This is a column about players to pick up, but let’s not forget about the players who get dropped in our leagues, either. Late April is peak impatient season in fantasy baseball circles, and that means some surprising names could be surfacing on a waiver wire near you.

Case in point: I just scooped up Dansby Swanson off the waiver wire in my league. Yes, Swanson is off to an ice-cold start (39.3 percent K rate = oof), but he’s been a valuable fantasy contributor for several years running, and I don’t expect that to suddenly stop in his age-28 season.

There are plenty of intriguing players of this week’s waiver wire list, but I’d still bet on Swanson being better than at least 90 percent of them. Swanson may not be available in your league, but a Yasmani Grandal, Joey Votto, or Julio Rodriguez could be.

That’s why I make sure to always scan through the drop list in my fantasy leagues, especially those with daily transactions. You know what they say: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

Note: Rostered rates are from Yahoo leagues as of Saturday night.

FAABulous Four: Top Waiver Targets

Alec Bohm (3B — PHI): 37% Rostered
After hitting .338 over his first 44 Big League games in 2020, Bohm was a popular breakout candidate heading into last season. He didn’t meet those lofty expectations, though, hitting just .247 average with seven homers and four steals over 417 plate appearances.

Bohm’s post-hype sleeper status for 2022 seemingly took a hit when highly-regarded infield prospect Bryson Stott hit his way onto the Phillies’ Opening Day roster. However, Bohm has clearly been the superior player over the season’s early weeks, prompting manager Joe Girardi to announce that Bohm is locked in as the team’s everyday third baseman moving forward.

Bohm’s Baseball Savant page is the kind that should excite the statistically-minded fantasy manager, a sea of red signifying extremely hard contact and excellent bat-to-ball skills. Any batter hitting .440 is due for some regression, but with a .415 expected batting average, Bohm has mostly earned the terrific results he’s been getting so far.

ALEC BOHM! ? The Phillies have the 3-2 lead! pic.twitter.com/TIVgYaYUai

— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) April 20, 2022

Tony Gonsolin (SP — LAD): 43% Rostered
Gonsolin struggled with walks and shoulder woes in 2021, but he was still quite good when he was on the mound, posting a smooth 3.23 ERA and 10.51 K/9 rate over 55 2/3 innings. Overall, he’s put up an excellent 2.67 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and 9.04 K/9 rate over his first 38 Major League appearances, including 30 starts.

Gonsolin was held to a very limited pitch count over his first couple turns through the Dodgers’ rotation this season, throwing four or fewer inning in each start. That could help explain why he’s rostered in so few fantasy leagues. He cruised through six innings against Atlanta in his most recent start, though, and shouldn’t have a problem going deep enough into games to put himself in line for wins moving forward.

Tony Gonsolin, Filthy 81mph Splitter. ? pic.twitter.com/GABKPSxJwU

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 20, 2022

His peripherals don’t back up the 0.69 ERA he’s currently sporting, but don’t sweat it. We’ve seen more than enough from Gonsolin over the last three seasons to justify putting him into our fantasy lineups.

Josiah Gray (SP — WAS): 44% Rostered
One of the main pieces acquired by the Nationals in the Max Scherzer/Trea Turner trade, Gray wasn’t great in his first taste of the Big Leagues last year, and he was also hit around in his first start of 2022. He’s been exceptional in his last two starts, though, giving up just one run in 10 1/3 innings against Atlanta and Arizona, while striking out 13 batters and picking up two wins in the process.

It’s not fair to place expectations on Gray based on the players he was traded for, but there’s a reason that Washington insisted on getting him in the Scherzer-Turner deal. The 24-year-old dominated hitters at every level of the minors, putting up a sub-3.00 ERA at every stop with strong strikeout-to-walk ratios. He has the stuff of a front-end starter, too, including a nasty curveball and slider that both generate plenty of whiffs.

Josiah Gray, Nasty 82mph Curveball. ? pic.twitter.com/uBnaEsNSZe

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 19, 2022

Bumps in the road are always possible for young pitchers, but Gray certainly looks like a long-term building block for the rebuilding Nats. He can be one for your fantasy team, too.

Nathaniel Lowe (1B — TEX): 49% Rostered
Lowe was offered up as a potential breakout candidate in some circles this preseason, and he’s certainly looked the part so far, hitting .412 through his first 55 plate appearances. Lowe’s high batting average has been fueled by a ton of hard contact and continued improvement in his strikeout and swinging strike rates.

The real question in terms of Lowe’s fantasy viability is his power output, or lack thereof. While raw power was considered to be his best attribute as a prospect, his home run power has been slow to develop. He has just one home run so far, and only hit 18 in 642 plate appearances last season. The main culprit is a launch angle that has steadily declined over his four Major League seasons, and currently sits at just 0.9 degrees.

Short of a change in approach, Lowe may have trouble topping 20 home runs again this season, but he should still be able to provide a solid batting average, a handful of steals, and solid run production while hitting in the middle of the Rangers’ improved lineup. At the very least, it’s worth riding the hot hand.

Priority Pickups – <40% Rostered

Vidal Brujan (2B,OF — TB): 6% Rostered
Yandy Diaz landed on the Covid list on Saturday, and he will need to miss at least five days because he is experiencing symptoms. That prompted the Rays to recall Brujan, who stole 44 bases in just 103 games in Triple-A last season and already has three steals in his first five games in Triple-A this year. Brujan had a rough go of it in a brief 26 plate appearance cameo with the Rays last season, and it’s unclear how long he’ll be up — or if he’ll even start ahead of Taylor Walls. Still, he’s well worth adding for the simple fact that he has as much stolen base potential as any player in baseball.

Jorge Mateo (2B,SS,OF — BAL): 18% Rostered
If you’re looking for a speedster with more certain playing time than Brujan, Mateo is your guy. His six thefts lead the league through Saturday’s action, and he also stole 10 bags in just 209 plate appearances last year. Mateo’s batted ball skills leave something to be desired, but he has 85th percentile sprint speed and a real shot at 30+ steals if he continues to get regular playing time for a basement-dwelling Orioles team with no reason to give him the red light. His positional flexibility also makes him an appealing Swiss army knife off the bench in daily lineup formats.

Jorge Lopez (RP — BAL): 25% Rostered
While one Jorge in Baltimore can give you steals, the other Jorge can give you saves. A 29-year-old journeyman, Jorge Lopez has suddenly found himself thrust into the Orioles’ closer role, picking up all three of Baltimore’s saves in the early going. There is nothing in Lopez’s track record to suggest he is a particularly good pitcher, but he has been better as a reliever than as a starter, at least. We see relievers emerge from obscurity all the time, and Lopez is worth adding given how few locked-in closers there are in today’s game.

Dany Jimenez (RP — OAK): 21% Rostered
Speaking of closers on rebuilding teams, Jimenez has asserted himself as A’s manager Mark Kotsay’s preferred ninth-inning option while Lou Trivino is sidelined on the Covid list. The 28-year-old Jimenez had thrown just 1 1/3 innings at the Big League level prior to this season, but he’s acquitted himself well so far, hurling six scoreless frames with nine strikeouts and two saves. He also showed some promise in the Blue Jays’ farm system, producing a sub-2.30 ERA and 12.30+ K/9 at both Double-A (2019) and Triple-A (2021). It’s unclear how long Trivino will be out or whether he’ll get the job back when he returns, but Jimenez is certainly worth rostering in the meantime.

Seth Beer (UTIL — ARI): 17% Rostered
Perhaps no other player has benefited more from the universal designated hitter rule than Beer, who has settled in as the everyday DH in Arizona. Beer hit for a high average with pop in the high-minors, batting .299 with 16 home runs in 63 games with the Astros’ Double-A affiliate in 2019 and .287 with 16 home runs in 100 games with Arizona’s Triple-A affiliate last year. He’s gone right on raking since joining the Diamondbacks, smacking 19 hits in his first 48 Major League at-bats between 2021 and 2022. Beer currently ranks in the 90th percentile in average exit velocity, according to Statcast, so he’s worth a look to see if the minor league numbers can fully translate to the Majors.

SETH BEER WITH A WALK OFF HOME RUN ON NATIONAL BEER DAY! ?? pic.twitter.com/pLplZ7eIRH

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) April 8, 2022

Brandon Marsh (OF — LAA): 26% Rostered
Taylor Ward (OF — LAA): 13% Rostered
Marsh and Ward have not received the same level of hype as teammate Jo Adell (including from me), but they have emerged as legitimate challengers to Adell’s playing time. One of that trio will need to sit as long as Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani are healthy, and it’s Marsh and Ward — not Adell — who are off to a hot start offensively.

Like Adell, Marsh was once considered the Angels’ top prospect, although he has not shown the same kind of statistical upside for fantasy purposes. He has demonstrated the ability to steal 15-20 bases, but never topped 10 home runs in any minor league season and struck out in 35 percent of his plate appearances as a rookie with the Angels last year. Still, he’s off to a nice start, hitting .313 with a homer and a steal, while making lots of hard contact and displaying elite sprint speed on the base paths. He’s also just 24 years old, so it remains to be seen what kind of a player he can become.

At 28, Ward is more of a late-bloomer, but he did hit .306 with 27 HRs and 11 SBs in Triple-A in 2019 and put up 12 HRs and 3 SBs in just 78 games between Triple-A and the Majors last year. Like Marsh, Ward is hitting over .300 with a homer and a steal in the early going and could develop into a solid across-the-board contributor.

Daniel Hudson (RP — LAD): 13% Rostered
Hudson looked like a sleeper for saves in the spring, but then the Dodgers went out and acquired Craig Kimbrel. Kimbrel has been fine so far, converting all three of his save chances, but it turns out that Hudson still has some fantasy appeal after all. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has made it clear that he doesn’t want to use Kimbrel in back-to-back games, at least not yet. That means that Hudson should get some more save opportunities like the one he had on April 16, especially now that fellow set-up man Blake Treinen is on the Injured List. Add in the fact that Hudson can be a big help in the strikeout department, and you have a player worthy of attention in mixed leagues.

Michael Pineda (SP,RP — DET): 7% Rostered
Pineda’s season got off to a late start because of Visa issues, but he looked in midseason form when he hurled five shutout innings against the Yankees on Thursday. There’s nothing flashy about Pineda at this stage of his career, but he’s the dictionary definition of a serviceable back-end fantasy starter. Since the start of the 2019 season, he boasts a 3.73 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 8.0 K/9 rate, and 1.8 BB/9 rate over 287 innings.

Paul Blackburn (SP — OAK): 29% Rostered
Blackburn is a 28-year-old pitcher with a 5.35 career ERA and a fastball that tops out in the low-90s. That’s the bad news. The good news is that he currently sports a pristine 1.80 ERA and 0.80 WHIP with two wins over his first three starts of 2022. He’s been getting great results with his sinker and curveball, and the biggest key to his success so far is that he’s issued just one walk and yet to give up a homer. I’m a little skeptical that he can keep this up, but it doesn’t hurt to give him a test run.

J.P. Crawford (SS — SEA): 24% Rostered
Is there such thing as a post-post-post-post-hype sleeper? If so, maybe Crawford fits the bill. Once upon a time, many moons ago, he was considered a top-tier prospect, but his production stalled out in the high minors and he ultimately settled in as a part-time player at the Major League level. Crawford finally played a full season’s worth of games in 2021, but while his .273 batting average was solid, he only managed to hit nine home runs and steal three bases. That big caveat aside, he is still only 27 years old and already has two homers and a steal this year, with a batting average well over .300. A Crawford breakout now seems improbable, but stranger things have happened, right?

Deep League Targets – <10% Rostered

Andres Munoz (RP — SEA): 10% Rostered
Armed with a fastball that averages over 100 miles per hour and a wicked slider, the 23-year-old Munoz clearly has a closer’s arsenal. He picked up his first save of the season on Friday, and happens to pitch in a bullpen without a clear ninth-inning man in place. Even if he doesn’t end up getting the job outright, he should get some more saves while also providing plenty of strikeouts and potentially-excellent ratios.

Will Crowe (SP,RP — PIT): 7% Rostered
Crowe’s only save of the season was of the three-inning variety, so he isn’t the best choice if you’re just speculating on saves. The better reason to roster Crowe is for the strikeouts and low ratios. He’s thrown 12 scoreless innings thus far, with 15 strikeouts and only eight baserunners allowed. His dual starter-reliever eligibility could also be useful in certain formats.

Rowdy Tellez (1B — MIL): 8% Rostered
With 47 home runs in 288 career Major League games, Tellez has always brought plenty of pop to the table. So it should come as no great surprise that he’s already hit three over the fence this year.  While his .247 career batting average is nothing special, he has dramatically cut down his strikeout rate over the last three seasons, which could allow him to improve his average this season. He should also score and drive in plenty of runs while batting fifth in a well-stocked Brewers lineup.

Daniel Vogelbach (1B — PIT): 7% Rostered
It’s hard to find many Pirates worth rostering these days, but Vogelbach deserves your attention in deeper leagues. Between injuries and playing time competition, he’s only played over 100 games once in his career, but he did hit 30 home runs that season (2019). He’s not going to help your batting average — enjoy his current .311 average while it lasts — but he has a decent chance to match 2019’s 558 plate appearances while regularly batting leadoff or cleanup for the Buccos.

Michael Wacha (SP,RP — BOS): 10% Rostered
It’s been a few years since Wacha was a useful fantasy starter, but he’s off to a strong start in 2022 with a 1.88 ERA and 0.91 WHIP through his first three turns. Even after struggling badly over the last two seasons, he still sports a decent 4.11 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, and 8.03 K/9 rate for his career. His .114 BABIP allowed and 98 percent strand rate in the early going are due for a major correction soon, but he should get plenty of run support in Boston and could remain a viable option in deeper formats.

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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.