Waiver Wire Week 22 - Amed Rosario, League Winner?

Probably not. But if the Yankees decide to actually use him as their offense flounders...who knows!

Braxton Ashcraft

His transition from bullpen to rotation has gone seamlessly. Like last week, Ashcraft continues to be one of the easiest adds of the year - there's some ace-quality stuff here.

It seems like Ashcraft has discovered his 4-seam and slider are his dominant complimentary pitches after experimenting with his pitch mix throughout the 2025 season. Their usage has never been higher, while his other pitches find themselves below the 20% mark, when his curveball was at one point used more than any other pitch. This is working well, as his slider has become a fantastic putaway pitch.

Dylan Beavers

.484 OBP.

This guy has some of the best plate-vision in all of baseball, with the tools to make it work. Not much else to say after all I've said, just enjoy. Beavers may be the best leadoff man in baseball in 2026.

Parker Messick

Messick couldn't have fared much better - 6.2 IP, 1 ER, 6Ks, 1 BB. An absolutely dominant start is certainly one way to begin an MLB career.

Going into the start, the narrative surrounding Messick basically claimed that he was a guy with good pitch shape and location, compensating for stuff that may be below average. But after his first start, Frangraphs projects Messick with a 104 Stuff+ grade alongside a blistering 115 Location+.

By my estimation, the Slider is doing the heavy lifting here, as it was his only pitch with a respectable xBA.

4-seam - .303 xBA

Changeup - .289 xBA (44% whiff!)

Slider - .139 xBA

According to the expected numbers, Messick had a lot of luck guiding him through his first MLB start. But as with all things in life, nuance is required. Messick is a dude with pinpoint location and a funky deliver that helps him deceive hitters and induce poor contact, as evidence by his 99th percentile Hard-Hit %. When it comes to Messick, we'll need to look beyond the expected numbers as we monitor his progress.

Welcome to the bigs.

Jeremiah Jackson

I know, I know....this isn't the sexiest statcast we've had the pleasure of looking at. Everything is cold to the touch aside from the Hard-Hit and Average Exit Velocity percentiles, which clock in well above average. His current .333 BA is betrayed by a .221 xBA, and his .792 OPS well outpaces his .318 xSLG. Is hitting the ball hard and getting lucky the only thing supporting this nice start to Jackson's career?

Jeremiah Jackson isn't pulling the ball in the Air, but his overall Air % clocks in at a respectable 55 % mark. And it certainly seems like he has the power to make this kind of profile work. But there's something else flying under the radar here - think Miguel Andujar.

That's right, he has a 21.9% Straight Ground rate, alongside 21.7 % Pull Ground rate! Much like Miguel Andujar, Jackson tends to take advantage of holes between 2nd and 3rd, while compeltely avoiding anything oppo.- seriously, he currently has a 0.00% oppo ground ball rate. If the shift were still legal, Jackson would probably be dead on arrival, but alas!

His ideal attack angle also comes in hot at a nice 55.4% mark, further showing that he has something going on here beyond the frosty statcast metrics. And when those catch up to some of the marks we saw at AAA....look out.

Lars Nootbar

It seems Nootbar is finally starting to get it going again, slashing .385 with an .847 OPS over the past week. When a guy has a statcast this nice, you have to keep tabs on the actual production, and now's the time to add Nootbar as he seems to be fully recovered from that oblique strain.

The first image is his batting profile since August 10th. The latter, his batting profile on the season.

Note that he now has a 0 degree pull tendency and an intercept point that is 3.2 inches in front of the plate, vs the 6.1 inches he had all year. One change that may be the causal factor in this equation is his distance off the plate - now 30 inches, as opposed to 27.4 on the season. This change in pull tendency makes him less predictable, and could be the reason why he's currently hot as fuck.

Darrel Hernaiz

I have a feeling that Hernaiz will be a guy we flirt with on this blog for quite some time, and for good reason - he's excellent at making contact and consistently puts the ball in play. At age 24, his 90th percentile whiff rate, 90th percentile BB rate, and 95th percentile K rate are all mightily impressive across his first 69 ABs.

But let's be honest - until this translates into some power, he's always going to be a fringe streamer with upside. Still, though, we can't deny that he's been excellent over the past week and has contributed to some winning baseball. We'll be following Hernaiz and any adjustments he makes.

Amed Rosario

This may be the most interesting player this week, and entirely unexpected. You may have not know this, but Rosario is now a Yankee. And you may not remember, but Rosario hit .280 last year. That's not too shabby, even if it came with the caveat of virtually no power.

But now it's 2025, Rosario has five HRs in 159 ABs, and his bat speed is higher than it's ever been (at least since Statcast began recording bat speed). In 2024, Rosario had a meager 40th percentile bat speed. Across 159 ABs in 2025, he currently boasts a tremendously improved 60th percentile bat speed. And with that increased bat speed, we're seeing power metrics unlike anything we've ever seen from Rosario. I guess that explains how he's currently hitting .289 with a .772 OPS! This is an exciting one, so let's look into the mechanics!

As we previously mentioned, the jump in bat speed from 71.8 mph to 73.1 mph is substantial. His ideal attack angle is slightly higher in 2025, but the noticeable difference here lies in his stance angle, and distance off the plate and depth in the box. His stance is 6 degrees more open, he now has less distance between his feet, and he's much further from the plate - a whole 4 inches away vs his 2024 mark of 22.6 inches. Hs attack direction is now 5 degrees pull, vs 1 degree pull.

Rosario has made enough major adjustments to consider this as being a breakout year for a hitter who has always had some solid contact ability. If he can now find some consisitent playing time on the Yankees....well....Amed Rosario could be a league winner by way of hitting after Rice and Judge.

Yoan Moncada

It seems like forever ago that we had our "You Down Yoan" Waiver Wire Piece, and almost immediately following that writeup, Yoan's nagging injuries arrived like clockwork.

But as we wind down the season, not only is Yoan once again healthy, but absolutely thriving at the plate. His power metrics all clock in well above the 50th percentile:

80th percentile Avg. Exit Velocity

85th percentile Barrel

75th percentile Hard-Hit

And with those power metrics come a respectable 55th percentile sweet-spot and 50th percentile squared up. Make no mistake, Yoan is actually nice this year - he has both the power and launch angles to be a threat at the plate. And if his numbers were extrapolated over the course of say, 450 ABs, we'd be looking at a 25-30 HR hitter in 2025. Not bad for an afterthought and stopgap on a shit team, eh?

Yoan has absolutely mashed as of late, but more specifically, over the last two contests. Three dingers in two days will certainly have people taking note, and has also improved his OPS on the season to .808. That's solid.

Quite a few runs to RF

Brooks Baldwin

I don't mean to use hyperbole, but this is huge.

Brooks Baldwin, I believe, is finally having his break out, and at the perfect time for savvy dynasty managers to buy low before the 2026 season. His metrics have slowly climbed from the icy blue depths of statcast irrelevancy to middling across a bunch of important metrics:

55th percentile Average Exit Velocity

50th percentile Barrel

50th percentile Hard-Hit

55th Percentile Sweet Spot

50th Percentile Squared Up

45th Percentile Whiff

That may not necessarily seem great in a vacuum, but think of it this way - to lift up percentiles that were meandering in the 20th-30th percentile range in the early part of the season, he's had to play at a 60-70th percentile rate for an extended period of time. He's been absolutely excellent for over a month and his OPS may reach the .720 mark by season's end - a tremendous improvement over his 2024 OPS of .566.

For me, the age 26 and 27 seasons are truly the make or break moments for prospects who have something to prove, and in the case of Brooks Baldwin, I think he's right on track. Then you add in the fact that the 2026 White Sox will have Montgomery, Teel, Quero, Meidroth, Robert Jr, and Sosa (who is showing something right now), and suddenly there may just be opportunities for counting stats on an underrated offense.

Warming Bernabel Mr. Bernabel continues to defy the odds and mash baseballs, though his expected batting average supports the current .308 BA.....maybe this is real? Last time we discussed Warming, we pointed to his tremendous Pull Air % as the driver of his success. Let's see how that's faring two weeks later:

It was obvious he was never going to maintain a 30%+ Pull Air %, yet his 20% is both solid and extremely maintainable for a guy who also excelled in this area back at AAA. This is a good sign, and makes Bernabel a more confident recommendation.

As long as he continues to pull the ball for those cheap shot HRs, as you see above, then everything is all good out in Coors. Also noteworthy is the cluster of singles to the right of second base - he can thanks his 24% Pull GB rate!