Waiver Wire Week 16 - No Break For The Waiver Wire

Hello friends, and a warm congratulations on making it to the all-star break! It always seems like the baseball season will last indefinitely, but as is always the case with good things, the flow of time will soon take our happiness. Pretty soon we'll be begrudgingly playing fantasy football, attempting to fill the void that is fantasy baseball, secretly daydreaming of Raleigh and Judge dongs while refs miss pass interference after pass interference, unfairly determining the outcome of games. This is why we need to make the most of baseball season! If you remember last year, I did a bunch of fun things leading up to and right around the all-star break, including a Gerbilscore tier list for position players. https://www.gerbilsports.com/post/introducing-gerbil-score-2b-ss-tier-list I have plans to possibly bring that back, with some tweaks and revisions that take advantage of the new data available to us! I would love to include things like attack angles and swing/take data, and I'll have to make a new formula! I'd also love to release another pitcher tier list like this one! https://www.gerbilsports.com/post/fantasy-baseball-tier-list-take-two-sizzling-summertime-pitching-a-comprehensive-analysis-of-ove These lists took hours and hours over the course of several days, so it will all come down to how blitzed I can get and how well I can supress my ADD and can ignore my urges to play Expedition 33. We'll also make the Smashmouth inspired Waiver Wire all-star team! https://www.gerbilsports.com/post/waiver-wire-all-star-team-hitters

Masataka Yoshida

It's not all too often that a professional hiter of Yoshida's caliber becomes available right at the halfway point, so we should probably consider ourselves lucky! After hitting .289, with a .783 OPS in 2023 and .280 with a .764 OPS in 2024, Yoshida comes into the 2025 season looking to inch closer to that .300 BA, .800 OPS mark, and it's entirely possible we see it come to fruition.

Yoshida is an expert when it comes to whiff and K rates, consistently hovering around the 90th percentile in each of his MLB seasons. His ability to make contact consistently will never be in question, but rather the launch angle and power metrics. If Yoshida can manage to keep his hard-hit and sweet spot percentiles up, he may make the leap from good player to great player in the very near future. And guess what? We have something that shows Yoshida might just make that jump!

Check that out - Yoshida's ideal attack angle % has jumped from a cold 45.1% to 61.5% to start the 2025 campaign! His ability to intercept the ball later in the attack and smack the ball oppo has resulted in some better contact for Yoshida in his very limited sample size, and let's hope it's a trend we continue to see moving forward. With his stance angle changing from 12 degrees open to 19, the improvement may very well be related to an improved batting stance!

Evan Carter At 18% owned, it's clear most owners have given up on Evan Carter after his most recent slump. But he's now starting to pick it back up and has two multi-hit performances in his last 4 games. With Seager heating up and finally playing like the Seager we've all come to love, and with him the entire Rangers' offense, Carter may find himself seeing more pitches to hit in more counting stat opportunities. If you're looking to buy stocks of the red-hot Texas lineup, than look no further than a young player who posseses some serious potential, and still rocks a very respectable .267 BA and .771 OPS on the year. His 90th percentile chase % and 70th percentile squared up % may suggest that it's only up from here, as only swinging at pitches in the zone and consistently squaring up should result in hits for a guy with this much speed. Maybe we'll see some 2023 Carter in the second half.

Andrew Vaughn

So are we thinking that statcast darling and perpetual underachiever Andrew Vaughn simply needed a change of scenery to motivate him to try harder? Because now that he's on the Brewers and in the thick of the playoff race, Vaughn seems like a completely revitalized player, and what was once an empty red statcast now comes with actual production on the field. Not only does Vaughn rock solid power metrics like an 84th percentile avg. exit velocity and 83rd percentile barrel % , but also posseses some pretty decent bat-to-ball skills clocking in at a 57th percentile whiff % and 51st percentile K %. I see no reason to not take a gamble on Vaughn now that he's on the Brewers, considering we were willing to gamble when he was on a miserable White Sox lineup. The potential has always been there for Vaughn, a 1st round draft pick that has twice finished with an OPS around .750.

Kyle Bradish If you were excited for Eury, then you should be eqaully excited for Bradish. Bradish has ace-level talent and should be returning shortly after the all-star break, so congratulations if you've stashed him in your IL, you're getting league-winning potential! Before TJ surgery in 2024, Bradish had one of the most beautiful pitcher statcasts you'll ever see, both K'ing batters, inducing groundballs, and limiting hard contact at elite percentiles. It's rare you see a guy with 90th+ percentile K, GB, and har-hit percentages, but Kyle Bradish is a rare type of pitcher! And with the surgery well in the past, it's possible we see Bradish come out of the gate with even higher velocity than we've see from him. Imagine a Bradish averaging 97 mph on the 4-seam....oh baby!

Dylan Beavers It's been months since we discovered the potential of Beavers before most in the fantasy community, and since then, he's only gotten better. Beavers remains my #1 player to stash in the NA slot and will most likely be called up before the end of July. Beavers is currently hitting .308 with an .884 OPS, has 10 dingers, and a remarkable 20 stolen bases. Everything about his profile screams 'generator of offense,' yet the Orioles consider to trot out the same old tired lineups, and even as a I type this, have been completely shut out by Eury and the Marlins. But go ahead Orioles, continue to ignore the guy who can steal bases at will, has a stupid .370 xwOBA, and almost never whiffs. Surely he isn't the best leadoff option, and would't help Gunnar Henderson tremendously!

https://prospectsavant.com/player/687637

Luke Keaschall Easiest IL stash next to Bradish, and with him and Beavers in the lineup? You may never lose the stolen base category again. Let's hope he comes back healthy and feels comfortable swiping bags!

Dominic Canzone Nothing has changed from last week - please add this guy.

Noelvi Marte Yet another player I dropped right before a hot stretch, but alas, I'm happy to see him playing this well. Sure, he's outplaying his expected stats by a pretty wide margin, but Marte should remain a solid contributor in mulitple categories as long as he can remain healthy (this has always been an issue). Just know that he often suffers from prolonged slumps due to contact and plate discipline issues, so remain a bit wary. The high whiff and chase rates won't be going away any time soon.

Hyeseong Kim His statcast may not be the prettiest, but when Kim makes contact, that sweet-spot % and speed out of the box carries him further than the statcast would suggest. And as a lefty who can really take advantage of RHP, Kim is better than meets the eye. There's a reason his .345 BA wildly outperforms his .265 xBA, and it has more to do with athleticism and approach than luck. But the quesion remains, is playing time arriving? Well, considering he's played more over the past week with the Muncy injury, and the Dodgers may look to make moves before the trade deadline, there's a good chance the Dodgers make moves with Kim in mind as a second half starter. We'll have to wait and see what they do with Conforto, amongst other things. But I certainly recommend holding him as the deadline approaches.

Carlos Correa Correa has five multihit efforts over his last nine games and his statcast continues to inch closer and closer to what we've come to expect from a player of Correa's caliber. Positive regression could be in store for Correa's second half, granted he stays healthy.

Garrett Whitlock Whitlock has been absolute money during this Red Sox win streak with four holds over the last week to go with this beautiful statcast. Whitlock has always been a nasty pitcher with filthy statcast metrics, and it's been a lack of health that's always held him back from being really good to great. 2025 seems to be the year he stays healthy and shows his true talent, and at only 8% rostered, his stocks have never been higher. Especially with Chapman rumored to be on the trade block.

Jared Koenig

Koenig had a bit a rough start to the season, with a few blowups really destroying his ERA and WHIP in the early going. But as of late, Koenig has been nothing but cash with zero runs given up in his last five appearances. Aside from statcast metrics that show a beautiful 94th percentile xERA, Fangraphs also loves Koenig, grading him a with a 107 stuff+ and 106 pitching+. The Brewers will continue to hand him the ball in important situations.

Janson Junk