I will differentiate Sleepers from Breakout Players by defining a breakout player as someone you expect to be good at some point in their career and you are just trying to time when they make the jump from the usual adjustment period to the MLB to that of a full fledged star. Sleepers, on the other hand, are players nobody expects much of but go ahead and blossom into good players if not stars. Garrett Jones would be an example of a sleeper last year, probably Ben Zobrist too, Jason Bartlett too.
Sleepers, by there very definition are difficult, if not impossible, to predict, because of people seriously think they might be good, then they aren't really sleepers, right? So we'll refine our definition a bit and say that a Sleeper is a player who nobody, or very few people thought had a chance to be good before this season.
Our first Sleeper Alert will be for Adam Moore, C, Seattle Mariners. With Kenji Johjima and Jeff Clement gone, an opportunity was created in Seattle that doesn't come along all that often for a young prospect who hasn't gotten a lot of attention. That's the "perfect storm" that may have lifted Adam Moore's career off the ground. Moore got a look last season and has gotten the bulk of PT this spring. He looks like the odd on favorite to win the starting catcher job with Seattle this season.
First the basics: BD- 05-08-1984. B-R, T-R. 6'3", 210 lbs.
What makes Moore a nice fantasy sleeper choice is that he's always been a good hitting catcher. Part of the reason why he is not well known is he basically only had one college season of record after starting out in JC ball and then tranferring from Nebraska to UT Arlington, a good program to be sure. His line from UT Arlington was a fine .350/.445/.563 with 10 HR's and 22 doubles in 254 AB's. The Mariners drafted him in the 6'th round in 2006 and played at two levels that first summer of his pro career: Short Season: .317/.348/.460 with 9 doubles in 63 AB. Low A; .267/.342/.430 with 7 HR's in 165 AB's, a pretty good line for the Midwest League, a fairly extreme pitcher's league.
2007 was a strong season in high A ball: .307/.371/.543 with 22 HR's. High Desert in the California League is very friendly to hitters so these numbers could be discounted. He continued to hit well the following season in AA in the fairly neutral Southern League: .319/.396/.506 with 14 HR's and 34 doubles.
2009 was not as impressive: AA: .263/.371/.411 with 3 HR's in 95 AB's. AAA: .294/.346/.429 with 9 HR's and 19 doubles in 340 AB's. He appeared in 6 games for Seattle hitting just .217/.250/.391, but the Seattle brass was impressed enough with him to not go after a starting catcher in free agency this offseason. Moore appears to be in line for the starting catcher job and has gotten the bulk of spring training AB's in preparation: .344/.447/.438.
I generally don't recommend drafting sleepers unless you are in a deep league, or a league that only uses players from the NL or AL. I do recommend putting them on your watch list so if one of your drafted players get injured or is having a terrible year, you are ready to pounce before other owners in your league.
What do you think about Adam Moore?
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