There are a lot of different way to improve your squad at this point of the season. One of them is picking up the shiny, exciting prospect pitcher that has taken the league by storm. The other is scooping up unattractive, but productive veterans that could make a big difference over the remainder of the season. This week is a perfect example of the duality of FAAB prospects as Cincinnati Reds rookie pitcher Chase Burns is available for the first time in FAAB, but there’s also guys on the wire like Toronto Blue Jays veteran southpaw Eric Lauer. Burns might strikeout 140 batters in the 60-70 innings that he’ll likely be allowed to throw this year. He could be amazing. He could also get shut down or demoted without reason. Lauer on the other hand will be counted on by the Blue Jays to anchor their rotation for the rest of the season, unless there’s an injury he ought to be out there every fifth day. Which one makes the most sense for your team – The boom-or-bust rookie or the veteran that arm that has performed pretty darn well this season? I can’t decide that for you, I can only offer up some guys that ought to help one way or the other.
As a reminder, this column is designed to help guide those in Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) leagues in making the best choices regarding who to target on the waiver wire. Specifically, we’re focusing on players who are between 20-25% rostered in most 12-team leagues and/or 25-50% rostered in 15-teamers. Every league is different, so we won’t be labeling player bids with any sort of recommended dollar amount but instead will use a four-tier investment rating system, ranging from a minimal spend to a potential difference-maker (or LEAGUE-WINNER, if you will).
Let’s dig in!
Investment Rating System
Only six teams have a seven-game slate scheduled for this week, with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals, New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, and Toronto Blue Jays on pace for a game every day of the week. The Rockies have a six-game homestand with a series each against the Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox at Coors Field. The Cincinnati Reds are on the road for six games, removing Great American Ball Park from this week’s equation while the Athletics host San Francisco for three games over the weekend in their minor league bandbox in West Sacramento.
SEVEN GAMES: ARZ, KCR, NYY, SEA, SFG, TOR
Batters
Outfielders
Isaac Collins ($$$): Batting .343 with 11 runs scored, seven RBI, two home runs, and a stolen base over the last 14 days, Collins has quietly been a rockstar for a streaking Milwaukee Brewers squad. With a 14.0% walk rate, Collins is especially valuable in OBP leagues, steals bases, and has shown a little bit of pop in the bat as well. With an exception for what looks like a customary off-day on Saturday, Collins has been an everyday player and looks every bit as good as Sal Frelick despite the lack of prospect pedigree. As long as he holds onto his starting role, he should be rostered in every 12-team and most 15-team leagues.
Austin Hays ($$): Returning from a month-long injury hiatus, Hays is back in the middle of the Reds’ order and ready to do damage. Across his first 130 plate appearances of the season, we saw a huge boost in barrel rate from previous seasons and better bat-to-ball skills, with better contact. If he can maintain whatever changes he made in the offseason and keep barreling the ball at a high rate, he should continue to see success, especially in his hitter-friendly home park.
Ramón Laureano ($$): The Orioles outfield is one of the biggest log jams in baseball, and yet Laureano has planted himself in right field as the team’s starter. With the Baltimore bats beginning to heat up, it could be a good time to invest in the veteran journeyman. Once he starts slumping, he can be cast off again, but for now – with regular playing time – he’s seeing quite a bit of success.
Sam Haggerty ($): Rabbit (Leporidae) – any of a family of long-eared, short-tailed lagomorph mammals with long hind legs, OR fantasy baseball players who are really only good for stolen bases. Haggerty is leading off for the Rangers on a semi-regular basis, and should see an uptick in playing time with Wyatt Langford on the IL and runs when he gets on. Speed-needy teams can get him relatively cheap.
Jacob Young ($): See definition of Rabbit above – except this one doesn’t bat at the top of the order.
Infielders
Thairo Estrada ($$): Batting in the heart of the Colorado Rockies‘ batting order, Estrada has shown that he still has a knack for making contact. And contact in Coors Field typically translates to good things. We may never see Estrada get back to hitting 14 home runs in a season like he did in 2022 and 2023, but his home-run-per-fly-ball rate is barely half of his career mark (17.1%) this season and could see some positive regression coming. There are worse ways to burn FAAB dollars – and worse players currently rostered as starting second basemen in 15-team fantasy leagues.
Luis Rengifo ($$): Available in nearly 15% of 15-team leagues and many more 12-teamers, Rengifo has been better recently – albeit the bar was low. Batting 16-for-55 (.291) with three of his four home runs over his last three weeks, we could be seeing the tide beginning to turn for the veteran infielder. His .255 BABIP is 30 points lower than his career average, which means he could have been getting somewhat unlucky for the first part of the season. He’s a guy that I’m willing to take a flyer on for some positive regression in the second half.
Caleb Durbin ($): Another Brewer makes the list (and I nearly added Joey Ortiz, too). Durbin has elite contact skills and is finally starting to develop some pop, it seems. Batting .349 with two home runs over the past two weeks, Durbin is a great streaming option with MI and CI eligibility. Fill a hole in your lineup and keep an open mind because he could just do enough to stick around longer than a regular streaming bat.
Nick Gonzales ($): Is it possible for batters to have Still ILL weeks? Gonzales struggled immediately following his IL stint, beginning June with a 3-for-18 effort over his first few games. Over the past three weeks, the Pirates infielder has batted .339 with six runs, seven RBI, and a pair of home runs. There’s not much to like about Pittsburgh’s lineup, but having Gonzales in it makes it better.
Catchers/UT
Gary Sánchez ($$): Until Rutschman comes back – which won’t be for a few weeks, Sanchez is the Orioles’ top catcher. I don’t anticipate the team would call up Samuel Basallo at this point of his career, especially not to play catcher, and Maverick Handley doesn’t provide much offensively. Sanchez is a solid second catcher with power potential worth rostering for the next 3-5 weeks.
Braxton Fulford ($): Any player whose name sounds more like a Civil War general than a modern era baseball player should get a shot on a fantasy roster. Also, Fulford caught each of the last three and four of the last six games for the Rockies with Hunter Goodman nursing an injury. A streaming play that brings some cheap Coors exposure in deep leagues.
Pitchers
Starting Pitchers
Chase Burns ($$$$): Oh boy. The first two innings of his debut were some of the most fun pitching highlights I’ve ever watched! Were you watching live with Nick and the rest of the PL community on Playback – because that made it even better! Burns struck out the side in each of his first two innings; it was glorious. You can tell Nick got excited about it because it was one of the longest and most in-depth blurbs I’ve seen in an SP Roundup in quite a while. But if you read nothing else, just know –”In short, he’s a stud and I’m starting him against the Phillies.” Go and get Burns if you can afford him. He’ll be pricy, but he’ll give you the strikeouts you’re after. It’ll likely take a $250+ FAAB bid to land him, even at this point in the season. Hope you saved your cash!
Eric Lauer ($$$): So you missed out on Burns, or don’t have the budget to afford pulling that kind of bid. Now what? Well, Lauer isn’t a bad consolation prize and is pretty widely available. There haven’t been rave reviews in the SP Roundup, but he has allowed just four earned runs over his past 24.1 innings pitched, earning three pitching wins in that span. And that’s without the Jays stretching him out to 90 pitches yet. Once he is fully stretched out as a starter (hopefully in his next start or two), Lauer could be a guy to look at for quality starts. Lauer does a good job against right-handed bats with cutters in and changeups away while navigating lefties with sliders and high fastballs. He’s outperforming his metrics, but the approach makes sense and seems to be working so far. He’ll be tested in Boston this week.
Trevor Rogers ($$$): Hear me out. What if Rogers is back? Remember in 2021 when Rogers posted a 2.64 ERA and 1.15 WHIP over 133 innings with a 28.5% strikeout rate? Yeah, I had to look all that up too, but I remember he was good! Well, the fastball is located up with velocity up to the mid-90s, the changeups are down where they need to be, and the sliders are getting called strikes as a surprise tertiary option that is keeping hitters off-balance. He went eight shutout innings in his last start and looked darn good doing it. Nick was impressed by the blueprints of his start before that, even though he got roughed up. I’m on board – and not just because I’m an Orioles fan.
Ryne Nelson ($$): Nelson has been solid each of the last two times out, allowing just one earned run in each start while combining for 11 strikeouts in 10.2 innings. He lines up against the Giants and Royals in his next two outings, matchups that I’m not afraid to attack. Nelson was blown up in Cincinnati earlier this month for seven runs and allowed five runs in relief against the Cubs in April, but aside from those two outings has been stellar. I’ll take the Diamondbacks starter in two plus matchups this week and maybe hang onto him beyond that as well.
Kumar Rocker ($$): Rocker has been working to figure things out, it seems. Last time out, he changed his approach while attacking the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup, throwing 37 cutters (41.6%), nearly double of his next most-thrown pitch throughout the outing, marking just the second time in eight starts this season that he’s made the cutter his primary pitch. He located well, focusing down and in to left-handed bats and generated seven whiffs. It’s a massive shift in approach since returning from the IL. In his two starts prior to the shoulder injury that shelved him for five weeks, Rocker threw his slider at a 57.7% and 47.6% clip. Since coming back, he’s throwing just four sliders in three starts, completely eliminating the pitch in his last outing. Maybe this shift to the cutter will benefit him long-term; it certainly worked against the Pirates. He’s worth taking a chance on as he continues to craft his approach.
Relief Pitchers
Dylan Lee ($$$): I’ve offered up Lee in this column for three consecutive weeks now. If you didn’t scoop him in either of the past two weeks, you’re going to be paying a lot more now. Lee was called upon on June 23 in a one-run game to secure a four-out save for the Braves, and converted – something Atlanta hasn’t seen in weeks. Though Iglesias did earn a save opportunity this week as well, it doesn’t appear that he’s the primary guy anymore. Lee should be the Braves’ primary ninth-inning guy at least for the time being. That’s a valuable role to have.
Grant Taylor ($): Taylor appears to be the closer on the Southside, securing saves in two of his last three outings, including a six-out save on Saturday. You want a seemingly locked-in closer on a bad team? Sure, go ahead. Those saves count for just as much.
Reid Detmers ($): Still banging the drum for Reid Detmers, the reliever. It’s now been 16 consecutive outings since Detmers has allowed an earned run. Give the man a chance.
Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire | Designed by Aaron Asbury (@aarongifs on Instagram)
