Each week I look at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 20% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy Pros) with a few extra sub 10% discount options at the end, pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Let’s highlight my ten favorite starting pitcher options that may be available on your waiver wires, ordered by ownage %:

Under 20% Owned

Jordan Lyles (Milwaukee Brewers, 19%) – Since shifting from Pittsburgh to Milwaukee, Lyles has only helped fantasy teams. He’s surrendered just 3 ER, collected 14 strikeouts, and earned a pair of wins, yet still hasn’t earned the trust of the majority of owners. With his next two starts coming against the Nationals and Diamondbacks, there’s still value to be had, using his curveball down and the zone and confidently elevating to earn whiffs. Lyles could be an arm to favor not just in the short term, but through your fantasy playoffs.

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Welcome to another exciting edition of the deep league waiver wire! Today, I discuss two youngsters getting their first tastes of big league action.

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Today’s list is a weird group of players. Most should have been dropped last week once the ramifications of the trade deadline were known. Discrepancy Theory #1 is that about 20% of the owners blew off the post-trade deadline FAAB period (tough to miss this one) and finally caught up. If there was any week to be paying attention, it was the previous bidding period.

Or Theory #2 is that these owners were sheep waiting to see what other owners did with their drops. Most of the drops (e.g Tim Beckham) I would consider obvious, but maybe these owners need confirmation on making their moves. Or they use the platform’s ownership rate to see who to drop. I’m not sure if it’s wrong or right to wait a week on dropping someone. Waiting might be the correct move. It’s interesting and I’ll ponder the delay a bit more.

Also, if anyone happened to missed the last few articles, I’ve been trying to improve this article’s content. The major change is that I’m concentrating on players dropped in six to nine leagues. For now, this range seems the most useful for fantasy owners.

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For those few owners with any FAAB left, it looks to be another interesting week of bidding with The Punisher likely getting the top bid. Besides Aristides Aquino, some other players should face a high demand with J.D. Davis and Mike Tauchman on the hitting side and Aaron Sanchez and Aaron Civale on the pitching front. Besides the top adds, check-in on several bullpens to see if there is anyone to add.

The projection guidelines:

• The ownership rates are from CBS since they have some quickdraw waiver wire leagues where players can be picked up at any time.
• The FAAB estimates are based on the 2018 15-team mixed NFBC leagues which used a $1000 FAAB budget. Owners are going to need to convert these values to their own league.
• The ownership values were taken from Saturday and lots can happen in between when they publish and FAAB bids run.
• Only players owned in 50% or fewer of CBS leagues are examined.

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Each week I look at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 20% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy Pros) with a few extra sub 10% discount options at the end, pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Let’s highlight my ten favorite starting pitcher options that may be available on your waiver wires, ordered by ownage %:

Under 20% Owned

Aaron Sanchez (Houston Astros, 18%) – After we were paid in full for our hype of Sanchez donning an Astros uniform via six no-hit innings, I’m shocked to see a sub 20% ownership rate for the newest slinger in Houston. Yet here we are, ready to reap the rewards as Sanchez features a great matchup ahead in Baltimore. Our hopes of Sanchez packing his low fastball usage on his international flight came to fruition, maintaining a near 50% fastball usage as he pumped curveballs and changeups galore. It’s a step in the right direction and while a full-on breakout shouldn’t be expected through the final weeks of the year, a winning team behind him as he faces middling to poor lineups should return productive outings for your fantasy squads.

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Pardon the brief intro, but I’m coming to you live from Disney World! I wanted to give you a few guys to look for on your waiver wires this weekend!

Mike Tauchman OF – NYY | 141 wRC+

With the absurd number of injuries that have struck the Yankees, it’s kind of surprising that Tauchman is just now breaking through. He got some playing time in April, but couldn’t make it happen, posting just a .177/.282/.387 line as a .211 BABIP held him back. He has become a lineup staple since the All-Star break and he’s absolutely raking. He has a .413/.471/.825 line with 6 HR and 4 SB in 70 PA and I’m sure Alex Chamberlain’s wife is tired of hearing about his crush’s numbers every night! With Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks on the IL, Tauchman’s playing time should be solidified for the foreseeable future. Buy!

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I had some doubts about this list’s usefulness a couple of weeks back and yesterday I tried to find ways to improve it. I came to the conclusion that players in the 10% to 25% dropped range were the most interesting. This works out to players dropped in four to nine leagues. Before, I was just looking at those in 10 or more leagues. I was way off target.

After looking over the players, I’m going to squeeze the range a little more from those dropped in six to nine leagues which works out to 34 players this week. I’d like to focus on 20 or so players each week but know that there was a post-deadline frenzy pushing the total up.
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I love this time of the baseball season, as seemingly every day, another hitter is given an opportunity for full-time at-bats. It makes life in mono leagues more interesting as the free agent pool is typically so sadly thin that any injection of new talent is quite welcome. This week we have two new regulars to discuss.

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First, sorry about no drop list article last week… more on that later. Second, today’s experiment stems from HappyFunBall’s comment from a couple of weeks ago.

I was well into the analysis last week and found I was not answering the right question and had the wrong data. The drop comparisons need to be a little forward-looking, not backward. The data collected from the sites was after the NFBC FAAB ran. The other sites I used allow daily or quick-draw pickups, so some of the news from the Monday was getting baked in. I wanted the rates to be taken from similar timeframes.

My original question focused on which players I should analyze so owners can gain an edge. The edge could be knowing who to drop because they are no longer fantasy-viable. Also, the hope is to find some players whose owners gave up too early on. The hope is that one of the other platforms can provide more insight than the NFBC Main Event.

Several issues exist with this study. First, it’s just one week and a busy week at that with the trade deadline. The increased activity may help to offset the lack of moves since it’s later in the season. I’m not 100% sure but I may run the same analysis again but I need to do it before the head-to-head playoff start and main teams get abandoned.

Finally, the table is a mess. A big one. What Happy Fun Ball and I hoped for didn’t materialize but a few interesting observations can be made.

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