Fantasy Baseball Spot Starter Pickups For Wednesday 5/11/11

Tuesday's Recommended Starter Stats - Kevin Correia - 6.1 Innings Pitched - 2 Strikeouts - Loss - 5.69 ERA - 1.58 WHIP
Cumulative Starters' Stats - 300.1 Innings Pitched - 235 Strikeouts - 7.02 K/9 - 18 Wins in 49 Starts - 3.67 ERA - 1.19 WHIP

Correia laid a bit of an egg on Tuesday, but a look at the play-by-play shows why you can't kill him.  One of the four earned runs came on a two out single by Andre Ethier, and then the other three came on a homer by Matt Kemp in the next at bat.  Ethier has hit successfully in all but two games to start the year, and Kemp has been as hot as anyone to start the year.  Sometimes you just get unlucky.  If you took Correia you weren't missing much with Jason Hammel, who let up four earned runs to the Mets.  Those in deeper leagues had Rick Porcello pitch a good game for them.  Not a lot of strikeouts, but ERA, WHIP and a win.  Starters for Wednesday coming up...

MLB Fantasy Sleepers: Gio Gonzalez Can Help Your Team More Than Albert Pujols

In fantasy baseball, everyone knows that Albert Pujols is the best player available.  If you have the first pick in a draft you take Pujols and then go get a snack because you have two rounds till your next pick.  But Pujols isn't going to win you the league.  If he gets hurt you he might lose you your league, but if you don't do a good job with the rest of your draft it's not going to matter what Pujols does.

If you want to win your league you are going to do it later in the draft.  Here is an article that features data from last years leagues.  It shows the players who were on the highest percentage of top teams in yahoo leagues last year.  Not a single guy on the list of top eleven players there was drafted in the first round.  Instead the list features guys like Carlos Gonzalez (ADP 143.6), Buster Posey (ADP 238.1), and Mat Latos (ADP 248.6).

This should be common sense, but it's not.  Fantasy players are focused on the figuring out the top guys at each position.  But guys drafted in the first few rounds are basically all going to be good players, you're not going to win your league by drafting guys that are only marginally better than the guys going in the spots around them.  However, if you pick up someone in the 15th round who ends up as the best player in fantasy (like Carlos Gonzalez last year) you are at a huge advantage.

So this is a list, in no particular order, of five players whose ADP is 200+ but who will give you more value than your typical 21st-25th round pick.  It's a mix of players who are just plain undervalued (like the guy mentioned in the title, Gio Gonzalez) and players whose upside potential I believe to much higher than where they are being drafted.