Waiver Wire Week 5

Moisés Ballesteros, C/UT

Somehow, someway, Moisés is still only 17% owned on Yahoo. There's at least one more opportunity to grab a slugger who boasts a .400 BA and 1.098 OPS across 61 plate appearances.

He blasts the ball at a top 10 percentile rate, all while swinging with an excellent 61% ideal attack angle:

He squares up on the ball while swinging with elite bat speed:

I understand he sits a bit too often for some managers' likings, and yet, his remarkable and consistent production ensures healthy ratios and counting stats each and every week. Is it really so important you find someone who gets a few more plate appearances per week, while also perhaps posting the occasional 0-fer and sinking your ratios? Ballesteros is safe, Ballesteros is comfy, Ballesteros is life.

And that's not even considering that he's forcing the issue as powerfully as any hitter can. In no way can a manager continue to justify sitting the organizations former #1 prospect while he's competing for a silver slugger and batting title. I assure you, there's conversations happening within the walls of the Cubs' organization, whispers and internal politicking on behalf of the great Moisés Ballesteros.

Bryson Stott, 2B

Let me preface this by saying - I'm a Bryston Stott hater. The one time I rostered him, I dropped within three weeks. I've hated his wet noodle bat for years, and never quite understood any of the hype of seeing him as a potential 5-tool player.But in the midst of one of his worst season starts ever, I'm actually seeing it. This guy is somehow acing some of our tests while only slashing .257 with a .502 OPS. A lower OPS than some of the better slugging percentages in the league. Check out how strangely close Bryson finds himself to the great Moisés:

Bryson has an awesome 20.2% blasts per contact rate, and yet, zero dingers on the campaign. His hard-hit rate and average exit velocity, combined with an otherworldly squared-up rate, seem to be brining the ball deep to the warning track quite often. I have to imagine some of these balls begin to find the seats come May weather. Speaking of squared-up rate:

And this comes with a 10% improvement to bat speed, mind you - a jump from the 14th to 24th percentile here in 2026.

Should you take chance on Stott and his underlying metrics, enticing when considering his tantalizing base running ability? Perhaps. At the very least, monitor the situation. When that first dinger comes, more may follow.

Troy Johnston, OF

As you'll see below, Troy Johnston has no track record of being anything less than 'solid' going back to 2025. In 121 major league plate appearances back in 2025, Johnston slashed .277/.331/.751. Perfectly fine.

Then, in 2026 Spring Training, Johnston slashed .375/438/1.027. Awesome, but ultimately, it's still just Spring.Now we've arrived at the 2026 season, and Johnston has managed to slash .317/.371/.834. I'm not going to claim this is sustainable, but I will say this - it follows a very natural progression from his 2025 sample size, and that's encouraging!

As you can see in the graphs above, Johnston has an excellent swing path tilt alongside high blast per contact and squared up per contact rates - two excellent measurements of contact quality. And check out what that awesome swing path tilt results in:

Look at that sweet, sweet 60.9 AIR% - and for a guy that plays at Coors? Oh baby!

Joe DiMaggio Ildearmo Vargas, 2B

The sweet-spot...the squared-up...the whiff (smells good)...the xBA...the xSLG.Is this guy the greatest of all time?

His 18 game hitting streak continues, and over the span of that streak, Vargas has compiled 14 runs and 16 RBIs. Check out his Pull AIR profile:

His 55 AIR%, with 31.1% of that being pulled, is immense for his profile. There's not a whole lot of power here, but he's making the absolute most of an extremely strong Pull AIR tendency, with four of his five HRs being pulled.

There's not going to be another opportunity to snag him. After several appearances on my weekly waiver wire lists, don't expect to see him again. Farewell, Ildearmo.

Casey Schmitt, 1B/2B/3B

Did ya' see that big-ass dong today? Yeah, this guy's got the juice in 2026. I'm not really surprised - he looked this good in the second half of 2025, and we actually wrote about some of the changes he made to his swing and tendency:https://www.gerbilsports.com/post/waiver-wire-week-20-the-home-stretchI think this is real, and I think everyone should be rostering him and his multi-position eligibility. He continues to improve on the Pull AIR tendency here in 2026:

A 65.5% AIR rate and 32.8% Pull AIR is kind of nutty, and obviously, has resulted in excellent production and statcast metrics

His 16.8% blast per contact isn't look too shabby, alongside an excellent 36.6% squared-up per contact rate. He's making excellent use of his 43rd percentile bat speed and 22.2% fast swing rate! My best comp for Schmitt right now is actually Dillon Dingler, and that's not a bad thing.

Peter Lambert, SP

You've probably seen me talking about this in the discord, but man, this dude has improved big time from his 2024 stint. His iVB is up 2 inches on the 4-seam fastball, alongside a 2 mph increase...all while the arm slot has lowered. This alone has turned the 4-seam into an awesome pitch, whereas it was a liability back in 2024 -it's now a power fastball that can just straight up get by hitters. I can't stress enough how awesome it is he somehow found a way to increase that iVB while lowering the arm slot, usually it works the other way around as a higher arm slot necessitates a high iVB or it's just a straight up hittable pitch. This is just an objective improvement.

But aside from the 4-seam, this fucking slurve....it does things for me. After watching his most recent outing and looking into his pitch shape, this thing is disgusting, and winds up being comparable to Nolan McLean's sweeper - not quite as good, but extremely similar in it's movement. Back in 2024, this pitch had more drop and much less glove side break. His new slot and improved spin rates have turned it into a nasty glove side offering that doesn't follow conventional pitch shape (whereas it did in 2024). It perfectly compliments the slider and turns this "scythe" pitch shape chart into something even better.

And yet, that Slurve has technically been one of his weaker performers:

His changeup and slider have been by far his most productive pitches, coming in at respective .162 and .156 expected batting averages. And the whiff rates across the board? Every pitch clocks in above the 30% mark, with three pitches above 40% and the cutter sitting at a 50% whiff rate. Lambert is a whiff god. His changeup specifically has just been the ultimate tool against LHH, singlehandedly taking care of them on 33% usage. Any RHP that has a dominant pitch against LHH is instantly a tier above the rest. In fact, it can be argued Lambert is basically a reverse split pitcher, as his 4-seam is thrown predominantly against RHH and is the largest liability in the arsenal.

The only thing I'm seeing that gives me some hesitancy is the 83.3% hard-hit rate on the 4-seam. When it's not generating whiffs, it's being hit quite hard. This makes Lambert a risky proposition, as homers can pile up rather fast if his location is even a little bit off. But all-in-all, the pitch shape and pitch mix here is excellent and almost complete - my only nitpick is I'd love to see a standard curveball work a bit more south in shape, but that's just a very minor gripe.

Connor Prielipp, SP

Oddly enough, Prielipp, like Lambert, boasts a high velocity 4-seam that also happens to be the liability in the pitch mix. Looking at the fangraphs projections, Prielipp's awesome 112 Stuff+ is carried by a 118 slider, 172 curveball (what the fuck, must be an error), and 109 sinker (low usage). The pitch shape is excellent, and constitutes the ideal "scythe" we look for when evaluating prospects. How well did each pitch perform?

For starters, Prielipp threw that slider on a whopping 51.2% usage, and though it got beat up to a .309 BA and 62% hard-hit rate, the .216 xBA and .297 xSLG is much more encouraging. And though the 4-seam gave up no hits, it did in fact put up a .394 xBA, in line with my evaluation of it as a liability pitch, as it was at AAA. His changeup wound up being the strikeout pitch with a 33.3% whiff and 50.0% K rate and a measly .011 xBA against. And a lot like Lambert's changeup, it was predominately thrown to strong-side hitters, in this case RHH, and more than got the job done.

The 35th percentile whiff rate wasn't particularly astounding, nor was all of the hard contact given up, but Prielipp showed excellent location and the ability to make hitters chase and strikeout deep in counts. If he can continue to navigate less-than-ideal hard-hit rates, he might just wind up being a contributor here in 2026.

Austin Martin, OF

Say hello to this year's Jacob Wilson, except this guy also takes his walks and hates chasing outside the zone. Martin has finally reached his full potential now that he's bumped up his hard-hit rate, and it's hard to not recommend a 90th percentile contact/discipline guy who will keep your ratios nice and clean without much fuss. The progression from previous seasons seems entirely natural, and he's showing no signs of slowing down.

Some highlights other than the awesome statcast include a 19% Pull Air rate and 58.2% ideal attack angle. Everything looks good under the hood.

Sam Antonacci, OF, 2B, SS, 3B

Antonacci has been just quiet enough to find himself dropped across a large portion of leagues, and that's good news for those who missed out. His .351 OBP, .433 SLG, and .784 OPS all testaments to his extremely strong underlying metrics.

His .308 xBA is highlighted by 99th percentile squared-up, 99th percentile whiff, and 99th percentile K rates. Antonacci is the contact god I expected to see, and that makes me a happy man. And though he hasn't swiped a bag yet, his aggressive baserunning in the minors and now-measured 81st percentile sprint speed are a great predictor of stolen bases being just on the horizon.

Anthony Volpe, SS

Volpe has looked healthy and athletic in his rehab stint, swiping several bags and swinging the bat well - he looks much better than he did last year, when he played through a shoulder injury. It's entirely possible we're going to see a Volpe with 20/20 extrapolated production.

Juan Morillo, RP

Morillo has quickly become one of the most dominant set-up guys in the entire league, nearly pulling off the beautiful full-red here on the statcast. His 4-seam fastball is dominating both lefties and righties alike. His changeup specifically crushes lefties, while his slider and sinker take care of righties. His excellent fangraphs projections - 108 stuff+, 107 pitching+, and 114 pitching+ - back up the production we're seeing. This is no fluke. Even when he's not snagging holds, like this previous week, he's still pumping up ratios and strikings guys out.

TJ Rumfield, 1B

Rumfield has been one hell of a smooth operator, and quite frankly, isn't getting the credit he deserves. His .266/.333/.759 line is solid as hell, and actually an underperformance when considering his .273 xBA and .448 xSLG. His 25% degree Pull AIR and overall AIR of 60% will have him smoking easy dingers all summer long, especially in that sweet, sweet Coors air. Rumfield's contact ability is as reliable as they come for a hitter of his size, boasting a 70th percentile whiff rate and 79th percentile K rate. So not only is he putting the ball in play often, but he's putting it into the air a majority of the time. I think there's still more to unlock here too.

Keaton Winn, RP

Winn's splitter is currently in contention for the title of 'league's most dominant pitch.' It's rocking a .050 BA (.103 xBA), .100 SLG (.128 xSLG), 50% whiff rate, and 22.2% hard-hit rate. It's accumulated 3 run value on 61% usage, with only 94 pitches thrown. Hitters know it's likely coming, and yet, his 97 mph power 4-seam and 96 mph sinker keeps them honest.

The most interesting part of this mix is the fact that a 96 mph sinker is basically operating as a power changeup. Check out this pitch shape chart:

Because Winn is throwing that splitter his primary offering, he's basically working backwards at all time. Normally, when hitters are sitting fastball, they're waiting on something to drop in order to recognize a breaking ball or offspeed pitch is coming. And when a guy throws 97 mph, that's typically how it goes. But in this case Winn is serving you a heavy does of low spin rate splitters, and then working you up in the zone with power stuff with a power sinker and high iVB 4-seam - being worked down to up, and from 90 to 97 mph, is jarring. It reminds me a bit of Tarik Skubal and his primary changeup.

Nathaniel Lowe, 1B

Betcha' didn't know that Lowe was enjoying a bounce-back season, did ya?

Lowe's statcast is looking mighty fine, with both a bat-speed increase and squared-up increase through 34 plate appearances. His 25.4% fast-swing % in 2025 has bumped up to a 46.3% mark, and his squared-up rates have jumped from 13 to 30%. His blast rate of 16.4% comes in a bit above average and reflects the four dingers in only 46 plate appearances. His 52.5% ideal attack angle notably improved from a 47.6% mark in 2025.

Basically, Lowe is just swinging a much better bat.

The only thing preventing Lowe from being truly relevant is Sal Stewart and a lack of everyday reps - if Lowe can find himself in the everyday DH role, we might just have something here.

Andrew Vaughn

Vaughn's coming off the IL real soon. If you're needy at 1B, and don't care for Rumfield or Lowe, Vaughn could be an excellent play.

Jake Bauers

Bauers continue to ace test after test, excelling in numerous data sets and boasting the statcast to back it up. He's currently rocking a sexy .507 xSLG with a 93rd percentile hard-hit rate, and I fucking promise, he's going to absolutely mash baseballs when the weather warms up. His 72% Fast Swing / 39.8% Squared-Up Contact is one of the most impressive marks in the entire league, trailing only Oneil Cruz amongst LHH, who has had one hell of a start to the camapign.

Whether I'm looking at blast percentiles or squared-up rates, Bauers just won't go away. He's a pest who just wants to be noticed.

Want more content where we examine bat tracking stats and discuss it in a discord dedicated to fantasy baseball (and other stuff)? Or maybe just some prospect breakdowns, like unknown pitchers at AA? Come check out the Patreon, where I post stuff like this weekly: https://www.patreon.com/posts/our-next-data-156415619?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link We try to predict future success that doesn't quite make it to the weekly waiver wire, whether they be prospects or guys who aren't producing enough to wind up here. Even if you're a free member, you can join the discord and hang out :)