Astros in Fantasy: Don’t sleep on Charlie Morton in your draft

What can Astros SP Charlie Morton do for you in Fantasy Baseball?

Welcome to the fantasy baseball draft season. It’s the season where you hear, ”I was going to choose him” or ”this is a reach.” We just had our draft last night, and we heard these and many more phrases throughout the night. We all had the moment when someone took Astros prospect Kyle Tucker, CTH Co-Expert Cody Poage. It was a reach, but we were all thinking about it.

One thing I didn’t expect to hear was everyone in the room yelling “oh man” when an owner called Charlie Morton’s name. Are we talking about Charlie Freaking Morton? Yes, he will be drafted because of how he pitched in the playoffs last year. No, it wasn’t Cody this time who selected Morton. It was the self-proclaimed dynasty owner in our league.

Why didn’t I scoop him up? I didn’t think people would think much about the Astros fifth starter. There lies the problem. The secret is out on Morton after pitching so well in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series. He was relatively undrafted last year, but owners began to realize that he was a hidden gem quickly.

What are the experts saying?

Even though Scott White of CBS Sports rates Morton as a fallback option if you don’t get one of the top starting pitchers, his value could surpass that. Last year as a reclamation project for the Astros, Morton had 9.7 strikeouts per nine innings and a 3.82 ERA with a 95+ MPH fastball to complement his breaking pitches.

Morton has a consensus ranking of 181 by Fantasy Pros, as the combine all the expert rankings into one resource. Regarding starting pitching rankings, Morton is the 47th starting pitcher. While you should not pick Morton in the first 14 rounds of your draft, depending on teams, don’t sleep on him. If you are saving him as a backup plan, you know someone else will reach for him in the 15th – 18th round.

We discussed Morton on the CTH Podcast last night.

A look at ADP.

Looking at the consensus ADP (average draft position) by Fantasy Pros, Morton is being drafted between picks 161 or 204. Morton has an average ADP of 178, meaning people will draft him around that time. You will always have those Astros homers out there reaching, but Morton may be worth the reach.

Next: Astros prospect Kyle Tucker is looking untradeable

On this team, Morton will have to perform to stay in the rotation. If he can pitch anywhere close to how he did in the playoffs last year, he will be a good pickup. Even the Game 3 of the ALCS, Morton was very unlucky that game. The Yankees scored a lot of runs on errors and soft hits. The question is, what can Morton do for your team? You are the only one who can answer that.

***Stats from Baseball-Reference and rankings from Fantasy Pros***