Welcome back to Buy & Sell: All-Star Edition! This year is full of waiver wire All-Stars who were not even drafted in shallow formats. Just when it seems that there can’t possibly be more breakouts, someone like Esmerlyn Valdez wakes up and has an incredible run that likely will be enough to win a championship for some teams. So don’t think it’s too late to still make a push! I’m in a few leagues now where I do have to grapple with this question… but I’m giving it until after the trade deadline to decide for sure. Anyway, on to the list!
BUY
10-team
Jake McCarthy (OF, Colorado Rockies)
It’s time we take a loyalty oath to this McCarthy. Even though his Statcast batted ball metrics are definitely scared of red. McCarthy had been a plus fantasy contributor for well over a month before having a big power spike week, with a .311/.392/.667 line with 4 homers and a stolen base in 45 AB over the past two weeks. That finally lifted him into the double-digit homer category, a major accomplishment as it’s the first time he’s hit that mark in his career (his previous best was 8 HR, which he did twice). And for those few of you who play in leagues with a category for triples, he already has 6, and looks well on pace to top his PR of 7.
The ephemeral speedster continues to be very much a slap hitter despite the metrics with a puny 26% HardHit%, but what has helped him go from fantasy zero to hero is largely an improvement in his launch angle, with a career-best 38% SweetSpot% (83rd percentile) which combines quite nicely with his low K rate 18% and playing in one of the best parks for a contact hitter who can lift the ball. I expect him to keep the good times rolling throughout the summer, when Coors truly plays like a video game park, and I’m guessing he’ll continue to rack up stolen bases, and there still is potential for more, with 15 bags and 4 SB being a solid ratio and backed by 99th percentile sprint speed. A player who is pacing for around .300 with 16 homers and 25 stolen bases? Isn’t that what we hoped for from Trea Turner? Yep.
Honorable Mention: Curtis Mead (2B/3B, Washington Nationals) – He may be the only one on this list who has made it to every league type. It’s still maddening and frankly stupid he doesn’t play every single day, but Mead is hitting a sweet .247 with 17 HR and 5 SB, and hitting .333 with 5 HR and 2 SB over the past two weeks.
Honorable Mention: Casey Schmitt (2B/3B, San Francisco Giants) – This little slump might be your best chance to buy, as many are still skeptical of the breakout, but his expected stats suggest he’s still been awesome, and this is just bad luck. In fact, his .412 rolling xwOBA over his past 100 PA is 5th-best in baseball.
12-team
Chase DeLauter (OF, Cleveland Guardians)
It looks like another hit for DeL the funky homersapien. He’s definitely making me regret trading him in my keeper league (in a package deal for Byron Buxton) as he’s hit .325 with 4 HR and 1 SB over the 46 AB over the past two weeks. He said in an interview that his IL stint with an injury was a blessing in disguise as he’s not used to the grind of a full season… I wonder if he had been trying to play through an injury, since he had a day-to-day stint earlier in the year in the midst of a torrid run, and then never got back on the horse.
He is in a key run production spot for an offense that has sorely needed thump, but he should rack up even more runs when J-Ram comes back, and should be a strong batting average and power contributor in the meantime, who deserves to be more rostered than some other Power/Average plays (Looking at you, Taylor Ward).
Kyle Karros (3B, Colorado Rockies)
I was riding with him for a while and jumped off the horse, and then the music picked up. Such is life with a Karros-Sell. Much like my dynasty league error with Dom Canzone, I saw underlying metrics that said “He’s really hitting the ball hard and making contact, and should be better than this” and then didn’t keep the faith through the rough patch, but the warm Colorado air is certainly lifting him now, as he’s hitting .317 with 5 HR and 1 SB over the past 3 weeks, which makes you wonder why he’s so much less rostered than Josh Jung, whose homer total over the whole season isn’t even double Karros’s 3-week total.
A player like Karros, who actually has solid Statcast metrics, is extremely valuable because, again, they play half their games in Coors. And if there’s one skill besides making contact that’s important, it’s getting the launch angle sweet spot. And Karros is crushing at that one metric with a 42% SweetSpot%, which is 97th percentile. While he was thought of as a weaker hitter after his lackluster MLB debut last year, he quickly established a new baseline with a 111 mph MaxEV (was 107 mph in 2025), and this year he’s brought his K% down and his BB% up. I’d expect him to enter next year as a top-12 option at the hot corner, and I’d recommend paying up in dynasty formats, and in redraft, he still may be cheaper than he should be due to the early struggles weighing his numbers down, which won’t last much longer.
Honorable Mention: J.J. Bleday (OF, Cincinnati Reds) – It was really starting to look like his May surge was a mirage, but after an awful July, he’s picked things right back up, hitting .333 with 3 homers and 1 SB in 18 AB over the last week, so don’t hesitate to snag him if he was cut.
15-team
Trevor Larnach (OF, Minnesota Twins)
I thought he was stuck in who he was as a hitter, but apparently he’s never stopped Larning. It’s not especially flashy, but he’s hitting /323 with 2 homers and 5 RBI in 31 AB over the past 2 weeks, continuing his role as a strong side platoon righty-masher. His improvements aren’t fluky either, as he’s been the 9th biggest xwOBA improver over the past 100 PA, with a nifty .384 mark that’s nearly 100 points better from the poor .292 mark he put up before.
But why is this possibly different from his many other ho-hum .250 15-homer campaigns? Well, it seems he’s traded off some power for more contact, but he’s doing it the best way possible. Because his K% is down to 17%, but he’s trying to turn that contact into pulled flyballs, with a career-best 24% mark that’s well above average. So while it does hurt that his HardHit% is down 10 points from 45% to 35%, the combination of the new happy fun ball and the summer heatwave makes this the perfect time for this approach, especially since his 89th percentile LA SweetSpot% means he has a knack for making the right kind of contact for impact hits.
Honorable Mention: Royce Lewis (3B, Minnesota Twins) – Methinks the hate has gone too far. I was never on his bandwagon, but he’s hitting a cromulent .278 with 2 HR over the past week and should at least be a 15 HR, 10 SB moderate power/speed play with a .250+ AVG, which is fine at
Honorable Mention: Michael Massey (2B/OF, Kansas City Royals) – He’s not exactly blowing the doors down by hitting .260 with 7 HR and 2 SB, but he’s in an uptrend with the best HardHit% (42%) and EV (90 mph) of his career while managing to keep a low 16% K%.
Deep Leagues
Connor Wong (C, Boston Red Sox)
I recognize I may be fishing too deep here, as he’s currently on the wire in my deep 30-team dynasty, and I haven’t added him yet. But I want to, if I had someone I could drop! But the reality is that Mickey Gasper is out of the picture, leaving the only two catchers on the roster, Carlos Narvaez and Connor Wong, and Narvaez has been awful for a while now. Narvaez is hitting just .188 with 2 HR and 1 SB on the year, and a downright pitiful .145/.200/.185 with 0 HR over 27 AB the past 3 weeks. Meanwhile, Wong has hit a much more helpful .385 /.485/.500 with 1 HR and 1 SB over the same span.
That brings Wong up to a decent line of .288 with 1 HR and 3 SB over 111 AB (41 G) on the season. While you can’t just extrapolate and say that in 555 AB he’d be hitting the same with 5 HR and 15 SB, his case is certainly better than the incumbent, as he’s racked up 0.5 WAR over that span despite sub-par defense, where the defensive wizard Narvaez is at exactly 0.0 WAR over a much larger sample due to the sleeping upside-down bat.
Honorable Mention: Eduardo Valencia (C, Detroit Tigers) – Two homers in 10 AB is a great splash, but will it last? Most don’t seem to think so for the 26-year-old, but this is a team quite possibly on the verge of a fire sale, so he very well may get an opportunity to play 1B or C in the aftermath. So in deep formats, I’d hold, since his tiny sample peripherals are quite intriguing. Nobody believed in late breakout Danny Valencia either, and he had a solid career.
SELL
Geraldo Perdomo (SS, Arizona Diamondbacks)
Last year, it was PerDomo Arigato, Mr. Roboto. But those days are Geralldone. I tend to be a bit of a Statcast believer until I’m given a reason not to be, so I was mostly skeptical he could repeat. But I’ll admit, I still thought that after a year in which he popped 20 homers, that he’d at least reach 10. Now I’m not so sure, as he’d need to pick up the pace, as he currently only has 6 jacks with 15 SB and a .241 AVG. And the one positive of those, the 15 bags, looks sour as it comes with 8 CS, leaving him at a 65% SB success rate that suggests he may be getting the red light more often going forward. It’s not great when your top 100 pick is looking a lot like Andres Gimenez, is it?
If you only look at the bottom of a Statcast page, you’d think everything is great, since he’s 94th percentile in both K rate and BB rate, and that’s backed by an even better 97th whiff%. So it’s kind of strange that the batting average has been so poor, and may be a bit unlucky. But the 30% HardHit% is quite poor, and there’s more downside than upside with his 67 mph bat speed that is 1st (worst) percentile. I still think he’s a better hitter than he was in 2024, but I do think the barrel% spike in 2025 was a fluke, and he’s closer to the 2024 than the 2025 version. With the negative momentum behind both him and his team, I’d aim for better in 10-teamers, even if you do need speed.
Dishonrable Mention: Josh Naylor (1B, Seattle Mariners) – The power/speed combo at the cold corner is nice, but actually, there’s really very little power, and the 1B position is downright STACKED, so the opportunity cost is significant. Disagree? Consider that Naylor’s last homer was June 12th… that was over a month ago. Yikes.
12-team
Josh Jung (3B, Texas Rangers)
In the spring, it looked like he was the dream breakout third baseman. But maybe Jung needs some dream analyses. Look, Josh Jung is fine, and I do think he’ll probably continue to hit for a strong average, which is helpful in many leagues. But I do think in trading leagues, this could be a good time to trade him, since he’s earned the reputation of a must-start third baseman, but he may actually now be overvalued.
While the batting average has remained high, the power has fallen off considerably, with only 2 homers since the start of June, one on June 30th and the other back on June 7th. With the rise of 3B-eligible options like Schmitt and Mead, the position isn’t as bad as we thought in the preseason, and if you could snag a straggling Schmitt (who is actually improving under the hood) or Mead with Jung plus a second swap that favors them, I’d do it, since Jung has floor but limited upside. Speaking of that floor, remember Jung before this season seemed to constantly get derailed by injuries… that threat hasn’t magically disappeared, especially as someone who is getting little rest and in the dog days of summer. And as for the ceiling… even with this supposedly amazing year, he still only has 34 RBI on the Rangers’ languid offense… that’s pacing over the full season for 57 RBI. So, in shallow formats, and especially if you’re in a 12-team OBP format, get out of Jung now while that RBI nightmare hasn’t yet entered the Collective Unconscious.
Dishonorable Mention: Taylor Ward (OF, Baltimore Orioles) – He’s hitting .333 this week! He has a great BB/K ratio! Are you in a league that uses OBP exclusively, or does it use homers? If the latter, well, ya done messed up. He offers no speed, so you’re basically rostering a Luis Arraez who doesn’t hit for a very good average. And 3 RBI over the past 3 weeks, btw.
15-team
Braden Montgomery (OF, Chicago White Sox)
It’s not a great feeling to have gone out on a limb for him by calling him an immediate 12-team add upon his call-up, but hey, at least I called Carrigg the smarter add and the 10-team one. I’ll admit rostering him in a 15-teamer with 5 OF where I haven’t yet pulled the plug, but I’m at least close to doing it soon. Even though he has plus sprint speed, so far that’s been the only thing he’s shown, and he hasn’t used it at all, without a single stolen base attempt in 116 PA. He’s hit 2 homers with a .231 AVG, but under the hood, it’s not looking good.
The good news, I suppose, is that his 21% K% is league average and better than his rates in the minors, and that is a pretty good mark for a power hitter. The problem is, he has very much not been a power hitter, as his HardHit% is below league average, and his 4% barrel% is even worse. He hits way too many balls on the ground, and perhaps at least a good PullAir% would make it work out, but unfortunately, his 8% PullAir% is also very poor. The White Sox are in the middle of a tight run for the playoffs, and if he doesn’t step up in multiple areas of his game, he could find himself back in the minors.
Dishonorable Mention: Andres Gimenez (SS, Toronto Blue Jays) – He’s quietly been a fantasy vampire since mid-May, with no HR or SB in over 3 weeks, and the playing time is slipping now to a part-time role. The bat looks dead and I don’t think it can be Andresurrected.
Deep Leagues
Dylan Beavers (OF, Baltimore Orioles)
Sure, he’s gone 4 for 10 this week… but, like, that’s 10 at bats in a week. He was expected to be a 20/20 sleeper, but he’s disappointed on every front, with 2 homers and 3 homers on the year, and Tyler O’Neill’s big week definitely slides him up against him more in the depth chart. The fact that Dylan has just 0 homers and 0 SB in 26 AB over the past 3 weeks… should make you eager to leave Beavers.
Dishonorable Mention: Carlos Narvaez (C, Boston Red Sox) – Even if he does remain the Red Sox regular catcher, I think you’re better off taking your chances with Patrick Bailey or Austin Hedges… the fact they get fewer at-bats is actually a good thing.
