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
Christian Scott (NYM) – SP (Yahoo – 16%)
Scott gets a start at home against the Marlins today. The Marlins are a roughly league-average offense and, perhaps unexpectedly, worse on the road. Even better, Scott’s next start is on the road against the struggling Padres offense. Scott has been throwing harder than in his first MLB stint, averaging 95.8 MPH on fastballs, which is 1.5 MPH faster than his MLB numbers in 2025. The extra velo is part of a general improvement in his arsenal, with his Stuff+ ticking up from 100 to 106. With the increased stuff has come reduced command, however, as Scott is striking out 6.5 percentage points more batters but walking 6.2 percentage points more as well. He appears to be settling in a bit more, though, with his first start weighing down his walk numbers (5 BB in 1.1 IP). I’d try to add Scott now before he’s snatched up for the next two good matchups.
Curtis Mead (WSN) – 1B, 2B, 3B (Yahoo – 10%)
Mead began the season on the short side of a platoon, but has won a job in the Nationals lineup vs righties too, starting against 4 of the last 5 righties the Nationals have faced. Mead has actually been much better vs same-handed pitching this season, with a 110 wRC+ vs lefties and a 172 wRC+ vs righties in small samples. The Nationals’ lineup has been excellent this season, ranking 4th in MLB with a 110 wRC+. Mead has been hitting second or third for the Nationals, depending on whether Luis García Jr. is in the lineup. Hitting behind James Wood should provide Mead with plenty of RBI opportunities, while hitting in front of CJ Abrams and Daylen Lile is a great spot to score runs as well. Mead has the unusual combination of above-average bat speed with a shorter-than-average swing length. He’s got excellent plate discipline, in the 78th percentile for chase rate, and strong contact ability, with an 84th percentile whiff rate. Mead probably won’t provide massive numbers of home runs, but he should be an asset in batting average, runs, and RBIs while being able to move around to cover three positions in your lineup, depending on what you need.
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Most of the movement on Yahoo is in the streaming starter pool. Ben Brown has a matchup against St. Louis today. The Cardinals have the 12th-best offense in MLB by wRC+, but have cooled off a bit in May, ranking 19th by the same metric. Brown has been excellent all season and maintained his performance after moving into the rotation. In his four starts, he’s struck out 23 batters and walked just 6 over 19 innings. Nick is not a big fan of the arsenal, but I don’t think the Cardinals are a team to sit Brown against when he’s having so much success.
Anthony Kay has been added to the most Yahoo rosters by a wide margin. The surface-level numbers have been excellent in May, with Kay posting a 1.98 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP over his last 5 starts. He’s increased his strikeout rate from 12.3% in April to 21.1% in May, while cutting his walk rate from 11.5% to 7.9%. I’ve had Kay on my bench in a deep league for all of these starts, and while I regret how it worked out, I’m not confident in the performance. That said, I’m running with him for this one – Detroit has had a weak offense on the year (94 wRC+, 23rd in MLB) and has been particularly cold in May (73 wRC+, 29th in MLB).
Christian Scott was discussed as a priority add above. He’s probably someone to keep on your roster rather than streaming. The most added hitter on Yahoo is the aforementioned Curtis Mead. The second-most added hitter is Jacob Gonzalez, who I’ll discuss a little bit later in this article.
More streaming starters dominating the transactions in ESPN leagues. Foster Griffin ranks higher on the charts on ESPN with a matchup in Washington against San Diego. The Padres are 28th in MLB with a 75 wRC+ over the past month and 28th in MLB on the season. This is an excellent streaming opportunity. Griffin has been a solid innings eater for the Nationals this season. He’s posted a 3.63 ERA with ERA estimators in the high 3’s and low 4’s. Ryan Weathers should be owned in all leagues, even if you don’t love a matchup in Sacramento. If you’re looking at rostership rates, I think the working assumption should probably be that 40% of ESPN leagues are not active at this point in the season.
Reid Detmers has been quietly excellent this season. Quiet, because he’s sitting at a 4.57 ERA in line with his career numbers and just one win. Excellent, because his ERA estimators all point to a high 2’s or low 3’s performance so far. He’s striking out 28.3% of batters faced and walking only 7.2%. He had a start blow-up against the Athletics a couple of games ago, where he gave up 8 earned in 5.2 innings, thanks to a .471 BABIP. Detmers bounced back last time out, though, putting up 8 scoreless and 14 Ks. The Rays are a good offense, but they have a 10-point worse wRC+ vs lefties, so I like rolling with Detmers in this one.
The most added position player in ESPN leagues is Casey Schmitt, who is absolutely tearing the cover off the ball lately. Schmitt has leaned further into an extreme lift-and-pull approach this season. He’s making contact 2 inches further in front of the plate and pulling 29.5% of his batted balls in the air. He’s traded 13 percentage points (nearly half) of his line drives for 6 percentage points more fly balls and 5 percentage points more pop-ups. I’m not sure I’d expect him to maintain his slight BABIP improvement with the changes, but the batting average will remain robust so long as he’s pulling this many fly balls out of play and into the seats.
Deep League Players to Watch
Rikuu Nishida (CHW) – 2B, OF (Yahoo – 1%)
Nishida was recently called up by the White Sox after Jarred Kelenic was designated for assignment this week. Nishida is a slash-and-dash hitter with 2 homers and 110 steals over 1389 minor league plate appearances. He’s an on-base machine, with minor league OBPs of .418 and .403 over the past two seasons and .449 thus far in 2026. Right now, the lefty-hitting Nishida appears to be in a quasi-platoon with Randal Grichuk, although they both played against the last lefty the White Sox faced. Nishida hasn’t gotten out to a tear since joining the major league club, but if his minor league on-base ability starts showing up in the majors, he could be a strong contributor in runs and steals.
Jacob Gonzalez (CHW) – 2B, SS (Yahoo – 3%)
Jacob Gonzalez just got the call to join the major league team, with Munetaka Murakami hitting the IL for a couple of weeks due to a hamstring injury. Gonzalez has struggled since joining professional baseball. He’s maintained solid plate discipline numbers, but his college power disappeared after the draft. He may have found it again, though. Thus far in 2026, Gonzalez has posted 18 homers in just 51 games. That’s one more homer than he put up over 2 and change minor league seasons leading up to this year. Triple-A Charlotte is an incredibly hitter-friendly minor league park, but Gonzalez didn’t do much in 45 games there last year. His exit velos are up about 3 MPH and his hard-hit rate is up from 32.5% to 42.0% between his two Triple-A stints. Oh, and he runs, too, with 7 steals this year and 17 in each of his two full minor league seasons. It’s not clear if he’s figured something out or if this is an extended hot streak in a hitter-friendly park, but he’s at least worth watching.
Graphic by Carlos Leano
