Archive for Waiver Wire

Third base has been hit pretty hard by injuries recently. Evan Longoria, Kevin Youkilis, Ryan Zimmerman, and now Pablo Sandoval are on the shelf, and a couple of them are going to be there long enough to collect some substantial dust. So it’s likely that there are many of us scrambling for answers at third base while we work the phones for any trade possibilities (okay, nobody talks on the phone anymore, but I can’t really say while we work the Google can I?).

When I was interviewed by the intrepid Carson Cistulli on Fangraphs audio a couple weeks ago, he asked me if I thought third base was a deeper position that it was a year ago and at that time, I still said no. With so many of the typical top 10 struggling to produce, when you start looking down the list, it gets ugly pretty darn fast. Now that we’ve lost several of them to the disabled list, it makes third base a particular challenge — so you might want to get creative. Or perhaps you have to.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the vast majority of fantasy leagues, outs are outs no matter how they come. For the leagues that do count strikeouts as a hitting category, the follow pair of players probably isn’t a good option as both of them see a third strike with great frequency.

Jason Kubel (ESPN: 89 percent owned; Yahoo!: 48 percent owned)

The first week or so of the season was unkind to Kubel as he was breaking in his new home in Arizona. He struck out in almost a third of his plate appearances over the first eight games of the season, which would be fine if he also walked in a third and hit home runs in the remaining third, but alas, he did not. Instead, he generally made a mess of things en route to a .200/.310/.240 start. During the 10 game hitting streak that follow his slow start, Kubel hit .421/.476/.737 with three home runs, and now has his overall line up to a far more respectable .338/.400/.532. Read the rest of this entry »

With a full month of baseball in the books, you’d have to think that your league’s waiver wire has been picked clean.  However, between the recent rash of injuries and rookie call-ups, there are certainly a few names that have slipped through the cracks.  Here are two guys you might want to consider depending on the holes in your roster. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the best day of the week as we once again take a dip into the free agent pool. My goal by the end of the season is to incorporate as many puns as I can into my introduction, so feel free to offer suggestions in the comments. Today is a look at two hitters who may actually earn some mixed league value, which doesn’t happen very often when looking at the 15% owned and below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Allen Craig (ESPN: 17 percent owned; Yahoo!: 26 percent owned)

After undergoing offseason knee surgery, Craig, who hit .263/.417/.737 in the World Series, is finally ready to return to the Cardinals’ lineup. He’s expected to be activated off the disabled list sometime Tuesday, provided he felt no pain following his 3-for-4 performance that included a pair of home runs on Monday night for Triple-A Memphis. Craig was a waiver wire wonder last year, that is, when he was on the field. He started more than 10 games in a month just once in 2011, that coming when he started 17 games in May. His knee is responsible for most of his missed time, so in theory that should be cleared up now that he has had surgery to repair the damage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s start the week off with two players who have recently been promoted to more high-profile roles, one due to ineffectiveness and the other due to injury…

Scott Downs | RP | Angels | Owned: 41% Yahoo! and 33.0% ESPN

One of my ten bold predictions before the season said that Downs would save at least ten games for the Halos. Jordan Walden is good but shaky, and I figured that any misstep early on could result in him losing his job, even just temporarily. Mike Scioscia pulled the plug on his struggling closer after he’d blown a save against the Rays last Thursday, inserting Downs into the ninth inning role. He closed out his first game on Saturday with a perfect inning against the Indians in a one-run game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bryan LaHair (ESPN: 32 percent owned; Yahoo!: 41 percent owned)

In many ways, LaHair’s start is what I expected from him. He’s not leading the league in home runs — hat tip to you, Matt Kemp, and your home run every 8 PAs — but he’s in the pack tied for sixth in the NL after jacks in back-to-back games against St. Louis. He’s also striking out a fair amount, which should come as no surprise for a young player whose ability to stay in the majors is directly related to his power. His 33 percent strikeout rate ranks him fifth in the NL, which isn’t great, but in most leagues it’s really neither here nor there, since outs are outs when strikeouts aren’t a hitting category. Read the rest of this entry »

As we wrap up the month of April it’s time to go back to your waiver wire and sift through some of the names of players that have been dropped over the last few weeks.  Usually they are players who were taken in the later rounds of your draft and, with an early season slow start, have been discarded by their owners and forgotten on the free agent scrap heap.  However, a number of those players are now starting to turn things around and could be timely adds to your roster, whether it’s for a starting position or even just quality depth.  Here are a pair of just such examples and, even better, at thin positions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to an all Padres, all the time edition of the deep league waiver wire. As you all know, Padres pitchers are the ones you want. And given how starters are dropping like flies recently, it is likely some of you are hunting for someone with a pulse, with the hope that this someone may not actually kill your ratios.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jarrod Parker

Even though the A’s didn’t take Parker with them on their trip to Japan, no one expected him to languish in Triple-A for very long. After 20 innings in Sacramento, Parker finally rejoined the A’s, just in time to make a start against the White Sox, winners of their last four heading into Tuesday night’s game. Welcome to majors, kid, don’t hang a breaking ball to Adam Dunn! It isn’t the worst assignment Parker could have gotten, the Rangers are a division rival after all, but it will be a nice test. One game, good or bad, isn’t going to yield a ton of useful information, but at least Parker will face a team that approximates an average or slightly above major league offense. If he were facing either the aforementioned Rangers or the Pirates in an interleague game, interested observers would have even less useful data with which to work. Read the rest of this entry »