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 players you can leave on the wire.
Top Priority Players to Add
Michael Busch (CHC), 1B (39% rostered on Yahoo!)
Busch has three (now four!) homers to start the year, slashing .315/.393/.593 with an OPS of .986. He’s 14th overall on the OPS Leaderboard (>50 PA), where he sits just below Fernando Tatis Jr. (.994 OPS, 99% rostered on Yahoo!) and James Wood (.977 OPS, 97% rostered on Yahoo!). Busch is in the top 50 fantasy performers in just about every format but he’s rostered in only 39% of Yahoo! leagues and 18% of ESPN leagues.
People are out on Busch despite his strong start. Granted, his wOBA is outperforming his xwOBA by a bit (.428, 91st percentile to .395, 87th percentile) which suggests he’s getting a bit lucky. But, the difference between the two is negligible and his xwOBA is still near-elite. His walk rate is way down from 11.1% in 2024 to 6.6%, falling from the 85th percentile to the 35th. It seems to be for a good cause, his K rate has dropped and all of his power metrics have jumped. He’s swinging and missing a touch more but has added 1.5 mph to his average exit velocity. It’s not a huge increase but it’s been enough to bring his hard-hit rate from 39.9% last year to 48.7% this year. In short, he’s sold some plate discipline for power and it’s increased his average, on-base percentage, and slugging.
Busch faltered down the stretch last season which could be part of the concern. He slashed .271/.357/.466 with an OPS of .823 to start the year but slashed .216/.303/.402 with an OPS of .705 in the second half. I don’t think it’s enough to explain his low roster percentage a few weeks into the season.
I suspect that the thing scaring fantasy managers off is that Busch is a platoon bat. Left-handed starting pitchers account for around 30% of MLB starts so I understand the headache of managing a player who sits against them, especially in weekly leagues. He’s started 15 out of 19 games for the Cubs and sat for every start against a southpaw. I firmly believe that the headache is worth it, even in shallow leagues. He’s on pace for 25 homers and that’s not even counting the extra few that your fill-in players will get on his off-days. You won’t find this on the wire every day and even if it takes some more effort to make a platoon bat work, the juice is worth the squeeze. He even went and hit another homer while I was writing this, what a guy!
Yahoo! and ESPN Most Added Players
Easton Lucas was a popular stream against the struggling Braves. He came into the game with 10.1 scoreless IP under his belt and left with a season ERA of 4.70 after getting shelled for eight earned runs in five innings. He’s a converted reliever which has worked for some players but he was never a great pitcher in the first place — I’d leave him on the wire.
Jung Hoo Lee is looking incredible but is rostered in 79% of leagues already. If you’re in the lucky 21% where he’s available, add him with extreme prejudice.
Trevor Story is racking up counting stats with three homers and six steals with a .308 average. I’m wary about some of the underlying numbers but the only other player with six or more steals and three or more homers is Tatis Jr. so I think Story is worth the add.
See the priority add of the week for more on Busch.
Taijuan Walker is Taijuan Walker. He got lit up for five earned runs in five innings against the Giants and his 10.2 scoreless innings to start the year were indeed a mirage.
I flagged Kyren Paris as a deep-league option back on April 1 when he was 1% rostered on Yahoo! and I’m delighted to see him sitting at an ominous 66.6% roster percentage. His new swing is working for him — his 1.308 OPS tops the 2025 season leaderboard for players with over 40 plate appearances. He’ll come down to earth eventually but enjoy the ride while he’s red-hot.
Kris Bubic and Tyler Soderstrom have been Waiver Wire Pick regulars all season and are rostered in over 70% of ESPN leagues. Get them if you still can.
Geraldo Perdomo has cemented his place at the top of Arizona’s batting order just as the Snakes are heating up. He won’t provide overwhelming power but his plate discipline has been elite, his team context is looking better and better, and he has enough juice to add a few home runs and steals along the way.
Shane Baz has had an excellent start to the year and kept it going against Boston, giving up just one earned run in six innings with 11 strikeouts.
Category-Specific Players to Add
José Caballero (TBR), 2B, 3B, SS (14% rostered on Yahoo!)
Caballero is up to five steals already on the season and he’s doing it while maintaining an OPS north of 1.000 in 33 plate appearances. The bat will start to slip but he racked up 44 steals last year and he’s on pace to match that without issue. He’s a part-time player but he has positional flexibility and works as a silver bullet for steals.
Emilio Pagán (CIN), RP (32% rostered on Yahoo!)
Pagán won the closer role in Cincinnati and is up to five saves on the year with a 1.23 ERA. Alexis Díaz will return from the IL within the next week but Pagan has made a strong case for keeping the job.
Streaming Pitchers
Check out Nick Pollack’s Starting Pitcher Streamer Rankings for write-ups about every pitching start. Here are my personal picks for the next few days:
Tylor Megill (NYM), SP (59% rostered on Yahoo!)
Megill gets the Twins today and he’d be my pick. He has a 0.63 ERA on the year and only went 4.0 innings in his last start due to some defensive errors which drove up his pitch count. He’s looking great and he’s got a good matchup.
José Soriano (LAA), SP (48% rostered on Yahoo!)
Soriano is my streaming pick for Wednesday. He’s Framber Valdez-light but throws upper-90s instead of mid-90s. In some games, he’ll go seven innings with four strikeouts, and in others, he’ll go five with nine punchouts. I’m all aboard the breakout train for him this year and I think he’ll handle the Rangers without much issue.
Speculative Adds
Jordan Lawlar (ARI), SS (8% rostered)
Lawlar has been on the brink of the bigs for years, seeing time at Triple-A since 2023. He’s been blocked by Perdomo at short but he’s playing at second base in Triple-A due to Ketel Marte’s absence and it looks like he finally has a path to playing time. He’s got a couple of homers and a 132 wRC+ at Triple-A and Marte is out for at least two weeks so he’ll have some runway to work with. He’s young at 22 and hasn’t quite hit his power potential but he’s averaged over .300 for years at Triple-A and has a good chance to hit the ground running. Check out Jack Mueller’s The Stash List write-up about Lawlar too.
Deep League Players to Watch
As always, check out Ben Rosener’s Deep League Waiver Wire articles every Thursday and Saturday for more deep league picks.
Jo Adell (LAA), OF (5% rostered on Yahoo!)
Trust me guys, the Adell breakout is totally here for real this time! He IS hitting the ball the hardest of his career with a 90th percentile, 93.3 mph average exit velocity, and his xStats say his average should climb well above the .190 it sits at today. He hit his first homer of the year last Thursday and his second in the same inning. He only has one hit since then but his Statcast is as red as his Los Angeles Angels‘ hat.
Alex Call (WSN), OF (5% rostered on Yahoo!)
Call is batting leadoff for the Nationals and hitting .367 for the year. He had a strong 2024 too, to the tune of 167 wRC+ in 30 games. He doesn’t bring crazy power or speed but there’s potential for a sneaky 15/15 year (though he has zero homers and only one stolen base so far). Likely more of a hot-streak play, he’s well worth the add in 16-team leagues as long as he’s high in the batting order.
Luis L. Ortiz (PIT), SP (5% rostered on Yahoo!)
I see 10 strikeouts in a game and an ownership percentage below five and I’m in. One good start doesn’t tell us much but he’s worth a grab in 16-team leagues where pitching can be hard to find. I’m interested to see how he handles the Pirates next time out.
Was that sarcasm? Please, be sarcasm? I have been burned so many times on the ol’ Jo Adell breakout, and yet here I am again.
If you dig deeper, Busch had some crazy splits in 2024. While his triple-slash line dropped precipitously, as you note in the article, some of his underlying metrics improved a good bit.
For example, his K% dropped from 31.0% to 25.1%, which was supported by his SwStr% dropping from 12.4% to 10.2%. Additionally, his average EV increased from 89.2 mph with a 37.7% HH rate to 90.9 mph and 42.9%. So he was hitting the ball harder and more frequently in the 2nd half, despite having worse on-paper results!
I spent the whole spring a bit surprised that more fantasy baseball folks didn’t notice the jump in his underlying metrics, despite the decrease in his triple-slash line.
This is great content, but doesn’t really help those of us whose waivers clear before the articles are posted. My waivers clear at 8 am Central, so this doesn’t do much for me.
You know you want to hop aboard the Five Tools train and pray he becomes Mike Trout 2.0 (like I’ve been doing for the last five years)
The reason Busch only ended up on my roster (in a shallow league) in spurts last season, and remains off it now, was the K rate and later average, and playing time considerations. It was also a much less effective supporting cast last season, so he’s in a much better environment for counting stats now. Maybe I’ll miss out, but with the amount of surprise 1B-eligible production around the league, I’m going to have to see K rate kept this low or improved further for a while before I replace who I have for him. Anyone that doesn’t have both a solid 1B and a backup should definitely grab him, though.
Never bought into Adell, as I’m generally pretty skeptical of prospects whose main ability when they get to the show turns out to be speed and defense. I know he was a beast in the minors, but that’s a tired, old song. Outfield is pretty thin, though, especially in deeper leagues, so I get why people might be into him. I learned a while ago, though, that the choices in OF are generally the fastest to deepen as positional eligibility expands with playing time, and not to worry about it too much early, so I don’t tend to do much but stream against bad pitc hers with hot hitters until someone I actually want there becomes eligible. I’ll let someone else take on Adell’s potential. Maybe I’ll draft him next year.
[Tell me the guy went to Schenck like Paris, and my ears will perk up, though.]