Let’s face it…nearly every guy who is sitting on your waiver wire is flawed in some way or another and the thought of using someone from the scrap heap on a full-time basis makes your fantasy skin crawl. But when Jason Heyward goes in for an appendectomy and you’ve already lost Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Bourn and Ryan Ludwick, desperate times call for desperate measures. Now obviously you’re not going to find one guy out there who is going to do it all for you, so your best bet is a platoon. And based on ownership percentages, it looks like you can solve some of your issues just by looking north of the border and using the DH spot from the Blue Jays. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for our weekly look at the best of the worst. That’s right, it’s the deep league waiver wire where I attempt to find value in mediocre players! Today happens to be Astros day. The good thing about being a weak team is that most of your players are unowned in fantasy leagues. So that gives me multiple options for this very column.

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Consider this a bit of a twist on what usually appears in this space. Rather than a player who is outproducing his expected value, today we have a player who is being rapidly added in leagues where he will probably cease to provide the kind of value for which his new owners are hoping. Especially in light of reports that Chris Johnson wouldn’t lose playing time now that Freddie Freeman has returned off the disabled list at the expense of former platoon-mate Juan Francisco, there seems to be a sense that he’s worth rostering in nearly 100 percent of leagues; in the last seven days, Johnson has been added in over 72 percent of ESPN leagues and the only reason he isn’t atop the Yahoo! trends is because he’s already owned in a majority of leagues at this point. While Johnson may well have more value than it appeared he would on draft day, he’s unlikely to finish as one of the 10-12 best third basemen this season.

The obvious red flag with Johnson is his .468 BABIP, which is so ripe for regression it has almost spoiled on the tree. Since 1995, just two players have finished a qualifying season with a BABIP over .400: Manny Ramirez, who had a .403 mark in 2000, and Jose Hernandez, who managed just a .288 batting average despite a .404 BABIP in 2002. So yes, regression is coming, but expecting Johnson to slide all the way down to .300 is probably a mistake for a couple of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Tony Cingrani will make his highly-anticipated first major-league start Thursday. Most fantasy owners are already aware of Cingrani, even though he only has five major-league innings under his belt. A recent start, in which he struck out 14 batters in six innings, caught fantasy owners’ eyes. Once it was announced Cingrani would take the place of the injured Jonny Cueto, he quickly became one of the most added players this week. If you play in competitive non-keeper leagues, it might be tough to find high-upside pitchers on your waiver wire. One way around this, if you’re patient, is to target the next Tony Cingrani. Basically, you’re taking a shot on a talented minor-leaguer, in the hopes that he finds a job in the majors soon. If you’re looking for the next Cingrani, you might want to consider adding Chris Archer and Danny Hultzen.

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As usual, the primary waiver focus leans towards pitching with calamitous bullpens and hot young arms taking center stage. But what if your pitching isn’t the problem? Let’s say you’re flush with quality starters and secure closers and you don’t want to spend the bulk of your FAAB budget on Tony Cingrani or Edward Mujica. What about adding a little offense to secure your future? Leagues with short benches make it tough to stock a few good bats as most people tend to use their bench for starting streamers, but deeper leagues with more abundant bench spots allow you to do both. So here are a couple of guys who might be helpful adds as part-time injury fill-ins who could blossom into full-time fantasy stars. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s true, it’s true. Wednesdays aren’t usually filled with excitement. But wait! It’s deep league waiver wire day and I am positive you have been waiting for this week’s edition since the second you finished reading last week’s. Today I look at two National Leaguers who may be able to help you in a deep mixed or NL-Only league, though they are both likely already owned in your standard NL-Only.

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Justin Maxwell (ESPN: 37 percent owned; Yahoo!: 14 percent owned)

If Justin Maxwell were a pitcher instead of an outfielder, his career may have ended before it even really started. While rehabbing in the minors after undergoing Tommy John surgery after the 2010 season, the former 4th round pick torn his labrum diving for a ball in the outfield. It’s a tough enough pair of injuries for a position player to work though, but for a young pitcher, it would have been a far more difficult road back to the majors. Read the rest of this entry »

Playing for upside so early in the season can be risky. The always run the risk of parting with a guy too early, and buying into a tiny sample. But if you’re going to play the waiver wire early in the year, you might as well target high-upside players. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Most of the time, the high-upside players on the waiver wire are also the riskiest players on the waiver wire. They are imperfect, and contain at least one significant flaw. But if you’re able to hit on a guy, you’ll receive strong, cheap value for the entire season. Here are two guys who might fit that category.

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Playing the waiver wire can be a tough thing this early in the season. For many, this first couple of weeks is about tweaking the roster, fine-tuning a few positions and keeping an eye out for anyone who may have been flying under the radar. For others, it’s about exhibiting patience and allowing your decisions to be based on more than just 30-odd at-bats. I tend to lean towards the latter, but obviously there are some instances where you need to make moves, whether it’s due to an injury or a sudden platoon situation developing. So if you’re going to be making moves, at least make sure you are picking someone up who will be there for the long haul. A guy off to a hot start is nice, but if he’s going to be riding the pine in two weeks, how helpful will he really be in the grand scheme of things? With that consideration in mind, here are two guys I was looking at recently… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s another week of recommending mediocre players who might just be less crappy than the rest of the fish in your free agent pool. Or, you could just stream any hitter facing Roy Halladay.

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