This weekly waiver-wire watch column is designed to help you monitor and pick up players in the coming weeks. These are the players you’ll want to add now before becoming the hot waiver commodity in a week or two. Using underlying and advanced metrics, this “watchlist” will help you get ahead of the competition in your league and reap the rewards from your pickups later.
The players could be anyone from a prospect in an ideal situation close to the Majors, a reliever in a saves+holds league, or even a starter doing well with misleading surface-level stats like ERA. They might even be hitters with quality underlying stats. Or they could be none of those types of players and entirely different.
The point is that they’ll help you find success in your fantasy league while staying ahead of the curve against your league mates.
Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Watch List
To say that the New York Yankees have struggled to score runs is probably a bit of an understatement. In fact, it’s probably a massive understatement when all is said and done.
For the season, 22 different clubs have outscored the American League East club this season. And while star slugger Aaron Judge did miss time on the injured list this season, New York has actually been outscored by more teams (24 to be exact) since the outfielder returned to the lineup on July 28.
So yeah, not good. Or ideal. Or great. Or any of that.
With the trade deadline come and gone, New York’s best and most viable alternatives to adding an influx of production to their lineup are likely limited to players returning from the injured list, looking to catch lightning in a bottle with a player previously in the minors (something that’s happened already with Jake Bauers) or, and perhaps this is the most logical route, call up some of the club’s top prospects.
One of those prospects is Austin Wells, who is currently ranked by FanGraphs as the organization’s 12th-best prospect.
A catcher and designated hitter so far in the minors, the fact that Wells should have instant catcher eligibility could be crucial here because he’s done nothing but produce in the minors.
Wells logged 107 wRC+, 11 home runs, five stolen bases, a .237 average and a .327 on-base percentage in 263 plate appearances at Double-A. He’s been even better against the step-up in competition at Triple-A, batting .260 with a .351 on-base percentage, four home runs, a pair of stolen bases and a 104 wRC+ in 111 plate appearances.
You probably shouldn’t forecast a player or prospect based on minor league production, but Wells’ form at the plate has been encouraging, especially his potential to make a fantasy impact at the catcher position.
FanGraphs rates his current and future grades as follows:
- Hit: 40/45
- Game Power: 45/55
- Raw Power: 55/55
It remains to be seen if Wells will be called up this season by New York, but it doesn’t exactly hurt Wells’ chances for potential playing time that Yankees catchers have struggled mightily at the plate, perhaps even more so than the lineup as whole.
Only the Guardians at 57 have had their catchers contribute a lower collective wRC+ than New York’s 59 metric this season.
What a difference the trade deadline can do for a player’s second-half fantasy prospects. Prior to the trade deadline, Brash wasn’t really an option for saves with Paul Sewald and – to a degree – Andres Munoz as the top save options in Seattle.
Now, since Sewald was dealt to the Arizona Diamondbacks, it’s been a decidedly different picture at the back end of games for Mariners managers Scott Seravis.
For one, Munoz has stepped into Sewald’s role as the primary saves option, with five of the team’s 10 saves since the start of August. Only one other reliever has more than one save during that stretch, but that reliever happens to be Brash, who has logged three and looks like a very real threat to siphon off a significant number of saves down the stretch to the point where this might look like a timeshare.
Both relievers have been very (emphasis on very) good this year.
- Andres Munoz In 2023: 54.1 innings pitched, 3.31 ERA, 2.00 FIP, 14.58 K/9, 122 Stuff+*, 15.3% SwStr%, 3.64 BB/9
- Matt Brash In 2023: 34.1 innings pitched, 2.62 ERA, 2.51 FIP, 123 Stuff+*, 11.80 K/9, 18.1% SwStr%, 4.19 BB/9
*Stuff+ data via FanGraphs.
However, while Brash is the one to watch here to add – Munoz is already rostered in 75% of Yahoo leagues – it’s worth keeping an eye on Munoz as well, though for admittedly different reasons.
While the right-hander has logged a pair of scoreless appearances in his last two outings, registering a save on August 18 and a hold on August 20, he was also coming off a five-game stretch in which he gave up seven hits, six runs, five walks and two earned runs in 5.2 innings while striking out five batters.
It’s a small sample size to be sure, but with the Mariners now back firmly in the playoff race thanks to a run of good form – Seattle has a 63.9% chance to make the playoffs as of writing per FanGraphs’ playoff odds – each game and series matters. With that in mind, it’s not out of the question to think that Brash could step into the closer’s role for a stretch if Munoz’s struggles return. Of course, that’s all entirely speculative, but the Mariners reliever is certainly someone to watch moving forward.
Dynasty Addition/Trade Target of the Week
There are a number of things that might cause fantasy managers to have concern about Hunter Brown’s upside long-term.
One is that his ERA has jumped to 4.50, up markedly from the 3.62 metric it was in 87 innings through June 25. Another is that Brown is suddenly pitching in a crowded, six-man rotation that also features a returning Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Jose Urquidy, Cristian Javier and J.P. France – a crowded rotation that could get even more crowded next season with the return of a healthy Lance McCullers Jr.
All of those things certainly should be dismissed, but they shouldn’t be significant deterrents in looking to trade for Hunter Brown right now, both for the rest of the 2023 season and (perhaps more importantly) moving forward in terms of dynasty.
Because while Brown’s season-long ERA is unideal, he’s also still sporting a 3.99 FIP despite a few poor starts here and there as of late – like allowing eight hits and six earned runs in 2.2 innings against the Seattle Mariners on Sunday or surrendering eight hits, five earned runs and two home runs in six innings against the Baltimore Orioles on August 10.
What’s more, despite those poor outings, Brown had been turning things around a bit. In his three starts prior to August 10, the right-hander threw six innings each outing and gave up exactly two earned runs each time. That he only struck out 12 batters probably has something to do with a 5.99 FIP over that stretch, but there shouldn’t be any concern moving forward about Brown’s stuff.
So far this season, per FanGraphs, the Houston starter has posted a 107 Stuff+ and a 102 Pitching+ in 126 innings.
Obviously, they’re all different pitchers with different arsenal and repertoires, but here’s a look at Brown and two other pitchers in a blind resume exercise:
- Pitcher A: 107 Stuff+, 102 Pitching+
- Pitcher B: 107 Stuff+, 106 Pitching+
- Pitcher C: 108 Stuff+, 101 Pitching+
- Pitcher D: 107 Stuff+, 99 Pitching+
- Pitcher E: 106 Stuff+, 99 Pitching+
Pitcher A is obviously Brown (for the entirety of the season), but Pitcher B is Kevin Gausman. Pitcher C is actually Valdez and Pitcher D would be Blake Snell.
That’s not to say Brown is suddenly going to start pitching or producing exactly like Gausman, Valde or Snell, but it gives a glimpse of his talent level moving forward and the type of (notable) ceiling he could reach if he’s already posting metrics like this as a rookie.
And Pitcher E? That would be Hunter Brown’s second-half splits where his Stuff+ and Pitching+ numbers are concerned. Even with a handful of poor results, he’s still been reasonably similar from a stuff standpoint.
(For context, only 12 qualified starters have a higher Stuff+ metric than Brown all season).
And this is all without mentioning the fact that the right-hander pitches in Houston, which has been a haven for pitcher wins for the better part of the last decade. Dating back to the start of the 2017 season, Houston has amassed 434 pitcher wins from their rotation. No other team is even over the 400 mark. As of Monday, no other team outside of the Dodgers was even over the 370 mark.
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