Waiver Wire & FAAB Report (Week 10)
Updated on Sunday morning. Added a few players and moved a few players around.
Note: Starting today (Friday), my Memorial Day weekend is planned out for me and I’m just along for the ride. Here are my weekly waiver wire ranks and I’ll update them when I have time. I’ll post the updates here at the top and in the excerpt to let people know if/when there have been any changes. I’m going to be very bare-bones with no blurbs, but I’ll add more info as I find time.
In the article, I cover the players using CBSโs (about 40% or less initial roster rate) and Yahooโs ADD/DROP rates. Both hosting sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week arenโt missed. The players are ordered for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters.
Batters
Nolan Jones: I would have him higher if he didn’t play for the Rockies who already demoted him once AND CJ Cron wasn’t on his way back. I’m worried he might just be a two week play.
Marcell Ozuna: Has started nine straight games while hitting .343/.421/.746 with 8 HR in May.
Edouard Julien: Besides a home run, he’s struggled (.167/.267/.417) at the plate this time up. Opposing teams continue to not throw him any fastballs (33% seen, 48% is league average).
Jose Caballero: The 26-year-old has started in seven of the last eight games while hitting .279/.403/.426 with 2 HR and 6 SB.
Jake McCarthy: In his time in the minors, he hit .333/.419/.533 with 4 HR and 4 SB. The big key for me was that he lowered his groundball rate from 51% to 42%.
Owen Miller: In my initial rankings, I was way too low with him. So far this season in 113 PA, he is hitting .333/.354/.528 with 4 HR and 5 SB. Additionally, he’s started nine straight games. Besides the results, nothing sticks out as changing compared to when he struggled with Cleveland (.622 OPS).
Brenton Doyle: Hurt.
Kevin Kiermaier: Hurt
Drew Waters: I looked into his projected talent (15 HR, 16 SB, .235 AVG, .697 OPS) and he’s similar to Kim and Kiermaier. He’ll probably need full-time at-bats to be relevant.
Jared Walsh: Not playing enough to be relevant.
Mark Vientos: Only starting about half the time making him nearly unrosterable.
Catchers
Hitting Prospects
Starters
Bobby Miller: He survived against Atlanta in his first start with all his pitches missing a below average number of bats. He struggled in 14 AAA innings (7.5 K/9, 3.8 BB/9). He has to be added now or never but the results have been mixed in 20 innings this season.
Clarke Schmidt: Struggles the second time through the lineup (1st TTO: 3.32, 2nd TTO 4.58). While he throws the kitchen sink, his cutter (24% usage, 15% SwStr%) is the only above-average pitch.
Tarik Skubal: Posted a 3.52 ERA, 9.0 K/9, and 1.16 WHIP in 117 IP last season. He is now throwing bullpen sessions in his rehab.
Pitching Prospects:
Relievers-Saves based ranks
Matt Strahm: Sounds like he’ll be in the bullpen for a while. The Phillies want his innings for the end-of-the-season.
Jesse Scholtens: I have to look him up. No idea why he’s being added.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Those are names, sure.
Where would Jake McCarthy rank now that heโs been recalled. Minor league numbers look good, and he was great last year.
Tough to know what his playing time will be. I feel he’s between Taveras and Kiermaier.
I bumped up Ozuna. I hadn’t noticed how much he was playing.
Thank you. Speed is my biggest need in one of my leagues right now, ironically because I kept Mccarthy and was counting on him for a significant number of steals.
Itโs funny to me how it seems like someone just comes in here and randomly down votes comments. You literally just asked two questions.
Enjoy your weekend. I appreciate all the work you do to help the rest of us with our decision-making.
Ill help:
Marco Gonzales: 1 wk $1 guy added for the 2step, first against Oak worked out with a QS, lets see if he can do it again vs PIT. Discard after sunday. ๐
Update: Marco (almost) did it again! 1 out away from the QS, man, exploiting this guy against bad teams is like clockwork these last 2 years.
As for Scholtens, with Clevinger out he had a decent bulk/follower appearance in that rotation slot on Monday even though he took the loss (5 IP/1 ER), and is expected to have the same duty against the Tigers on Saturday.
Scratch that, Scholtens is making the actual start.
Nolan Jones (COL)? Where would he rank? Thank you.
I added him near the top. I’m not sold that’ll he’ll stay
Any interest in the recently recalled Drew Waters?
Problem with Waters is playing time uncertain and strikes out too often, but he does have some power and can steal bases.
Added him with comments
I’ll let someone else break the bank for Bobby (‘s World) Miller. I watched his last start and yes he throws heat but his fastball looks very hittable. It seems to move right into the hitter’s swing path. The batters looked way too comfortable for facing 100 mph. I’m out.
Scholtens is spot starting today v Tigers.
Odd to see little mention of Zach McKinstry anywhere. Great BB% and CT% jump so far this season. He’s leading off, has registered 4 HR/10 SB, and has a much more notable statcast page than Owen Miller (75% barrel). Only rostered at 28% in CBS leagues.