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
Ty France (SDP) – 1B (Yahoo – 23%)
If you haven’t been paying close attention, France has been having an excellent season. France’s full-season line sits at .275/.331/.547, and he has a chokehold on first base for the Padres. In the past month, France has been even better, hitting .342/.404/.737 with eight of his 16 home runs. France probably isn’t quite this good, but there are some real changes underlying his results. He’s swinging the bat a mile per hour harder than in the past two years and hitting the ball nearly 3 miles per hour harder on average. France’s hard-hit rate is in the 89th percentile in MLB, and he’s pulling the ball in the air 21% of the time, up from 13.2% last year. Michael Busch is rostered in 82% of Yahoo leagues, and I think you should probably prefer France to him at this point.
Garrett Mitchell (MIL) – OF (Yahoo – 24%)
Mitchell is a man of extremes. He swings the bat extremely fast, hits the ball extremely hard, chases extremely rarely, and makes extremely limited contact. Thanks to his elite sprint speed and power, though, on the rare occasions when he does make contact, good things happen. Mitchell is hitting .275/.362/.451 with 8 homers and 7 steals. The batting average relies heavily on a .408 BABIP, but when you hit the ball as hard as Mitchell and run as fast as he does, you expect high BABIPs. Statcast gives him a .261 xBA, which is honestly shocking for a guy who strikes out in nearly a third of his plate appearances. Health has always been the issue with Mitchell, not talent. He’s currently 114 plate appearances past his previous career high, so hopefully Mitchell has figured out some of what was driving his consistent injuries in the past.
Brayan Rocchio (CLE) – SS (Yahoo – 38%)
Rocchio is finally putting together the type of season at the plate that his minor league performance hinted would be possible. He’s cut his strikeout rate from around 20% down to just 14.2%. The flip side of that drop is that Rocchio doesn’t walk much either, improving to just 6.9% this season. Rocchio doesn’t hit the ball particularly hard, but he’s giving himself a lot of opportunities for success by putting the ball in play. He also has the lift-and-pull approach that lets batters with less raw power hit more homers than you’d otherwise think, pulling 20% of his batted balls in the air. Adding that all to an aggressive approach on the basepaths, and you have a shortstop hitting .274/.335/.407 with 9 homers, 15 steals, and solid run production. I’d rather have Rocchio than the nearly-universally-rostered Bo Bichette at this point.
Yahoo and ESPN Most Added Players
Five pitchers with starts today top the most-added list in ESPN leagues. Let’s move on quickly from Sean Burke. He’s been excellent this year, and should be owned in every 6+ team league. Casey Mize has also had an excellent year. We’ve got enough sample size that K-BB% is the most valuable stat in predicting pitcher success. Mize’s 19.7% ranks 21st among pitchers with more than 80 innings this season. Would you like Ryan Weathers without the home run issues? That’s Mize.
Why does it feel like every time I write this column, Brandon Young is starting for the Orioles? I don’t understand how he keeps getting away with his arsenal, but he’s been good more often than he’s been bad. He gets Atlanta today, and while the Braves have been a roughly average offense for the season, they’ve been better over the last month. Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson have been leading the charge, with each posting a wRC+ over 140. I wouldn’t start Young, but he’s made it this far, so I don’t fault you if you feel like taking your chances.
Robert Gasser is making his 11th start of the season for the Brewers today against the Rockies. Fortunately for him, this one is in Milwaukee. Gasser hasn’t been great, and ERA estimators aren’t quite sure what to do with him either, varying from 3.85 to 5.13. The Rockies offense isn’t terrible on the road these days – they’re 16th in road runs scored vs 5th at home – and their wRC+ is actually better outside Colorado. I’m not a huge fan of this stream either, but I like Gasser’s matchup much more than Young’s.
Robbie Ray somehow has a 3.33 ERA despite a precipitous decline in his strikeout rate to just 20.6%. He hasn’t fixed his walk problems, either, walking 11.6% of batters, 1.5 percentage points above his career rate. His success is mostly an artifact of his home park, with a 2.44 ERA at home and a 4.35 ERA on the road. He gets the Angels at home, though, which is exactly where you’d want to start him. With the Giants firmly selling at the deadline and Ray’s contract up after this season, I’d consider him a streamer rather than a roster staple.
JP Sears is the only new streaming starter to cover in the most-added players in Yahoo leagues. About the only positive thing I can say about this option is that it’s in Miami. Sears has had essentially two issues in the majors: he doesn’t strike people out, and he gives up a lot of homers. Those are two pretty significant issues, but at least loanDepot Park massively suppresses homers (86 HR park factor per Statcast). Nick has Sears as a Do Not Start on his most recent streaming ranks, and I fully agree. Desperation-only play here.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand is our lone position player making moves in either Yahoo or ESPN. CES has been raking in his return to the majors with the Orioles, hitting .400/.429/.900 with 3 homers in 22 plate appearances. He obviously won’t continue at this pace, but he’s still got some interesting tools. He’s averaging a 73 mph bat speed, which is better than the MLB average, and hitting the ball 92.4 mph. On the other hand, he was striking out 30% of the time in Triple-A for the Orioles while walking less than 5% of the time. I’d love for things to work out for the former top prospect, but it doesn’t look like he’s addressed any of the plate discipline issues that have derailed his early career.
Category Specific Players to Add
Jim Jarvis (ATL) – SS (Yahoo – 2%)
Jarvis’s minor league profile looks like a typical slap-hitting, speedy middle infielder. He’s had a 70th percentile sprint speed in his short time in the majors, but hasn’t stolen a base yet. That’s coming, though, after he had 32 swipes in the minors already this year. He’s averaged 70.7 mph on his major league swings, which is below average, but several notches above the Steven Kwan and Luis Arraez level. Jarvis has a slightly better-than-average chase rate, but he excels at making contact, with just a 7.7% swinging strike rate. Ha-Seong Kim is rehabbing in the minors from a finger injury, but most of his success on his rehab assignment stems from a 23.5% walk rate. With Kim’s contract up at the end of the season, the Braves could move him and keep Jarvis in the lineup. Jarvis looks like a guy you should be targeting for batting average and steals for the rest of the season.
Graphic by Carlos Leano
