Welcome to Waiver Wire Watch, where I review my favorite waiver wire adds and drops for each week of the MLB season.
The premise is pretty straightforward. I’ll try to give you some recommended adds each week based on recent production or role changes. When I list a player, I’ll list the category where I think he’ll be helpful or the quick reason he’s listed. I hope that it will help you determine if the player is a fit for what your team needs or not.
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For a player to qualify to be on this list, he needs to be UNDER 40% rostered in Yahoo! formats. I understand you may say, “These players aren’t available in my league,” and I can’t help you there. These players are available in over 60% of leagues and some in 98% of leagues, so they’re available in many places and that can hopefully satisfy readers in all league types.
MLB: New York Yankees at Cleveland Guardians
Arizona’s Jordan Lawlar and Toronto’s Addison Barger make their rankings debuts.
Waiver Wire Hitters
Victor Scott II – OF, STL, 39% rostered
(EVERY DAY ROLE, SPEED UPSIDE)
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Situations like Scott’s confuse me. Everybody was rushing to add him last year, and it didn’t pan out. Now, Scott is hitting .264 with 13 steals on the season, and people don’t seem to want to pick him up. Two weeks ago, I posted an article about hitters who could be worth adding/trading for based on their contact rates and swing rates. Scott popped in that article. There’s more detail in the article, but I like a lot of what he’s doing in terms of his swing decisions. I need him to focus more on line drives and hard groundballs, and I think we could see a strong stretch of production in the coming weeks. Chandler Simpson – OF, TB (27% rostered) is also still available in a lot of leagues. I don’t get it. He’s hitting .301 with nine steals and 15 runs in 25 games? What did we expect him to be? He’s not going to hit for power, but he hits at the top of the order against right-handed pitching and will run whenever he gets on.
Rhys Hoskins – 1B, MIL: 37% rostered
(POWER UPSIDE, FINALLY HEALTHY)
This is my third week with Hoskins in this column, but I’m going to keep him here until people buy in because he’s hitting .285/.389/.445 with five home runs and 24 RBI in 43 games. I bought in on Rhys Hoskins during spring training because he talked about being fully healthy after ACL…