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
Mickey Moniak (OF) – OF (Yahoo – 15%)
Moniak debuted a few games into the season as he was nursing a finger sprain, but he’s hit the ground running. He’ll bat second or third in the lineup most days (assuming a righty’s on the mound) but otherwise is a platoon candidate. Still, he will get ample playing time in Coors Field with a couple of young upstarts in TJ Rumfield and Hunter Goodman hitting behind him. Moniak’s already got three homers in the early going (in just 27 at-bats) and while he’ll have significant home/road splits like any Rockies hitter, starting him in home games when he’s playing is a pretty sure path to success.
Jordan Walker (STL) – SP (Yahoo – 63%)
Walker is currently the sixth-best overall player so far this season according to Yahoo and… yeah, that checks out. Now sitting on five six home runs, Walker is tied with his total last season (where he played over 100 games!). It’s now evident that Walker has made huge adjustments to his approach, benefited by an offseason trip to Driveline. Known to swing the bat faster than literally anyone else, Walker has slowed things down just a little bit and altered his swing path for more lift. Is he still on your waiver wire? Highly doubtful, but worth double-checking anyway as he should be 100% owned at this point. Hard to believe this was a .215/.306/.584 hitter just a season ago, and one that most fantasy owners had given up on at just age 23. He’s also pretty fast, too, so 10-15 steals come with the package.
Josh Bell (MIN) – 1B, DH (Yahoo – 13%)
Remember when Josh Bell hit 37 homers in a season? It was 2019, so that might be a no. Though Bell’s been a journeyman slugger for the past several years, he was once a standout player and fantasy stud. He appears to have found his place in Minnesota and has continued his torrid start (we’ve mentioned him in this space before), blasting seven hits in just the last three games to push his season average over .300. He’s got more RBIs (9) than strikeouts (8), has taken a walk 17% of the time, and boasts an 89th-percentile hard-hit rate. Like Walker, an adjusted swing path to raise that launch angle appears to be the key here.
Jeffrey Springs (OAK) – SP (Yahoo – 14%)
Do we dare believe in this? Springs was probably on everyone’s AVOID list going into Thursday’s start against the Yankees, and all he did was completely dominate them, carrying a no-no into the seventh. His fastball is a paltry 90-92 mph and he throws it almost half the time, but his change-up looks better than ever and has a .100 Batting Average Against. Yankee hitters swung at the change ten times yesterday and four of those were misses. Sometimes it takes a pitcher a couple of seasons after a major surgery to come all the way back (see Alcantara, Sandy), and Springs just might be one of those cases, even if he’s throwing softballs.
Davis Martin (CHW) – SP (Yahoo – 8%)
The White Sox have been churning out some serviceable pitchers the past few years (though they’re known to quickly trade them away), and Martin could be the latest. Having won his first two starts with six K’s in each, he fits in the ‘post-hype’ sleeper mold. He came back from Tommy John to pitch 142.2 mostly middling innings for the Sox last season, finishing 7-10 with a 4.10 ERA and 6.6 K/9. But Martin’s found some swing and miss stuff in his six-pitch arsenal, and carries a 9.8 K/9 early on. He’s not going to win your league, but he can be useful given the right matchup.
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Yahoo
Other than Walker, a bunch of streaming options lead the way for Yahoo, all of them except for Ed-Rod in favorable matchups. Lugo’s shown some bounce-back after a forgettable 2025, and is especially effective in points leagues given his efficiency. Lowder’s a solid young arm for Cincy but I’d prefer Max Meyer (who surprisingly didn’t make this list).
Randy Vasquez got a Rocky Road start last night and is throwing seven different pitches with relative effectiveness, including a cutter with a 41.2% CSW. He’s looking like a top-30 starter and would be the pitcher I’m most interested in.
ESPN
ESPN’s top four adds all overlap with Yahoo, but Taj Bradley sits at number five after spinning a gem against the Detroit Tigers in his third start. Bradley’s picked up some velocity since last season and is finally (finally!) starting to harness his command, which could elevate him into must-own territory. One point of concern is that he can give up a lot of home runs and, given his ground ball rate (just 31%) and a very high average exit velocity (94.1 mph, just 7th-percentile) this season, some regression is likely. But he’s got a 25.6% K-BB rate, so it might not matter…
While we usually just show the top five in this section, I carved out an extra slot to highlight TJ Rumfield, who’s another Coors hitter benefiting from a homestand. Coming over from the Yankees farm system, Rumfield shows solid contact skills and hit .285 last season in AAA with sixteen homers. He should play especially well in points leagues, and unlike Moniak, Rumfield is appearing in the lineup every day.
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.
Landen Roupp (SFG) – SP (Yahoo – 16%) @ BAL
Roupp is showing signs of an early breakout with a 31.8% K-rate and a 1.13 WHIP. While his stuff grades out about the same as in years past (at least, according to the PLV machine), it has always been decent. He’s just using it more effectively now. Roupp boasts a tremendous change-up (5.44 PLV) with an 83.3% ground-ball rate, and throws it for a strike more than 75% of the time. And while his actual ERA sits at a modest 4.22, his xERA is 2.01 with a 1.33 FIP (94th percentile). He’s had some bad luck keeping baserunners from scoring (41.7% LOB rate), but all of his other metrics have ticked upwards. He’s an excellent streamer and just might be worth holding onto.
Jack Kochanowicz (LAA) – SP (Yahoo – 1%) @ CIN
Total dart throw here, but Kochanowicz just dominated the Seattle Mariners in his last start and has a .622 OPS against so far this season. He throws his sinker about a third of the time and it’s effective at getting ground balls. His out pitch is the change-up, which he throws about a quarter of the time with a 99th-percentile CSW of 44%. He also has decent velocity with a 96.2 mph average on his four-seamer. The only downer is he draws Cincy’s best hurler in Chase Burns, so he’ll have to outduel the young ace to get the W. But if you’re desperate for a starter and need a few K’s, give him a twirl.
