Everybody is sleeping on Eddie Butler. Even if you’re heavily vested in fantasy baseball, it’s likely you just said “who?” at the sound of Butler’s name. Don’t just dismiss him because you don’t know him. He can provide a quality back-end start this week off the waiver wire in a matchup Saturday against the New York Mets.
He’s not a household name, nor will he be in the near future. But the Colorado Rockies hurler is showing signs of life this year after a garbage season in 2015, when he went 3-10 with a 5.90 ERA.
In fact, let’s forget about 2015.
Let’s think about his most recent outing. He tossed six shutout innings and notched a career-high six strikeouts in a victory against San Francisco. His other start this season wasn’t awesome, allowing five earned runs in 5.2 innings, but I’m so far encouraged with his ability to limit walks and hits.
His WHIP is under 1.00, at 0.93 and in 14 innings this season, he’s allowed only three free passes and 10 hits. He’s striking out batters at an 8.4 strikeout per nine inning clip this season, a far better number than in 2015 when he averaged only five strikeouts compared to 4.8 walks. Wait a second…I was supposed to forget about 2015.
Let’s get on the front-end of Butler’s improvement. He’s still young at 25, so he’s still learning the hitters in Major League Baseball. And let’s not overvalue the Mets.
New York hitters are batting a blistering .214 in the month of May, the worst mark in Major League Baseball. Don’t be surprised if Butler garners some solid statistics this weekend for fantasy baseball owners who don’t mind taking a chance on a player with a career 5.76 ERA.
