Fantasy Baseball Picks 2022: Sleepers to Target Deep in Your Draft

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It wasn’t always clear we would get to this point, but here we are.

Baseballs are cracking, gloves are popping and hot dogs are being devoured as soon as concession stands can crank them out.

Major League Baseball is back, which means fantasy baseball is back too.

With Opening Day set for April 7, we’re in the heart of fantasy baseball draft season, so let’s keep the preparations going by spotlighting three of our favorite late-round sleepers.

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For the bulk of his MLB career, Alex Cobb has either been fantasy-relevant or a member of the Baltimore Orioles.

During the four seasons in which he made double-digit starts for the Tampa Bay Rays, Cobb had a sub-4.00 ERA in three of them and a sub-3.00 ERA in two. In three ineffective, injury-filled seasons with the Orioles, his ERA was never lower than 4.30.

But he largely righted the ship with the Los Angeles Angels in 2021, posting a 3.76 ERA and career-best marks in FIP (2.92) and K/9 (9.5), per Baseball Reference. He has a chance to keep his momentum going in San Francisco, where the Giants have had a golden touch with seemingly every veteran starter who has passed through the organization of late.

Cobb has never pitched 180 innings in a season and probably won’t have a career-high workload as a 34-year-old, but his start-by-start stats could grade much closer to top-shelf than his 273.8 average draft position, per FantasyPros, would lead you to believe.

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Anyone who has managed a fantasy roster through a 162-game marathon or 10 knows the challenges of navigating the inevitable injuries and plugging the leaks they leave behind.

That’s why it helps to have someone with the flexibility to cover three positions—especially when that someone is two years removed from being regarded as a top-five prospect.

No, Gavin Lux hasn’t hit the cover off the baseball just yet, but he hasn’t had the opportunity to. He has totaled 144 big league games over the past three seasons, with the Los Angeles Dodgers perpetually struggling to find him a spot. But with Corey Seager out and a universal DH in, that problem is solved.

A steady gig could be all Lux needs to break out, and he quietly might have started his ascension in September, when he batted .367 with four extra-base hits in 16 games. A double-digit homer, 20-plus-steal season isn’t out of the question.

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Josh Rojas’ stat profile sounds a little too good to be true.

He could hit double-digit homers (11 last season) and swipe double-digit bags (nine) without hurting your batting average (.264) and supplying moderate value in runs and RBI (113 combined in 139 games). Toss in almost universal positional versatility, and it might seem like he checks all of the boxes of a top-100 pick.

Expect that’s not his where he’s going in drafts. Not even close. The average draft doesn’t even see Rojas go inside of the top 260 selections, per FantasyPros.

Granted, he’s not going to blow you away in any statistical category, and that lack of sizzle might be what keeps bumping him down on draft night. But good luck finding players who can fill in as many cracks as he can without costing you a top-200 pick.