Welcome to the Waiver Wire Picks, our daily fantasy baseball article that looks at the best players 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. We’ll also look at the most-added players in fantasy baseball across the major sites and tell you which players to add and which to leave on the wire.
Top Priority Players to Add
Owen Caissie (MIA) – OF (Yahoo 28%)
Caissie is still somehow owned in less than a third of Yahoo leagues despite slashing .348/.385/.696 over his first seven games of the season. There’s an element of feasting off weak pitching staffs to his line so far, with Miami opened against the Rockies and White Sox, but all six of those games also came in his heavily pitcher-friendly home park. Caissie has dramatically reduced how often he’s swinging so far, cutting his O-Swing% and Z-Swing% by 16.7 and 18.7 percentage points, respectively. This selectivity has led to a surge in contact. He has posted a 6.8% swinging strike rate and 91.7% zone contact rate (81.7% overall). While he’s unlikely to maintain this level all season, he did post zone contact rates over 80% in AAA for the past two seasons.
Caleb Durbin (BOS) – 3B (Yahoo 23%)
Durbin hit the waiver wire in nearly a thousand Yahoo leagues recently after starting the season hitless in his first five games with the Red Sox. He finally got on the board with an RBI single his last time out, and there’s just no chance he’s going to continue striking out 26.1% of the time while running a .063 BABIP. Durbin has hit sixth in five straight games, behind Willson Contreras and Wilyer Abreu, after hitting fifth on Opening Day. He still profiles for some out-of-position speed at third and has no risk to his playing time with the Red Sox roster heavily tilted towards outfielders. Let the rest of the market overreact to a bad five-game sample and bank a solid contributor for the remainder of the season if you need to shore up average or steals.
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Yahoo owners have been most active on the pitching front. Landen Roupp leads the list, with another 4000 owners adding him in the time between when I took this screenshot and wrote the article. Roupp started the season with an excellent outing against the Padres and hosts a Juan Soto-less Mets team tonight. Nick has Roupp 13th on his daily streamers for today, waiting to see if he can maintain improved command. Not pictured is Randy Vasquez, whose stuff has ticked up early in the season. The new velocity on his four-seamer gave Vasquez an 85th percentile PLV on the pitch in his first start, with his curve also registering an 89th percentile value. San Diego is one of the warmer stadiums in MLB at the start and end of the season, but it is one of the coldest when the weather warms up around the rest of the league and balls are flying (San Diego weather consistency is undefeated). Vasquez might be particularly interesting to keep through the middle of the season when you’re trying to avoid pitchers in warmer, hitter-friendly stadiums before moving on even if his stuff regresses.
Similar names and the same trend of adding pitching is prevalent among the ESPN most-added players list. Ryan Weathers should be owned in every league, simple as that. He’s still throwing 97 and punched out 7 Mariners in only 4.1 innings in his first start of the season. He’s currently ranked #45 on The List. ESPN owners have been moving on him, but he’s still available in over 80% of leagues. Mauricio Dubon is the most-added hitter in ESPN leagues, offering a combination of triple position eligibility (2B, SS, and OF) and an everyday spot in what should be a good lineup. Dubon is unlikely to lose time this season with Jurickson Profar suspended and no hitting prospects of note in the higher levels of the Braves system. The Braves have some intrigue after hiring Antoan Richardson, the baserunning expert who coached Juan Soto to steal 38 bases with 13th percentile sprint speed, away from the Mets to coach first base. Atlanta is 2-for-5 on stolen base attempts so far this season, but Soto swiped 29 of his 38 bags after June, so it may take some time for the Braves to adapt to their new coach, too.
Deep League Players to Watch
Adrian Del Castillo (ARI) – C (Yahoo 0%)
The Diamondbacks turned to Del Castillo when Jordan Lawlar ended up on the IL with a fractured wrist. Del Castillo won’t play outfield, but he’s expected to get the majority of the at-bats at DH until Lourdes Gurriel Jr. returns from the IL in late April. Gurriel Jr. has been limited to “lightly running out of the batter’s box” in simulated games according to Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports. Ryan Waldschmidt makes more sense as a positional replacement for Lawlar, but the Diamondbacks don’t want to add him to the 40-man roster without a long run of MLB playing time. At this point, there are no more position players on the 40-man roster still in the minors for the Diamondbacks, so his lineup spot should be safe for the next few weeks. Del Castillo hasn’t been great in limited MLB plate appearances over the past two seasons, but he has a long track record of hitting in the minors and ran a well-above average 49.3% hard hit rate last season. You could do worse in a deeper, two-catcher league for the next month.
Mick Abel (MIN) – SP (Yahoo 13%)
Abel has a combination of excellent model and stuff numbers with really unpleasant MLB results. His first outing came in relief due to the Twins starting the season with an off-day heavy schedule, but he’s entering the rotation now that they need a fifth starter. He produced 11 whiffs on 81 pitches while also giving up five batted balls with more than a 94% xBA and walking four batters. Despite what their ownership says publicly, it’s unlikely the Twins will have many meaningful games to play this season, so keep Abel on your watch list to see if the results start matching his model numbers. It’s really hard to be a bad pitcher while maintaining his career 11.5% swinging strike rate, a rate which would have ranked 19th among qualified MLB pitchers last year.
