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
Carter Jensen (KC) – C (Yahoo – 34%)
The Royals are a mess early on and most of their stars have yet to click, but Jensen is not one of them. Blessed with massive power, Jensen played 20 games last season and finished with a 95 mph Average Exit Velocity, which would have been in the 100th percentile (regression was certain, but still). Alas, this season he’s down to 90.9 mph, but the results are even better: he’s got six home runs in just 69 at-bats.
After infamously getting benched for oversleeping on April 2nd, Jensen has been on a tear. He’s hitting .315 with a 1.020 OPS and is getting more playing time though the Royals technically carry two catchers with Sal Perez. Like most power-hitting backstops, Carter will swing and miss a lot (whiff rate is eighth-percentile), so he’s a little less valuable in points leagues. But he could easily finish the season as a top-10 catcher and get you thirty home runs.
Ronny Mauricio (NYM) – 2B,3B (Yahoo – 4%)
This one’s for you, Lindor owners. Now that Francisco is sidelined for the next several weeks with a calf strain, the Mets called up Mauricio, who was once one of their top prospects. Unfortunately, in his past trips to the Majors he’s floundered to a .600-ish OPS and not shown much of the power/speed combo that made him so enticing to fantasy owners. But…
That could change this year. Mauricio was raking in AAA with a .987 OPS and a .297 average, and recently belted three homers in one game. He hits the ball hard with a 90+ mph Average EV and has elite bat speed (with also an elite—in a bad way—Whiff rate). Time will tell if he can have a Jordan Walker-type post-hype breakout, but the Mets will give him every opportunity until Lindor comes back.
Coby Mayo (BAL) – OF (Yahoo – 3%)
Payton Tolle (MIN) – SP (Yahoo – 32%)
A second-round draft pick in 2024, Tolle’s a ‘hefty lefty’ at 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds. Tolle had an excellent debut last year but then moved to the bullpen for a spell in September, finishing with 16.1 IP and a 6.06 ERA. Though he started strong, hitters found his heavy fastball usage one-dimensional and started to feast on it.
With a cutter and improved curveball now, Tolle has matured into a potential ace. Called up to start on Thursday in place of the injured Sonny Gray, Tolle faced down the Yankees and delivered a masterful performance. Over 93 pitches, he showed excellent command and kept his four-seamer (still thrown 64% of the time) up in the zone. He then mixed in his curve to earn 18 total whiffs, finishing the day with a 40% CSW.
Tolle’s average velocity on the fastball was 96.7, but he hit 99 a few times and finished the game with eleven K’s in six innings. He’d have to settle for a Quality Start but not the win, as Boston went on to lose 4-2, but if he can stay in the rotation, he’s a must-roster player in all formats.
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Yahoo!
Ildemaro Vargas tops the Yahoo list this week and is looking like this year’s Gerardo Perdomo: a guy who came out of nowhere, started hitting like crazy, and never stopped (even when you were sure he would). Vargas isn’t exactly a fresh face—he’s older than Bryce Harper—but he’s hit safely in his last twenty games and has a 100th-percentile Expected Batting Average at .357.
Could it all evaporate overnight? Well, his 2.9% Walk rate and 19th-percentile average EV don’t suggest an elite hitter, but if Luis Arraez can get away with it, why not Vargas?
Other surging hitters include Josh Jung and Daylen Lile, both of whom I like. Jung will move up the lineup a bit with Wyatt Langford out, and is showing some of the promise from a 2023 All-Star season when he looked like a 30-homer bat. His K-rate has dropped significantly (27.3% career average, just 17.9% this year) and he’s carrying a 90.9 mph Average EV despite only having one verified barrel.
Lile is one of those sneaky 15/15 guys that does everything pretty well. His xBA is over .300 and he’s got an outstanding K-rate for a young player (14.4%, though he doesn’t walk enough to be an elite points league weapon). Surprisingly, he’s second in the National League in total base hits and is eighth in the league with seven doubles. He’d be more effective if he worked on his base running. Despite his 95th-percentile Sprint Speed, he’s only swiped one bag and been caught three times.
Maybe the secret to pitching in Colorado, where the thinner air takes movement away from breaking balls, is just to throw super-hard. Dollander’s fastball has a 99.1 mph average (which is Hunter Greene territory), and has himself an 11.5 K/9 rate. I can’t remember the last time I recommended a Rockies pitcher, but Dollander keeps the ball inside the fences with a 60% Ground Ball rate. Colorado often pairs him with an opener, so the Quality Starts aren’t in play, but he’s making it work.
ESPN
Vargas, Martin, and Lile make the top 5 here as well, but JR Ritchie saw a 20x surge in his ownership after being called up to make a spot start (maybe?) against the Nationals. Those who picked him got a nice return as he struck out seven and showed impressive efficiency by throwing just 89 pitches over seven innings. Ritchie’s been dominating AAA so maybe he can hang around…
Michael Soroka’s ownership continues to climb, and at this point, he deserves it. But some of his success might be due to good fortune: hitters are barreling the ball more than 16% of the time against him, but he’s 4-0 with a 2.60 ERA. His xERA, however, sits at 4.93. Soroka also has a 30.1% K-rate in the early going, but that might also regress as his career average is 22.2%. Soroka should also be remembered from a particularly heinous year in 2024 when he won zero games but lost ten with the terrible-at-the-time White Sox.
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.
Dean Kremer (BAL) – SP (Yahoo – 14%) vs BOS
Kremer gets a slumping Red Sox team that might again be without Roman Anthony. Not known as a strikeout pitcher, he’s got a head-turning 37.2% K-rate after his first two starts (his season was delayed due to injury). That certainly will regress a bit, but he’s got a 91st-percentile Whiff rate (35.4%) and an 83rd-percentile Chase rate (34.8%) based mainly on throwing his splitter way more often (he threw it 21% of the time last year; this year, 42% of the time). It’s a nasty offering with a .100 BA Against, and it’s gotten him eleven of his sixteen K’s, so this might be an effective weapon.
Update: Kremer hit the IL last night and Baltimore is calling up Brandon Young from AAA Norfolk instead. Young’s got a 15:3 K:BB ratio over his last two starts in the minors and looked pretty good in his last spot start against the White Sox (5 IP, no earned runs). The matchup is still solid so Young could have a good day.
Jack Flaherty (DET) – SP (Yahoo – 61%) @ CIN
He’s a little too highly owned to be a streamer, but some folks are bailing on Ol’ Jack after a lackluster beginning. Flaherty showed a lot of wildness in his last start with six free passes in less than four IP, but it was an 11 a.m. game in Fenway Park and the weather wasn’t great. I think he gets back on track in Cincy, who have the lowest batting average in the Majors. See if anyone in your league dropped him out of frustration and take the profit.
