Welcome to the Waiver Wire Picks, our daily fantasy baseball article that looks at the best players in baseball that you should be adding to your rosters. We’ll look at the players that are likely to be available in most leagues, as well as some deep league waiver wire options, and we’ll also look at the most added players in fantasy baseball across the major sites, and let you know which players to add and which you can leave on the wire.
Top Priority Players to Add
Luis Robert Jr. (NYM) – OF (Yahoo – 49%)
Apparently, Luis Robert Jr. returned from his back injury swinging for the fences, with bat speed up to a swing-out-of-your-shoes 77.1 mph. And the result? He’s got eight homers in just 96 at-bats. Another result? His K-rate is now 29%.
But the strikeouts don’t matter too much if you’re in a categories league, especially when his batting average is up (which it is, at least for now). And for what it’s worth, Robert says he feels a lot better now than he did in the Spring. That should explain why he’s hitting .302 in August with a .955 OPS.
When he’s healthy, Robert is an underrated speed/power combo that can be a cheat code in roto. Though he hasn’t stolen a bag since his return, expect his run game (and 91st-percentile sprint speed) to ramp up. And hopefully he stays on the field the rest of the way.
Spencer Jones (NYY) – OF (Yahoo – 30%)
This week’s theme is ‘all outfielders, all the time’. Jones would be my second preferred pickup of the week. He’s shown some streakiness already and he needed an adjustment to MLB pitching. But it was a pretty quick adjustment, all things considered.
It should not surprise you that Jones has some very impressive metrics, along with some very poor ones. First, the good: his Average Exit Velo is 95 mph, which is, well, unheard of (Ohtani’s is 93.5). He barrels the ball 16% of the time and has an xSLG that’s considerably higher than his actual. He’s also surprisingly fast, as his 92nd-percentile speed has stolen eight bases since his call-up.
Now, the bad—for such a hard swinger, he’s got a .729 OPS. His Whiff and Strikeout rates are in bottom fifth percentile, and he looks like he’ll be lucky to finish the season hitting .225. But there’s growth here as his OPS since the All-Star Break is 100 points higher than before. He’s got unprecedented power, he just needs to learn how to control it.
Héctor Rodríguez (CIN) – OF (Yahoo – 2%)
Héctor was called up on August 4th and had his own adjustment period, batting .083 after his first ten games. But he’s been on a heater this past week, raising his average by a hundred points by hitting .421 with three homers over his last 19 at-bats. On August 26th, he hit two dingers in one game, including a 115.2-mph moonshot, and that max EV puts him in the top 3% of the league.
H-Rod has almost as much power as Spencer Jones, but has significantly more bat control. He’s carrying a solid 22% K-rate thus far, and his Whiff rate backs that up. The Reds have placed a couple of their players on waivers this week, including Eugenio Suárez, so they’re expecting Héctor to fill the power vacuum higher in the lineup. He should be an everyday player going forward.
Jacob Young (WAS) – OF (Yahoo – 3%)
‘He went to Driveline’—those words should be music to any fantasy owner’s ears. In Young’s case, they may have saved his career. Known as a light-hitting defensive specialist, Young sought the extra help this season to adjust his swing path and improve his exit velocities, all to (you guessed it) drive the ball.
A month into the season, it looked like the same old Young, slashing .244/.322/.614. But he’s been pouring it on since the All-Star Break, hitting .316 with an .890 OPS. His Barrel rate is up to 6.4%, which doesn’t sound impressive—but it’s three times higher than his career average. His xSLG is also sixty points higher, and he did all this while lowering his K-rate to a career-best 17.1%.
And one thing about Young that hasn’t changed—he’s a burner, and should top 25 steals by season’s end.
Lawrence Butler (ATH) – OF (Yahoo – 55%)
Butler looked like a future superstar a couple short years ago, when he hit .300 with 13 homers and 12 steals after the All-Star Break in 2024 (when he was just 23). But he’s had struggles since then and disappointed last season (though he did go 20/20). And while his OPS this season is still below .700, he’s showing the same signs of life as in ’24, hitting .288 with seven homers in his last 125 AB’s. He’s back in the middle of the Athletics‘ lineup, playing every day, and looksmore comfortable at the plate. He’s also showing a renewed patience at the dish, walking 11.9% of the time (his career average was below 9%) and dropping his K-rate to around 25%.
Few players can be five-category contributors. Butler is one of them.
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Yahoo!
Tristan Peters wasn’t featured in our outfielders bonanza, but we did cover him in a points league article earlier this week and he’s been the most-added player on Yahoo for a couple days now.
Last night, Peters extended his homer streak to a franchise-record five games, raising his OPS by nearly 70 points in that span. Apparently going back to his ‘banana bat’ during Players Weekend (an homage to when he played for that Savannah team) has stirred something inside him, and he’s now slashing an unbelievable .349/.730/1.168 in August. So yeah, add him to the pile of worthy OFs to put on your roster, but he might already be gone.
Connor Norby’s getting nearly as much love as Peters, as hot-hitting Rockies are likely to gain quick attention. I’m less impressed with Norby’s talents given he’s hitting .224 and K’s 30% of the time, with an xSLG of .345. But his average has been at .304 in the 15 games he’s been back from his injury, with 14 RBIS (and knocked in five in a single game on Wednesday). One thing he does have is multi-position eligibility, so he could plug almost any hole in your infield, at least while he’s hot.
Three Thursday night starters round out the top five, starting with Spencer Arrighetti. Arrighetti’s been intriguing owners since he debuted in 2024 and struck out 171 hitters in 145 innings, but those skills seem to have diminished—he’s now got a league-average K-rate. And he’s been pretty lousy in his two Toronto appearances with a 7.36 ERA and 1.64 WHIP. I’d leave him alone until he shows something with his new team.
I like Hayden Wesneski much better, as his WHIP has always been in the 1.10-1.20 range and he has solid command. He also gets hitters to chase an extraordinary amount for a guy who throws 93, throwing a nasty sweeper 30% of the time and getting a .160 BAA. It’s also got a 44.6% Whiff rate and might be one of the elite pitches in all of baseball.
But the prize here is Noah Cameron, whose ownership has now swelled up to 70%. But he’s deserved it with a 0.80 WHIP since the ASB, and hitters are batting .129 against him in August. He somehow has gone into full-on Ace Mode.
ESPN
Cameron gets the top spot on ESPN—and again, it’s well deserved. Somehow, Trevor Rogers has a higher ownership percentage than Cameron here, and I’d encourage owners to rethink this. While Rogers is solid (and I loved him last year), he floated on some tremendous luck for a long time. And while he’s got a decent sweeper of his own, it has about half the break of Wesneski’s.
Sean Manaea is the only other unique name on this list, and while his ownership should certainly be higher given how he’s pitched over the last month, he had a tough matchup against Misiorowski and the Brew Crew last night. I wouldn’t look too much into that outing, but he gets another tough start against the Rays in his next one. Still, I’d take him over Arrighetti.
Streaming Pitchers
Check out Nick Pollack’s SP Streamer Rankings for the complete breakdown on every start for the next few days. There are two pitchers to highlight.
Andrew Painter (PHI) – SP (Yahoo – 22%) @ LAA
I’m guessing Painter tops multiple most-added lists tomorrow, as he might now be living up to his pedigree. Painter ditched his splitter at the end of July for a more traditional changeup, and he’s getting crazy results with it, including a 40% Whiff rate. Also, no one’s been able to get a hit off it. Painter’s also regained control of his fastball, which has great life at 96. And once known for throwing seven pitches, Painter’s narrowed that arsenal down to the four pitches that work—the aforementioned change and four-seamers, along with a slider and a sweeper. Once the top pitching prospect in the minors, Painter might have finally figured it out.
Walker Buehler (SDP) – SP (Yahoo – 25%) @ TBR
This might be a riskier one, and like everyone else I’ve gotten the ‘Buehler Burn’ more than once in the past. But he’s been showing us something since the break, going 3-1 with a 2.89 and 1.15 WHIP. Hitters are slugging just .338 against him in those seven starts, and while the K-rate isn’t anything to celebrate, he’s keeping the ball on the ground and in the yard. That’s primarily because he’s throwing his four-seamer less and his cutter more (25% this year compared to 17% last season), trying less to get hitters to whiff and more to get a groundout. He can’t throw 99 like when he debuted, but San Diego has committed to converting him to a pitch-to-contact arm. Somehow or another, it’s working.
