Archive for Waiver Wire

The Chicago White Sox’s pitching staff isn’t living up to expectations. For a team that was so reliant on hitting in the early 2000s, the White Sox’s pitching has carried them in recent years. This year, however, things are a bit different. They’ve received surprise performances by Chris Sale and Jake Peavy, but their normal rotation stalwarts — John Danks and Gavin Floyd — have floundered. Danks eventually went on the DL with a shoulder injury. In his absence, José Quintana has been fantastic. In 35.1 innings, the rookie has an exceptional 1.53 ERA. With the team’s rotation still in shambles, Quintana may keep his job longer than anticipated.

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Denard Span (ESPN: 38 percent owned; Yahoo!: 19 percent owned)

The Twins’ offense finally looks like it’s heading in the right direction. Through Wednesday night’s game, they’ve scored 68 runs, the most in baseball and just 20 runs shy of their total for the entire month of April. While the Twins are trending up, their leadoff man Denard Span is heading in the opposite direction in terms of ownership. As much as I like Span, and I like Span a lot, I understand entirely why owners are willing to jettison him so quickly: He’s a tweener. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s break from the usual three-player Mining the Minors write-ups to cover more ground (or if you prefer, more bases — this is a baseball site after all). This time, we’ll hit on three pairs, with one of each position — starting pitcher, outfielder and reliever — coming from each league.

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Let’s face it, the waiver wire is looking pretty bleak these days.  Obviously if you’re in a real shallow league of eight to ten teams, there are always guys worthy of picking up even for just a week or so.  But the deeper your league gets the worse it looks out there and as writers trying to suggest a worthwhile pick-up, it can often be difficult.  So now that I threw that caveat out there, here are two guys that probably aren’t bad enough that they could contribute as a possible fill-in for you while your guy maybe nurses a sore hamstring or is mired in some sort of multi-week slump. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s deep league waiver wire highlights an outfielder I am somewhat shocked still has such a low ownership percentage and a pitcher who you should get an early jump on.

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Tom Wilhelmsen (ESPN: 41 percent owned; Yahoo!: 29 percent owned)

Matt Capps. Chris Perez. Jim Johnson. Brett Myers. Santiago Casilla. If you had these guys as five of the top 10 closers — determined purely by saves, peripherals are another matter entirely — I recommend playing the lottery a little more often, or at least finding a little-known website based out of the Caribbean where you can gamble on sports legally. The prevailing logic in fantasy drafts is not to pay for saves and while this year will go down as one of the easiest examples of unexpected players grabbing saves by the bunch, that draft logic is no longer the best advice anymore. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s waiver wire brings you two rookies who have come into more important roles of late, one an outfielder and one a relief pitcher.

Norichika Aoki | OF | Brewers | Owned: 3% Yahoo! and 1.7% ESPN

Aoki turned 30 years old earlier this year, but technically he’s a rookie after coming over from Japan. He opened the season as a reserve player with Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, and Carlos Gomez/Nyjer Morgan entrenched in the outfield, but he’s seen more playing time lately because Mat Gamel’s season-ending knee injury has forced Hart to play some first base. It wasn’t just Gamel’s injury though, Aoki earned his spot.

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Colby Rasmus (ESPN: 58 percent owned; Yahoo!: 38 percent owned)

This is definitely one of those moments where striking while the iron is hot is good business. A few nights ago, I happened to see someone ask a fellow fantasy writer on Twitter whether they should be picking up Rasmus and just assumed he must have been playing in about an eight-team league, since Rasmus hasn’t been available in any of my leagues since draft day. Apparently, the reality is that a decent number of owners were fed up with Rasmus’ slow start and kicked him to the curb, making him available in just under half of ESPN leagues and almost two-thirds of Yahoo! leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

What do two rehabbing big leaguers and a hot shot closer-of-the-future candidate have in common? That’s right: All three are in this week’s episode of Mining the Minors.

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Currently, I am playing in seven different roto leagues and if there is a common thread to be found in each one, it’s that just a handful of stolen bases can vault a number of teams up in the standings by an average of five points.  Unless you’re sitting at the top of the stolen base category or sitting in last by a ridiculously large margin, a boost in steals could mean the difference between languishing in the bottom third of your league standings and competing for the championship.  Here are a pair of outfielders who just might be able to help… Read the rest of this entry »