Chad Qualls 2010

If current trends continue, Chad Qualls will be one of the best values available on fantasy baseball draft day 2010. He's currently the 229th ranked player at MockDraftCentral, and isn't ranked at Couchmanagers.com. This is a near-elite level closer. Very few pitchers in baseball have Qualls' combination of peripheral stats. Last season his K/9 was 7.79, BB/9 was 1.21, and groundball rate was 56.9%. I expect the walk rate to regress to somewhere between 2 and 2.5 this year, but that still makes Qualls an exceptional pitcher. He's obviously slipping because of concerns about his September knee surgery. However, he was supposed to be completely ready for Spring Training, and I haven't yet heard anything to contradict that. Given some of the other 'talent' that is available at that point in most drafts, using a 19th or 20th round pick on Qualls seems like a risk that's well worth taking.