Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Watch List: Kolten Wong, Jarred Kelenic, Nolan Gorman

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

Kolten Wong (2B – LAD)

An offseason trade acquisition by the Seattle Mariners to provide infield reinforcements, Kolten Wong struggled mightily in his time with the American League West club, batting .165 with a .241 on-base percentage, two home runs, a stolen base, and a 35 wRC+ in 216 plate appearances.

Now with the Dodgers, Wong has a hit (it was a home run) in three plate appearances for the National League West franchise after hitting .438 with a 1.276 OPS in 19 minor league plate appearances.

It’s a tiny sample size. Very small. Pretty much minuscule. Nothing should really be made of those brief numbers Wong has logged in the Dodgers organization other than that he’s off to an encouraging start after struggling in Seattle.

Still, the struggles in Seattle are looking very much like an outlier for an infielder who has been markedly consistent prior to the season.

From 2014 to 2022, Wong’s wRC+ finished outside the 90 to 109 range just once (when it was 85 in 2016) and he’s reached both double-digit home runs and stolen bases in each of his last three full seasons.

Kolten Wong’s Last Three Full Seasons:

2019: 549 plate appearances, 11 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 109 wRC+
2021: 492 plate appearances, 14 home runs, 12 stolen bases, 109 wRC+
2022: 497 plate appearances, 15 home runs, 17 stolen bases, 116 wRC+

If anything, he seemed to be taking a bit of a step forward as all three seasons marked the three highest wRC+ numbers of his career. What’s more, Wong had hit .250 or better in six of his last eight seasons.

A sudden dip in quality contact may have been part of the struggles in Seattle. Wong is sporting a career-low 2.0% barrel rate for the season, and his .267 xwOBA and .291 xwOBAcon are both on track to be career lows for a full season. It also probably didn’t help that Wong is sporting a 21% strikeout rate that is sitting above the 18% mark for the first time ever as a Major Leaguer and also owns a .200 BABIP.

Not ideal.

But if he can produce anywhere near the rate he did earlier in his career, the now-former Mariner could be worth a look in some fantasy leagues down the stretch as a streaming option.

Playing for a Dodgers team that is both second in the league in home runs (213) and runs scored (762) certainly helps. So, too, does the fact that Wong could see a bit more playing time than just the pinch-hitting appearances he’s logged so far.

Of course, this is all entirely speculative, but the Dodgers could opt to start getting their regulars a bit more rest here and there ahead of the playoffs. Los Angeles is currently 14 games ahead of Arizona in the National League West. They’re also eight games behind Atlanta in the race for the top seed in the National League, with a further six games between the Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers, who have the next-best record among division leaders.

If that’s the case and Los Angeles rests some of their starters more in places, Wong could certainly benefit. And in a lineup as productive and prolific as the Dodgers’, sometimes all that’s needed for fantasy relevance is opportunity.

Jarred Kelenic (OF – SEA)

Kelenic, who is currently on the 10-day injured list for the Mariners, is rostered in just 37% of Yahoo leagues at the moment. There’s probably a bit of correlation there, but with the outfielder nearing a return – he’s currently on a rehab assignment with Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma – now’s the ideal time to add him if he’s been dropped in your league or trade for him in dynasty formats.

Because even with the injured list stint and even though Kelenic has cooled off considerably after a strong start, the outfielder has still shown impact fantasy potential.

The 24-year-old is batting .252 with a .320 on-base percentage, 11 home runs, and 12 stolen bases in 362 plate appearances this season, making all sorts of loud contact, with a .466 xwOBAcon, a 49.5% hard-hit rate, and an 11.0% barrel rate. His 32.6% strikeout rate and 33.2% whiff rate likely damper a smidgen of the excitement of that quality of contact numbers, but there’s significant upside.

At worst, Kelenic is a quality starting outfield option in leagues with 10 or 12 teams, not just for the rest of 2023 but moving forward in dynasty formats as well, especially those with more than three starting outfield slots. That’s all particularly true, considering his ability to bring power and speed production with plenty of hard contact. At best, he could be a league-winning outfield option.

The outfielder hit .308 with a .366 on-base percentage, seven home runs, and three stolen bases in 101 plate appearances in March and April. And while he was unable to maintain that type of production all season, he does have the ability to go on that kind of a tear at the plate.

It’s worth noting that Kelenic had a 27.7% strikeout rate during that stretch. Those metrics rose considerably in the intervening months, but the outfielder was posting a 29.3% strikeout rate in July before landing on the injured list.

Jarred Kelenic Strikeout Rate By Month:

March and April: 27.7%
May: 34.8%
June: 37.4%
July: 29.3%

If he can keep the strikeouts down, relatively speaking, and continue to make plenty of loud contact, improved production could be on the horizon.

Furthermore, the added bonus of him still being on the injured list (for now) is that fantasy managers with an injured list slot available won’t have to drop anyone for the time being.

Dynasty Addition/Trade Target of the Week

Nolan Gorman (2B, 3B – STL)

Don’t let the .230 average or the .320 on-base percentage this season fool you; Nolan Gorman has been very good this season. Specifically, he’s been elite when he’s made contact.

The 23-year-old is enjoying a breakout season at the plate, logging a .352 xwOBA, a 48.4% hard-hit rate, a 15.6% (!) barrel rate, and a .483 xwOBAcon in 435 plate appearances. He’s also added 24 home runs and six stolen bases in the process for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Like with Kelenic, there’s some strikeout concern here. Gorman is punching out 32.2% of the time this season, a metric that sits in the sixth percentile league-wide.

However, while the strikeouts remain a bit of a constant, the infielder is making all that quality contact while keeping his groundball rate on the low side of things. In 2022, he registered a 27.2% ground ball rate. This year, it’s risen a bit to 28.7%. The strikeouts obviously have a bit to do with that, but it’s still a decidedly elite number. Among hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, only Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts, and Jack Suwinski have a lower ground ball rate.

As long as the ground ball rate and quality of contact metrics continue at the rate they have been, Gorman could be in for a monster fantasy season or two (regardless of the strikeouts) if his BABIP plays nice for a season (or even an extended stretch).

Right now, the former first-round pick’s BABIP sits at .291, just below the .297 league average. His BABIP was .301 last year when the infielder was a rookie. If it ever pushes into the .320 or .330 range, Gorman could be in for an elite fantasy season.

That’s the ceiling.

The floor is pretty good, too. He is a 20-30 home run infielder eligible at both second base and third base (where he’s currently eligible in Yahoo leagues) who can fill in at both fantasy positions while also providing some stolen base production to go with quality contact.

He’s an ideal trade target for fantasy managers.