Fantasy Baseball Week 12 Preview: Top 10 sleeper pitchers include Mitchell Parker, Luis Severino (2024)

Mitchell Parker has been a surprise success due to his elite control and above-average ground-ball tendencies. The two lineups he's scheduled to face this week are bad by any standard, but especially against left-handers, with the Tigers having the fifth-lowest OPS among all 30 teams and the Marlins having the lowest OPS.

Luis Severino seems to have shelved his old bat-missing ways for a more ground-ball-heavy approach, but it's working. He's coming off an eight-inning gem against the Nationals and will face an even worse Marlins lineup this time around.

With another gem against the Diamondbacks over the weekend, Matt Waldron now has a 1.78 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and 9.9 K/9 over his past six starts. The Mets are a mid-tier matchup, but the novelty of his knuckleball makes him sort of immune to matchups anyway.

Erick Fedde hasn't been as sharp lately but is still a threat for a quality start every time out. He gets two bites at the apple this week, the first coming against a bad Mariners lineup.

Brandon Pfaadt has pitched better than his 4.60 ERA, all the underlying numbers say, and has gone six-plus innings in seven of eight starts. He'll be facing an Angels team that has only a .659 OPS against right-handers, fifth-worst in baseball.

A new slider seemed like it might be the key to recapturing Chris Paddack's long-lost dominance, but it hasn't worked out so well in his past couple turns. Still, if you're the sort who values matchups above all else, then you can't ask for better than Paddack's two turns against the Rockies and Athletics.

Tylor Megill has been up and down in three turns back from a strained shoulder but is a reasonable bet to light up a bad Marlins lineup this week. His second matchup against the Padres is more worrisome, but generally speaking, two is better than one.

Jake Irvin's top two pitches, the fastball and curveball, have yielded low batting averages even dating back to last year, and now that he's a control artist to boot, the results have been great. No reason to think it'll change against the Tigers this week.

Reese Olson's last two outings have been rough, taking his ERA from 1.92 to 3.43, but the Nationals lineup that he's facing this week isn't as formidable as the two that got to him. He still has two pitches (slider and changeup) with elite whiff rates and may be worth scooping up in the leagues where he gets dropped.

Ben Brown is coming off back-to-back shaky outings against the Reds, but he'll be facing a Cardinals lineup this week that ranks in the bottom five in runs scored. There's big strikeout upside with his high-octane fastball and wipeout curveball.