Alex Wood

Wood was mostly an afterthought last year after a couple injury-plagued seasons between Cincinnati and Los Angeles. He rewarded fantasy managers who took a late flier on him in drafts and/or grabbed him off waivers by posting a sub-4.00 ERA and a career-best 26.0 K% while winning 10 games. The biggest factor in the successful season was Wood's health as he pitched 138.2 frames compared to a combined 48.1 the two previous seasons. Staying healthy is the main concern for Wood, but this concern is baked into his price in drafts. Wood should be viewed as solid back-end rotation piece in fantasy, and if he can't stay healthy or sustain the level of success he enjoyed last season, he can be an early drop. The veteran southpaw will be back in San Francisco after signing a two-year deal in November.

Wood was handed a starting job to begin the 2020 campaign but made only one appearance before a shoulder injury sidelined him for the entirety of August. The emergence of rookie hurlers Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May relegated Wood to a bullpen role upon his return, and he finished the season having pitched only 12.2 innings. It's difficult to extract much useful information over such a small sample, but if there's a positive spin it's that his fastball clocked in a tick faster than in his previous two seasons and his 23.1 K% was his highest since 2017 -- results, perhaps, of his offseason work with Driveline Baseball. A strong showing in the postseason (one run, eight strikeouts in 6.2 relief innings) may help Wood's prospects on the free-agent market, though teams are no doubt well aware of the lefty's history of health issues.

I once had a pitcher, or should I say, he once had me. He showed me his curveball, and asked isn't it good, Norwegian spin? He asked me to stay, he told me to roster him anywhere, so I looked around, and noticed there was not a chair. Wood has either pitched over 151 innings, or fewer than 61 in each of the past four seasons. He gets strikeouts, and he does not hurt himself with walks. Until this past season, he did not have a problem with homers. He allowed 11 homers in 35.2 innings with the Reds because he struggled with a bad back all season. Pitching mechanics are a fine-tuned exercise, so anything that disrupts that can lead to bad results. For Wood and his high-effort delivery, a bad back prevented him from finishing off his delivery and pitches, so mistakes were left up in the zone that got hammered. He is an endgame skills target that could also be your first drop for a free agent.

Wood experimented with pitching exclusively out of the stretch last season and it didn't work out. His average fastball velocity fell below 90 mph in 2018 and his strikeout rate dropped to 21.2%, the second-lowest mark of his career. Meanwhile his opponents' hard-hit rate leapt 10 percentage points to a career-worst 37.9%. It's not like his season was that bad -- he had a 1.60 FIP against lefties and a 3.53 mark overall -- but the decline in stuff is a troubling sign moving forward. The Dodgers had settled on 150 or so innings as a cap for Wood, and as he approached that number in September, the team moved him to the bullpen. That kind of innings limit put a firm cap on Wood's fantasy upside, and while he could push back up closer to 200 frames with Cincinnati following a December trade, the Dodgers did what they did for a reason (Wood battled arm issues earlier in his career).

The Dodgers' extensive pitching depth confined Wood to the bullpen to begin last season, but when injuries hit the starting ranks in April, the lefty entered the rotation and didn't look back. After roaring to an 11-0 record, 1.56 ERA and 0.88 WHIP though his first 16 outings, Wood proved more mortal in the second half (3.89 ERA, 1.24 WHIP in 71.2 innings), with his strikeout and home-run rates swinging wildly in undesirable directions. Wood's low cost of acquisition still made him a major fantasy bargain in 2017, but with the 27-year-old's place in the rotation secure entering the upcoming campaign, he will be more properly valued on draft day this time around. Since Wood has turned in FIPs ranging between 3.18 and 3.69 the last four seasons, he'll likely veer closer to the second-half version of himself rather than the legitimate Cy Young candidate he was prior to the All-Star break. That's still plenty useful, especially while he's supported by one of baseball's top offenses.

The lefty with the Tazmanian delivery was shelved for much of last season, as arm woes disabled him in early June and in-season elbow surgery took him out until mid-September. His pitching motion is a site to behold, with his head veering every direction throughout the course of his delivery, and it's somewhat amazing that he can hit spots at all with such a blatant imbalance in his mechanics. It's even more shocking that he can maintain something approaching a league-average walk rate with that shaky delivery, but Wood has stayed within spitting distance of 3.0 BB/9 in each of the past three seasons. Wood will be one of a dozen contenders for a spot in back of the Dodgers' rotation in the spring, though his combination of bullpen experience, recent health issues and the leftward-leaning starting staff of the Dodgers could very well conspire to keep him in the bullpen.

Wood came over from the Braves to the Dodgers in a July blockbuster that also involved Jose Peraza and Hector Olivera. He ultimately notched career highs in starts (32), innings (189.2), and wins (12). That said, 2015 represented a bit of a step back over his 2014 season, as Wood's ERA rose from 2.78 to 3.84 and his WHIP shot from 1.14 to 1.36. Wood also saw his strikeout rate drop sharply - 6.6 K/9 vs. 2014's 2.8. Wood does a good job limiting free passes (2.8 BB/9) and he generates about two groundballs per flyball, helping offset a below average fastball (89.1 mph on average). Of his final five starts last year, Wood allowed 14 total runs in two of them and just four combined in the other three. Wood should have a role in the back end of the Dodgers' 2016 rotation where he'll look to improve his consistency and develop more of an "out pitch" against right-hand hitters who batted .292 against him last year.

Gavin Floyd's return in early May afforded the Braves the option of moving Wood to the bullpen, and they took advantage, seeing it as a perfect opportunity to manage the lefty's innings. Following a brief assignment to the minors to get stretched out, Wood returned to the rotation June 25 and went on to post a 2.20 ERA and .227 BAA in 13 second-half starts. He cut down on his walks while maintaining a strikeout rate of 8.9 K/9 and lowered his ERA by more than 30 points despite his HR/FB nearly doubling (from 5.1% to 10.0%). Wood used his plus curveball far more often to great results and mixed in his changeup effectively, with his stuff proving equally difficult on lefties (.667 OPS) and righties (.645), providing hope that he can sustain a good deal of success at the major league level despite a fastball that averages under 90 mph. Along with Julio Teheran, Wood will form one of the youngest 1-2 punches in the league, but any innings restrictions will likely lifted and he already has an impressive major-league track record for a 24-year-old.

The Braves were looking for a way to work Wood into the rotation in late July, after the left-hander posted a 1.26 ERA, a 9.0 K/9 and a 3.6 BB/9 over 12 starts with Double-A Mississippi and a 2.45 ERA in 16 appearances with the big club to begin the year. Injuries to Tim Hudson and Paul Maholm opened the door, and Wood went on to go 3-2 with a 3.54 ERA and a 8.7 K/9 in 11 starts with Atlanta. Eventually, Wood transitioned back to a bullpen role, but the 23-year-old will compete for a rotation spot this spring, and considering how well he performed last season, he likely has an edge over the likes of David Hale and J.R. Graham.