Fantasy Baseball: 4 Pitchers To Stream for Week 8

Alex Cobb, Tampa Bay Rays

Starts: May 23rd vs Los Angeles Angels, May 28th at Minnesota Twins

ESPN ownership: 30 percent

Alex Cobb has a discouraging injury history that caused drafters to approach him with caution this spring, but the former fantasy darling has flashed some strong results of late, posting a 3.38 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP across 21-plus innings over the past two weeks.

That the Tampa Bay Rays' righty remains widely available on fantasy waiver wires can likely be chalked up to his diminished strikeout totals, with Cobb flashing a strikeouts-per-nine (K/9) rate barely above six on the young season, well down from the eight-plus rates we saw from him during his salad days as a fantasy sleeper in 2013 and 2014.

The fact of the matter is that Cobb simply hasn't found his footing with his go-to changeup. That pitch shows a 10-percentage-point dip in strikeout-minus-walk rate this year compared to 2014. The change has surrendered a .968 on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) this year, albeit with a .467 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). There could be some regression coming, sure, but not if that pitch is surrendering a 44-percent liner rate.

Cobb has eased off of the changeup considerably in recent starts, favoring an austere but thus far effective fastball/curve pairing. The latter pitch is a revamped knuckle-curve that has thus far coaxed a 27-percent strikeout rate on the young season, limiting hitters to a measly 52 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) across a 318-pitch sample.

Cobb's resurgent breaking ball should serve him well against an Angels offense that has lately been targeted for its futility against the curve, with the team seeing the second-most breaking balls across the majors over the past two weeks while producing against them at a bottom-five clip.

An away date against a respectable Twins offense isn't exactly a streamer's delight, but to be fair, the Twins' sluggers have been scuffling a bit of late, especially against righties. Minnesota has tallied the majors' fourth-worst strikeout rate against right handers over the past two weeks, with decidedly below-average totals in OPS and hard-contact rate across that span.

Shallow-leaguers might have better options than Cobb on their waiver wire or on their bench, but in this pitching-starved environment, I can't imagine passing on this solid two-start week in leagues of twelve-teams or more.