Mid-season Sleepers Winners and Losers
Here's another handful of sleeper candidates predictions that I thought would be good options to draft late or on the waiver wire that have succeed thus far. Also listed are a couple I was completely wrong about.
Winners:
J.A. Happ, SP, Blue Jays - Many Jays fans were unsure of the three-year, $36 million contract management signed him to in the off-season, mainly due to his less than stellar previous stint with the team. Happ has quieted nay-sayers by having an outstanding first half by compiling a 12-3 W-L record and a 3.36 ERA. I said pre-season that if Happ is average every five days when it's his turn to start that he would succeed, he's done that and more and has been one of the Jays' best starters this season.
Justin Bour, 1B, Marlins - Bour is one of the least know first base sluggers in the league, mainly because he plays for the Marlins. A first half that saw Bour hit 15 HR and 46 RBI, has put him on pace to surpass his 2015 numbers of 23 HR's, and 73 RBI's easily. Not bad for a guy who went largely un-drafted in most leagues and who's only owned in 27% of Yahoo Leagues.
Jake Lamb, 3B, Diamondbacks - Lamb always had his success at the minor league level but hadn't been able to translate that into the big leagues. However, this is the year I thought he would be able to put it all together, and boy has he ever. Batting cleanup for the Diamondbacks, Lamb has hit 20 homers, driven in 61, all while maintaining a .291 AVG. He's currently on pace to mash over 30 HR's and drive in 100+. If you were wise enough to draft him late or grab him on the waiver wire, good on ya.
Losers:
Chris Colabello, 1B, Blue Jays - Many thought Colabello's feel good 2015 season wouldn't be replicated, I thought he would be able to and because of that I felt he would be a good sleeper candidate. A poor start to his season brought Colabello and his feel good story back to earth, then came the 80 game PED suspension. Needless to say I dropped the ball big time on this one.
Byung Ho Park, DH, Twins - .191 AVG, 12 HR, and 24 RBI are not what I envisioned for this over seas talent. I thought he would have fared better thus far but that hasn't been the case. Chalk this one up in the loss column.
Until next time,
the wiz
