Waiver Wire Week 7 - Nacci Your Typical Player

Sam Antonacci, 2B/OF, CWS

I don't have much to add to the Antonacci discourse, other than to mention he now has two swiped bags after having zero before this week. The steals have arrived, and with that, he's officially an easy add.

You just don't see many rookies have such an instinctual knack for creating good outcomes. Antonacci doesn't chase, doesn't whiff, boasts elite launch angles, takes pitches to the body at a Rizzo-esque rate, and recognizes pitches as if he were a five-year veteran of the league. He's done this at every level of ball without fail, and at this point, it's become obvious that he possesses vision at the plate that 99% of ballplayers just don't have. You can't teach that. The power is coming, trust that 75th percentile barrel rate.

Ezequiel Duran, TEX

I want to skip to Duran here, because as it stands, he's readily available in almost every redraft league, plus plenty of shallow dynasty leagues. His sweet-spot rate is just high enough at the 38th percentile, that, in conjunction with an 80th percentile average exit velocity, 60th percentile hard-hit rate, and a fantastic bat-speed to squared-up ratio, he's got enough juice to drive the all through the gaps. Combine that with 92nd percentile sprint speed and 96th percentile baserunning run value, and we're looking at an XBH machine here.

Duran already has seven doubles and a triple in only 92 plate appearances, on top of the 2 dingers. That's 10 extra base hits in less than 100 plate appearances, good for an 11% XBH rate. And if you look below, you'll see a well-above-average 19.6% blast per contact and 43% hit into play per swing rate. The only thing currently giving me pause is this:

Ideally, we want to see our guys post positive run value over the heart of the plate, or at the very least, not accumulate a significant amount of negative run value. But as long as he keeps making good contact and taking his walks, there's a pretty decent amount of potential here. His ideal attack angle is pretty low, and yet, that could help a hitter who likes to expand the zone, if they have the strength to still drive the ball.

There's reasons for hesitation here, but with eligibility at five different positions and his current rate of production, he's worth a gamble in all but shallow leagues.

TJ Rumfield, 1B, COL

What more is there to say? Dude has five fucking dingers, a .272 BA, and a .766 OPS. And then there's the counting stats - 20 RBIs and 13 Runs. Rumfield is the real deal before the summer heat's even arrived at Coors, and when it does arrive?

Watch the fuck out.

Rumfield has a knack for knowing when to speed up his bat against a fastball, and that shows his now .305 xBA against the fastball. I'm still adamant that a .275 BA and 20 HRs is well within the cards for Rumfield this year, and that'll probably come with 70 RBIs for good measure. Why do I have so much faith? The Pull AIR%.

Rumfield's ability to speed up the bat and recognize fastballs, combined with an elite 22.1% Pull AIR, means home runs are basically inevitable at Coors this summer. It should come as no surprise that all five of Rumfield's dingers have been pulled, but we should also take note that Rumfield has two doubles and a triple to deep center-oppo. There's a good chance some of those get out with warmer weather, and that elevates Rumfield into 25 HR territory.

Carson Benge, OF, NYM

It's lovely to see Benge back above the Mendoza line, and man do his metrics look spicy. A 76th percentile average exit velocity, 88th percentile sweet-spot, and above average contact and discipline? Yeah, Benge is looking like an excellent play heading into the summer. This is the type of profile I'd expect to come with a .280 BA and .800 OPS, and he's played even better than that over the last two weeks - we're taking a .919 OPS and .316 BA over the last two weeks. That's alongside six swiped bags on the year, even though he hasn't swiped any over the this hot stretch.

Benge was a top 5 prospect for me back in 2025, and everything he's showing under the hood suggests that evaluation was correct. Even in bat tracking metrics, his blasts per contact and squared up rates impress, alongside his ability to put the ball in play. If you've been keeping up with my bat tracking data posts, you've probably seen that. If not, I'll be posting them here soon.

If Benge is available on waivers, I can't stress this enough - don't touch Waldy. don't touch Jones. This kid has already gone through the trials and tribulations of adjusting to major league pitching....and it only took a single month. To put this gently, Waldschmidt doesn't have this kind of contact quality, and Jones doesn't have this kind of contact. Benge is the perfect combination of productive traits.

JJ Bleday

Bleday's come into 2026 with an extremely powerful version of his old swing. The swing path tilt remains exactly the same at 32 degrees, but we're seeing a 3.5 mph bat speed increase and a completely new stance, going from 11 degrees open to 27 degrees open. There's less moving parts here in terms of extraneous movement, like the had and hands (though admittedly, there were never many), with the focus being primarily on a quick turn of the hips to generate power. Lots of players seem to be trying to emulate Judge's coil and fire hip mechanism, and it's working here. Check out this swing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1swg2r1/jj_bleday_hits_a_towering_blast_to_tie_things_up/

Dead center power with such a simple swing. Impressive. By opening his stance, he's opened his hips to allow a coil mechanism right after the leg kick, rather than starting closed, allowing for significantly less coil - this is just a better transfer of energy, per the laws of physics. Not everyone can pull this off, of course - there still needs to be a certain level of bat speed involved to make it work. Thankfully, the 5 mph bat speed increase that's come with the increased energy transfer, plus whatever work Bleday put into the weight room this offseason, has made it look easy as hell.

Looking at the metrics themselves, that bat speed to squared up rate is looking all-too-sexy with the 80/75 percentile ratio - not only is he swinging a fast bat, but he's getting nearly the maximum exit velocity out of the bat speed. He also happens to be not chasing, and walking at a dumb 90th percentile rate. Everything minus the whiff rate is well-above-averaged, to the point where Bleday's statcast is indistinguishable from guys like Judge and Shohei. Thanks to the bat speed and the fact that he's already doing this with a lower whiff percentile, it seems as though the room for regression isn't all too steep. Maybe if he loses the sweet-spot of the ball, we'll see slumps, as we would with any other player...but for now, he's sitting at a 99th percentile sweet-spot.

Peter Lambert

If you happened to catch that May 5th, Dodgers vs. Astros matchup, you witnessed Lambert out-dueling Cy favorite Shohei Ohtani. Lambert continues to remain an extremely high upside start with elite whiff and strikeout stuff, as evidenced by that 74th percentile whiff and 65th percentile K rate. But guess what? His ability to limit hard contact has come more into focus with his barrel rate against now sitting at the 75th percentile!

In that start agains the Dodgers, Lambert did something quite interesting - he bumped up his sinker usage from 6 to 14%, and it had exactly zero hard-hit balls on the night, despite inducing zero whiffs. This could be a lovely revelation for Lambert, whose 4-seam fastball is a boom-or-bust type offering, with high whiffs generated at the expense of hard contact. If Lambert is willing to settle for soft contact and easy outs, we'll be seeing a much more balanced pitcher going forward.

Christian Scott

Compare the pitch shape charts on the two images below, and you'll notice a few things:

The sweeper has significantly more gloveside run.There's a brand new pitch in the cutter, and it replaces the slider.

There's also new pitch in the sinker.

And that cutter? Scott's using it on 34% usage against RHH, and fuck has it been a revelation. It boasts a .100 BA, a .100 SLG, and a 25% hard-hit rate - and all against strong side hitters. This has changed Scott's entire game.

Then there's that sweeper with a 40% whiff rate, up from 23.5% in 2024. With 4.2 inches more gloveside break, it's just objectively better in 2026.

And of course, we can't fail to mention the 1.7 mph he's added to the 4-seam fastball, jumping from 94.2 to 95.9 mph, a drastic difference in velocity and well worth the cost of only an inch of iVB, which hurts even less thanks to the slightly lower arm angle.Oh, and that 3.2% usage sinker? 0.00 xBA against on limited usage. Damn. Fangraphs projecting a 107 stuff+ grade lines up with all of this improved pitch shape and increased velocity. I'm almost positive Christian Scott will pitch well enough to fend off Wenninger, and it may be someone else losing the job if Senga has to be back in the rotation.

Jesus Rodriguez

I understand this statcast looks insane, and completely unsustainable.

And yet, it looks a lot like what we've seen from Jesus through the minors:

There's been a power spike that may not be sustainable, but that power is also a product of higher velocity fastballs being thrown for strikes meeting the high-contact bat of Jesus Rodriguez. There's not many players you could point to and say "I bet that guy will actually benefit from major league pitching," but if I had to even try to pick one, it'd be this guy right here.

I've wrote about him here before, on last year's "hitting prospects to buy" list, and I'm pretty sure I referred to him as the Luis Arraez of the minors. Rodriguez has demonstrated notably elite whiff rates at every level of the minors, and on top of that, absurdly high zone contact rates. Because he doesn't tend to miss baseballs, he can generate that high exit velocity on major league pitches coming in above 95 mph, rather than the 92-93 mph you often see in the minors - that's just physics. Now I don't exactly expect the hard-hit or average exit velocity rates to remain as is, but I also think Rodriguez is capable of hovering right around the 35th to 45th percentile mark, which would be tremendous given his superb sweet-spot rates. And trust me, I believe what I'm saying - I own Jesus in two of three dynasty leagues.

Bryson Stott

After showing up on data set after data set, notably boasting above-average blast per contact rates, things are finally happening here for Bryston Stott, as predicted. Over the last 7 days, Stott boasts a .819 OPS with an absurd 12 RBIs and 6 runs, an absolute fucking counting stat maniac for all intents and purposes. That's the type of production that wins you a week singlehandedly. The crazy part, though?

I still believe the best is yet to come, based on what I'm seeing in the metrics. As long as Stott keeps blasting the ball, whiffing at an 83rd percentile rate and squaring-up at a 92nd percentile rate, there'll be a power surge coming in the near-future.

What's Bohm doing there? Hmm.

Tyler Freeman

I'm going to start calling Tyler Freeman "Mr. Consistency," because going back to last year, this kid has been a guaranteed OBP/BA machine. After posting a .289 BA and .354 OBP in 2025, we're now looking at a .275 BA and .356 OBP in 2026 - stead, expected progression for a still young player. I think people do forget that Freeman is only 26, and does have some prospect pedigree in the bones. He's earning more and more time in what can actually be consider a high-function Rockies offense...which isn't something you hear very often.

The Rockies are currently 12th in runs scored and Tyler Freeman is becoming a steady part of that, with 8 runs in 89 plate appearances, and plenty more to come as he earns more reps. With TJ Rumfield and Moniak there to drive him in, this kid is entering the realm of rosterable in deeper formats. I still think there's more potential for steals here as well, after swiping 18 bags in 2025. This is more of a wait-and-see situation - if you see Freeman play at least five games in a row, it's probably time to add him.

I'd also like to point out one more observation:

In 2025, Freeman accumulated -2 runs in the shadow of the zone. So far in 2026, we're looking at +1 run value in the shadow, with his only negative value zone being the heart. That's not ideal, but it's still better than last year, where he was negative in both the heart and the shadow. It's the small improvements that matter year to year, remember that!

Isaac Collins

It's nice to see a 2025 Gerbil guy finally starting to heat up here in 2026, as Collins now boasts a .250 BA, .738 OPS, 15 runs, and 13 RBIs. Nothing crazy, but at the same time, Collins looked a hell of a lot worse before this last week, where he hit .317 with a .990 OPS. Collins, like Stott, has surprisingly shown up a few times in the bat tracking data sets, and as you can see below, he does pretty well amongst his own team (though that doesn't really say much):

Being 4th in squared-up per contact by blasts per contact on the Royals aint' too shabby, especially when one of your close neighbors is Bobby Witt Jr. Like Stott, I expect good things to come for Isaac Collins as the season progresses, though I'm not going to recommend him over Benge or Bleday as OF options.

Zack Gelof

Remember 2023, when the A's promoted both Gelof and Soderstrom in the late hours of the night, and Gelof wound up being the better add of the two? Good times.

And for those of us who were up late on the west coast and able to snag Gelof with no resistance whatsoever, boy did we eat well. It was just hit after hit, swiped bag after swiped bag, and he helped propel struggling teams into playoff position with his eligibility across the infield.

Since then, Gelof has had numerous injuries that have just straight up sapped him of athleticism. We've seen lower sprint-speeds, lower bat speed, and diminished power for three straight years. But now it's 2026, Gelof is fully healthy, and his bat speed and sprint speed are higher than they've ever been. An athletic Zack Gelof is a productive Zack Gelof, and so here we are, holding conversations about Gelof once more.

The most impressive aspect of the statcast is the bat speed to squared-up ratio, coming in hot at 70th percentile / 50th percentile, alongside an 85th percentile chase rate. That bat speed/squared-up ratio has allowed him to hit the ball pretty hard, as evidenced by the 91.1 mph average exit velocity, and he's only swinging at the most hittable of pitches. The low sweet-spot and barrel rates do have me a bit concerned, but ultimately, he has the speed to turn hard-hit grounders into base-hits.

George Soriano, RP, STL

I've considered adding Soriano to this list for a weeks, and I think it's time. Fangraphs isn't extremely high on this guy:

101 Stuff+

89 Location+

91 Pitching+

Those are some underwhelming projections, and that's putting it gently. But there's a bit of nuance to be had here: 4-seam, .190 BA, .246 xBA Slider, .167 BA, .195 xBA Changeup, .083 BA, .102 xBA Sweeper, .143 BA, .193 xBA Four of his five pitches have a BA under .200, with and only one of those come in above .200 on xBA. Soriano's 34 degree arm slot and east-to-west breaking/offspeed with a decent 4-seam makes him a more deceptive pitcher than high velocity guys with high arm slots and north-to-south stuff. It's pretty rare to find a guy throwing 97 mph on average out of this arm slot, and even though it doesn't have a ton of iVB, it works because of how deceptive everything else is. It's not just the movement, but the velocity gaps - the changeup comes in at 89.8 mph, the slider 87.5 mph, and the sweeper 85.6 mph.

That sweeper/slider combo will really fuck with you, having that 2 mph velocity gap and similar movement profile on the same horizontal plane, but with that sweeper having a lot more glove-side break at the very end. And because he throws the slider as his primary pitch, this only winds up being more effective. Then he speeds you up with that 97 mph 4-seam, and if you sit on that, you better be ready for an absolutely elite changeup - fangraphs gives this pitch a 114 Stuff+ grade, you can clearly see how much drop it has on the pitch movement profile.

This combo of 79th percentile whiff rate and 91st percentile groundball rate is just too good to ignore, and with 4 holds since April 27th, he's clearly the setup guy in St. Louis.

Neko's surgery went well, and she's now a recovering tripod cat. We're waiting on the biopsy to confirm the cancer didn't spread before the amputation, but we're extremely optimistic - pre-surgery X-Rays showed no spread to the lungs. Thank you for the donations, subs, and kind wishes - I'll share some more pictures when she's up and about.