Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Targets - June 4th
I have this new idea to have a different fantasy-centric post every day of the week, driven by automation like the other ones are.
The weekend post I have in mind would be waiver wire targets, hitters and pitchers. I haven’t scripted it up at all yet, but eventually, this will just be a printout of lists of players and certain stats and leaderboards and whatnot along with my commentary and recommendations.
The nice part about that is that I can get the stuff out quickly and therefore reliably, and I can add more or less additional commentary and refinement depending on how much free time I have. I can’t really commit to doing anything regularly at this point that isn’t largely automated, as my free time is pretty restricted. But with Python doing most of the work, a lot of things are possible.
So it’s possible that over the next few weeks you see my come up with daily posts that are new to you all. The idea would be to have a different topic for each day of the week, but I don’t know - we’ll see where this idea leads.
I figured I’d start it off today, quickly - with some names to consider adding for the week ahead. This is not automated, so it’s going to be quick and a bit clunky. I might have to stop writing this post at any given moment, so let’s get to going.
Last 3 Weeks :: OPS Leaders :: Low-Owned Hitters
Zach McKinstry certainly should be rostered, as he’s been hitting very well all year long and just hasn’t been picked up because #Tigers and because he has a longer history of mediocrity. It was pretty hard to believe that a lot of the success wasn’t flukey, but it’s continued - and he’s been awesome these last three weeks.
Matt McClain has shook off a slow start and has hit pretty well in the bigs so far. He was a first round pick and was a guy just crushing minor league pitching. He’s maintained a .333/.398/.507 line with a 9.4% Brl% and a 26.5% K% that has been rapidly descending. He’s must-own, I think - so he’s probably already gone in your leagues. A lot of these low-ownership figures are driven by those dead leagues that you find a lot of on Yahoo and ESPN (my ownership numbers come as an aggregate of ESPN and Yahoo in case you’re wondering).
Jeimer Candelario is a pretty interesting target as well. I don’t really view him as a guy with much upside, but he’s never been bad, and he’s on a new team here and taking some advantage. He’s a decent counting stat guy even when he eventually calms down a bit - he’s nowhere near a 1.000+ OPS guy, obviously.
Last 3 Weeks :: BRL/PA Leaders :: Low-Owned Hitters
Ozuna just continues to mash. What a confusing guy he is. Ryan Noda gives you some empty power as a guy on the Athletics (low counting stats) with a high strikeout rate (low batting average).
Jake Burger is probably the most believable name on the list. He’s been hitting for a ton of power ever since last year, and just hasn’t battled some injuries. He’s a bit of “empty power” as well, it’s not really fair to say that about Noda and not Burger, but the sample size is more believable with him - and he has some of the highest swing speed in the league.
Last 3 Weeks :: K-BB% Leaders :: Low-Owned Pitchers
I’d say MacKenzie Gore should be universally owned, and Edward Cabrera should be pretty close to that. Braxton Garrett has been phenomenal since a disastrous start against Atlanta. The names here I’d be avoiding in all leagues would be Greinke, Weaver, and Hill. The other names I think you can consider - I’d just look more into them yourself before going there. None of them are reliable at this point. Basically by the time you get to mid-May, waiver wire SPs are going to be a pretty rough group, and you’ll not often find a guy that doesn’t have some major issues (most of the time a high walk rate, like we see a lot of on this list).
Last 3 Weeks :: Strike% Leaders :: Low-Owned Pitchers
If you’re just looking for some dudes that can get you a good start by throwing a bunch of strikes and hoping for the best, there’s a decent list to go by. I like Varland, Bello, and Allen a lot for the long haul.
Okay sorry this is getting cut short, I have to go. No paywall this time, but all of these will be mostly paywalled if I go forward with the idea I gave at the beginning. Become a paid sub if you aren’t already, there’s going to be a lot more content coming here moving forward - that I am confident in!