2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: 10 Names to Target – Bleacher Report

2015 5×5 Rotisserie Stats

Sleeper Outlook

Carter Capps has always had closer-caliber stuff with a fastball that can touch triple digits and a biting slider, but a quirky mechanical adjustment has allowed his career to take off.

Already a big guy at 6’5″, Capps hops forward off the rubber toward the hitter before releasing the ball, so his 100 mph fastball looks like it’s right on top of you when he throws it. Until batters find a way to better attack that quirk, he’ll continue to rack up strikeouts.

Those strikeouts came at an impressive 16.8 K/9 rate in his 31 innings of work last season, and it appears that performance was enough for him to earn a crack at the closer’s role in 2016.

“Marlins executive Michael Hill said he expects an open competition for the closer job,” Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald wrote Jan. 21. “Carter Capps will have a chance to compete with incumbent A.J. Ramos.”

Ramos took over for a struggling Steve Cishek last season and converted 32 of 38 save chances with a 2.30 ERA, 1.009 WHIP and 11.1 K/9.

Those are solid numbers, but Capps has a chance to be elite for a Miami Marlins team that could find itself in plenty of close games as a fringe contender.

“Carter Capps has turned himself into something absurdly good,” Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs wrote back in July. “It’s interesting to wonder if, as a consequence, Capps is just doing himself future harm. Yet, all that is right now is speculation. Capps’ dominance, meanwhile, is reality.”