St. Louis Cardinals Mike Leake: Fantasy Fallout

Cross another free agent pitcher off the wish list.

The St. Louis Cardinals signed Mike Leake today, eliminating pretty much the last higher profile starter available via free agency. The Cards needed to bring stability and durability to their rotation after Lance Lynn went down and after the off season exploits of the Cubs. Making Leake a prime candidate to offer both during his time with the Cardinals.

If there is any one skill that Leake brings every day he toes the rubber, it is that he will battle the whole game and eat innings. While sometimes that gets him trouble and drives up his ERA, it’s a valuable skill both in fantasy and real life even so. Last season out of his 30 total starts, Leake had only three starts where he failed to make it past the 5^th inning. That’s 27 times where Leake had the opportunity to get the Win and also allowed him to pad his K numbers as well which he needs to boost his value. While there are certainly some clunkers in that span of 27 games, he did manage to maintain a 3.70 ERA for the season.

Now when he was traded to San Francisco at the trade deadline, I like many, thought he would surely see a nice stretch of second half starts as getting out Great American Park and going to AT & T Park seems like a pitchers dream. For the most part with the Giants he was his usual self but an unsightly 4.07 ERA had some people thinking that he struggled.That ERA was largely ballooned by a performance against the D’Backs where he gave up 6 ER in only 4 innings, so if you were to eliminate that game, over the course of his other 8 starts he only gave up more than 4 runs once and averaged over 6 innings pitched per start.

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By him staying in the NL Central as well, we have a solid sample size to look out how he has performed in each ballpark. He has been rock steady his whole career at nearly every ballpark in the division outside of Miller Park. In St. Louis he has a 3.19 ERA over 6 starts, in Chicago he has 4.20 ERA over 10 starts, in Pittsburgh he has a 2.46 ERA over 13 starts, in Milwaukee he has a 5.06 ERA over 7 starts and in his Cincinnati he has 4.31 ERA over 85 starts.

Most people will look at Leake’s peripherals and think he is due to for a season where he gets hit hard, but throughout his career he has out pitched those and go on to post solid season after solid season. Leake’s arsenal does not allow him to blow people away, so he has always depended on pitching to contact. The move to St. Louis, which has proven to be a pretty neutral ballpark hitting wise, should offer some help as opposed to pitching in Cincinnati for the whole season. He normally gives up about 20 homers each season, so hopefully St. Louis can keep that consistent or even allow it to drop some.

One encouraging sign for Leake heading into next season was that he lowered his hit allowed by over 40, which aligns more with his career averages, and his walks dropped back into the 40’s which is the range he needs to stay in. From a fantasy perspective, Leake will not cause the draft room to erupt or elicit much reaction, but that does not mean he should be devalued. In this day and age of pitching where everyone throws a gazillion and batters swing at everything, we tend to chase the flashy pitchers that have huge upside but often burn us more than we like to admit.

For a guy that has averaged 30 starts over the last four seasons, combined with throwing 180+ innings per year over that same span, I will always find a place on my team for that kind of consistency. I love plug-in and forget types of players, or basically guys that you insert every week and never have to take out because you know what you are getting, so Leake perfectly fits the bill. Owners could do a lot worse that selecting Leake to fill out there fantasy rotation, so do not forget about him on draft day when you are searching for your SP 4 or 5.

2016 Early Projections: 13 W/3.65 ERA/125 K/1.15 WHIP

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