball: 4 Pitchers to Stream in Week 2

Jake Junis, Kansas City Royals

Starts: April 9th vs. Seattle Mariners, April 14th vs. Los Angeles Angels
ESPN percentage owned: 31.8%

Prospective owners might be casting a sideways glance at the first 2018 start from Kansas City Royals youngster Jake Junis, who shut out the declining Detroit Tigers across seven frames on a rainy day, a task that just about any scrub may have been able to execute.

But Junis isn't exactly a scrub. Sure, the 25-year-old righty isn't going to rack up the strikeouts, and his 4.30 ERA and 4.55 FIP across 98.1 innings in his rookie season are nothing to write home about. But one thing Junis did show last season was excellent control, with a 5.9% walk rate across the half-season sample. In fact, he had the second-highest zone percentage of any pitcher in the majors with more than 90 innings pitched last season.

Of course, dancing in the zone does not guarantee success: you'll see the likes German Marquez and Antonio Senzatela in the zone percentage top 10 alongside luminaries like Clayton Kershaw and Luis Severino. But what Junis has that those lowly Colorado Rockies arms don't is an extremely pitcher-friendly home park to mask the errors in his nibbling. And with two starts lined up in the forgiving confines of Kauffman Stadium, Junis is set up quite nicely in Week 2. Streamers can lean on Junis as a high-floor play this week, albeit with a somewhat muted strikeout ceiling.