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
Ty France (SD) – 1B (Yahoo – 19%)
France has gone from an All-Star in 2022 to DFA material last season, but he’s recently shown he’s far from done. Cast aside by Seattle, Cincinnati, Minnesota, and Toronto, France has found a home in San Diego, where he started his career. It’s unlocked a heck of a resurgence, as a recent hot streak now has France with the highest OPS (.878) of his career.
He’ll set a few other career highs before he’s done. He’s up to 16 homers (previous high: 20) and is slugging .547 (previous high: .468). And the power surge isn’t a fluke—his average EV is three miles an hour higher than last year’s, he’s barreling the ball at a 12.1% clip (previous high: 8.7%), and he’s got a 50% hard-hit rate.
And let’s talk about what he’s done since the All-Star Break. He leads all of baseball with five homers over that span and is hitting .297 in July with a 1.308 OPS. Sometimes, players need to land somewhere that someone believes in them and is willing to give them playing time to rediscover what works, and that appears to be the case with France.
Joey Ortiz (MIL) – SS,3B (Yahoo – 4%)
Ortiz is proof that in baseball, over a given stretch of time, anyone can be the best player in the league. Where France has been on fire this past week, Ortiz has gone nuclear: he’s hitting .412 with a .941 SLG and a 1.465 OPS. That’s four extra-base hits in just 17 at-bats. He’s also walked four times and has an OBP over .500.
Possessing 91st-percentile sprint speed, Ortiz is also running again—he’s got three steals in his last five games and should be able to top last season’s career-high of 14 swipes. But let’s be honest, Ortiz is not suddenly a first-round pick next year who’s going to win your league. But he is on an incredible (and unlikely!) heater and could be worth picking up to ride it while it lasts.
Chandler Simpson (TBR) – OF (Yahoo – 57%)
Another light-hitting speedster, Simpson might go his entire career without hitting a home run. But he is starting to hit the ball at least a little harder, and for him that’s just fine.
Simpson jammed a couple of fingers in early July and missed a few games, and when he came back he spent a week looking lost at the plate. But he’s more than found his timing since, and his average on the month is up to .381, even after the poor start. And the way he’s running lately, he could now top 50 steals on the season.
To be fair, Simpson did hit a home run in Spring Training, so it could still happen during a game (and what a party that would be). But with a .291 batting average, he’s more than pulling his weight in two categories and chips in some run production as well.
Isaac Paredes (HOU) – 1B,3B (Yahoo – 56%)
Paredes got a lot of attention as a fantasy sleeper when he signed with Houston last year, given his extreme pull rate and the Crawford boxes in left field of his home park. And sure enough, he got to 20 homers, where he’d have fared far worse in other stadiums (in St. Louis and Miami, for instance, he would’ve hit nine).
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s repeating the same old parlor trick in 2026, scraping homers just over the fence and barely inside the foul pole. His SLG is 75 points higher at home than on the road. But he’s been heating up for a while: eight of his fourteen dingers have come since June 1, where he’s got a .900 OPS, is batting .300, and striking out just 17% of the time. Paredes was a sleeper last season and appears to be one this season as well, though now at 56% ownership it looks like people are catching on. A .391 average after the break might have finally broken the dam.
Brady Singer (CIN) – SP (Yahoo – 25%)
What you see with Singer is pretty much what you get: a 4-ish ERA, 8.5 K/9, and a solid Ground-Ball rate. So it was curious when balls were leaving the yard with abandon over his first several outings, especially in May where he gave up 11 bombs.
But it turned out a blister from Spring Training had been bothering him, and that appears to be a non-issue these days. He’s been good-to-great over the last two months. His ERA since June 1 is under three, and he’s got a 0.92 WHIP in July with a .187 average against and a .543 OPS.
As the Reds decide what to do with the rest of their season, Singer could be a trade candidate to a better team (and a better ballpark), so he could jump even higher in value. I’d grab him where I can and see what the next month brings.
| Metric | Through May 31 | Since June 1 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IP | 51.0 | 52.1 | ||
| ERA | 6.18 | 2.92 | ||
| WHIP | 1.69 | 1.09 | ||
| K/9 | 6.4 | 8.9 | ||
| HR/9 | 2.82 | 0.86 |
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Yahoo!
Four of the five top adds for Yahoo are streamers that pitched on Thursday. Of the lot, I like Ian Seymour the most (see his headlining entry in this article three weeks ago). He’s got a devastating changeup that’s one of the best pitches in the league (.132 BAA), and even though he only throws 91-92, his fastball has a lot of life and movement. The only thing that’s hurt him is a 22% HR/FB rate—but if that regresses to a normal ratio, he can be a 3.00-ERA type of pitcher.
But obviously Shane Bieber is worth a look here as well (and he out-dueled Seymour in last night’s outing). Bieber looked atrocious in both his Minor League rehab starts and his first few outings in the Majors, but those who held on are reaping the rewards. He’s given up just one run in his last two outings (and that’s eight baserunners in 13 IP). His WHIP and ERA are down to 1.20 and 4.15 in July, and that includes a shellacking in his first start of the month when he surrendered seven runs to the Mariners. He’s showing better control (zero walks in his last outing) and generating the weak contact he needs to start compiling quality starts. He’s a cautious add for me but there might be something here.
Michael McGreevy and Brandon Pfaadt both still fall into the streamers-only club for me. Unlike Seymour, McGreevy is a 3.00-ERA pitcher, at least for now. But his xERA is 4.82 and his FIP is 4.14, and his xSLG is .490 (5th percentile), showing there’s a good deal of luck involved. McGreevy’s also got a pretty poor 16% K-rate, so he’s not going to help you there. As for Pfaadt, he’s got a decent W/L record (he’s 5-1) and is having success getting ground ball outs, but his K-rate’s only marginally better than McGreevy’s and all signs point to regression.
That leaves Victor Mesa Jr., who shows up here after homering in three straight games. Mesa’s seeing more playing time in platoon-happy Tampa and is making the most of it, but he’s still just a .224 hitter who gets on base 31% of the time. I’d leave him alone.
ESPN
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.
Shane Drohan (MIL) – SP (Yahoo – 39%) vs COL
You don’t mess with the Drohan, right? The 27-year-old lefty has now started ten games for the Brewers, and his worst outing was a five-inning, four-run effort where he still had seven K’s and walked none. Drohan’s striking out a batter per inning, playing on a first-place team, and gets an excellent matchup against the Rockies outside of Coors (though the Rocks are hitting better of late). Drohan’s been steadily climbing in ownership over the past month as his numbers look less fluky (and they’re not fluky at all); he’s a borderline keeper at this point.
Andre Pallante (STL) – SP (Yahoo – 29%) vs CIN
Though Pallante’s also gaining in the ownership ranks, this one’s more of a one-and-done (his next start should be against the Cubs). If Pallante’s available, though, this is about as good a matchup as you can get. The Reds have one of the league’s worst batting averages and strike out a ton, especially on the road. While Pallante doesn’t generate a lot of whiffs, he does have a 98th-percentile Ground-Ball rate thanks to an improved slider this year. The Reds, when they do score, usually do so thanks to the long ball, so if Pallante can keep things in the yard—and on the ground—he should coast in this one.
