Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Week 15
With three months still left in the fantasy baseball season, let’s figure out who to target at various positions to help our fantasy rosters.
MLB Fantasy
Waiver Wire Week 15 Waiver Options For 12-Team Leagues
Tommy Pham, OF, New York Mets (48% rostered) – With Tim Locastro on the IL and Mark Canha now playing much more of a bench, fourth-outfielder role, it’s been the veteran Tommy Pham who has been thrust into the role of starter and he has been playing out of his mind with it. Now with a start in 24 straight games, Pham is continuing the display we’ve seen over the last month-plus. In his last 30 days, Pham is hitting .337 with four home runs, five steals, and 18 RBI. That streak has moved him in the batting order to second over the last three contests as well. With this level of consistency in production and playing time, I am not sure how he is under 50% rostered at this point. Pham is doing it with both terrific on-base ability and power. His 10.1% walk rate is among the game’s best in 2023. And his .510 slugging percentage is his highest since he played 128 games with St. Louis way back in 2017. With how he is playing, this is looking like it could be another career year just like that 2017 season was.
Jeimer Candelario, 3B, Washington Nationals (38% rostered) – If you’re like me, you see Jeimer Candelario and you think he must be 35 years old by now. But that’s not even close. Even though he has been in the league for eight seasons, he is still just 29 years old and is in the prime ages of his offensive production. So far this season, he is putting together a career year with a .261/.338/.477 slash line with 12 home runs and four steals to go along with more than 40 runs and 40 RBI. The reason? He has significantly reduced his strikeouts to just barely over 20% this season and he is drawing walks at a 9% clip as well. He is lofting the ball and hitting more flyballs than ever before in his career (41.9%) and has his second-highest hard hit rate of his career (38%). Candelario is now batting second or third in every Nationals’ game and the only thing that can slow down this pace would be a trade to a contender who need a utility player of some kind.
Yainer Diaz, C, Houston Astros (21% rostered) – Stubborn old Dusty Baker keeps running no-bat Martin Maldonado day after day at catcher for the Astros. But I think that’s now just a product of circumstance until Yordan Alvarez returns from the IL or the Astros trade for another DH. Yainer Diaz is better than Maldonado at every aspect of the game of baseball this year. Hitting, defense, running, throwing out base-stealers, all of it. For our fantasy purposes, he is smashing the ball and that’s what we care about. He is hitting .253 with seven bombs and 14 RBI over the last month. In that time frame, no other catcher has more home runs (only Franciso Alvarez, 35% rostered, is tied with Diaz). Diaz had multiple stops in the minors with a slugging percentage over .500 and he looks to be the real deal standing at the plate and crouching behind it.
Kenta Maeda, SP, Minnesota Twins (44% rostered) – Many are going to glance right over Maeda’s seasonal 5.18 ERA and 1.27 WHIP without pausing to check context or recent performance. But what that does is present a buying opportunity for a pitcher who has been phenomenal since his return from injury. After he imploded for 10 runs against the Yankees on April 26th, Maeda was forced to go on the IL and did not return until June 23rd. In his three starts since returning, he has 21 strikeouts in 17 innings (three starts) to go along with a 1.59 ERA and 0.94 WHIP. I think it’s safe to say he is back, especially since has walked only five batters in three starts. His next start is likely to come against Oakland at their park, so this is a call to jump on him now before you miss that start after the All-Star break.
Aroldis Chapman, RP, Texas Rangers (46% rostered) – The first significant splash was made on the trade market in 2023 when the Rangers traded for Aroldis Chapman to help fortify their bullpen. Incumbent Will Smith blew his second save last week, and Josh Sborz has been receiving some ninth-inning work as well. At the very least, the Rangers are desperate for a right-handed option in the ninth to close out games to complement Smith. When the Rangers run into situations where they have a series of strong right-handed batters to face in the ninth, they are going to want those options which means Chapman should be in line to increase his two saves that are already in his ledger this season. It’s been a throw-back-the-clock season for Chapman with a 2.30 ERA, primarily because he has been lucky with the home run ball (zero allowed so far), but he has also risen to elite levels in strikeout rate (16 per nine innings).
Waiver Wire Week 15 Waiver Options for 15-Team Leagues
Mickey Moniak, OF, Los Angeles Angels (11% rostered) – If there was any lingering doubt that Mickey Moniak would keep playing everyday and hit at the top of the Angels’ order, all of that was put to rest when Mike Trout broke his hamate bone and will miss 4-8 weeks. Moniak may now also start to see some starts against left-handers since the Angels are so thin for bats and hope to stay in the Wild Card race. Moniak is doing everything he can by batting .289 with three home runs and 10 RBI over the last two weeks, leading off every game against a righty since June 18th. Somehow, Moniak has been in professional baseball for seven years and is still just 25 years old, so his prime years are still on the way. He is showing some of the elite contact rate and slugging percentage that he displayed in the minors which has helped him to a .631 SLG& through 36 games this season. The big change has been his ability to decrease his ground ball rate in each of his partial seasons in the majors. Starting with 62% in 2020, that is now down to 24.7% to go along with 55% fly balls.
Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Detroit Tigers (27% rostered) – On June 11th, Spencer Torkelson was given a bump up to the second spot in the lineup for the Tigers and he hasn’t moved out of that spot since. Over the last month since moving there, he has seven home runs, 14 RBI, and 18 runs in just 103 at-bats. The first 14 months since Torkelson debuted for Detroit in early April 2022 were pretty much a disaster, but he is finally finding the power groove that allowed him to have a slugging percentage over .530 at three straight stops in the minor leagues. His strikeout rate is lower than last year, his walk rate is up, and he doesn’t have the nagging injuries he dealt with in his freshman season last year. The Tigers may be going nowhere fast, but Torkelson is the bring spot. He has improved his groundball rate, his flyball rate, his swinging strike rate, and his contact rate over last season. The average might be the last thing to come with his hitting profile (he had a lot average frequently in the minors), but only 10 players have more home runs than the former first-overall pick over the last 30 days.
Colton Cowser, OF, Baltimore Orioles (30% rostered) – Somehow the Baltimore Orioles keep sending up these elite-level prospects to the majors. First, it was Adley Rutschman, then Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, and now Colton Cowser got the call. I guess that’s what a decade of ineptitude will get you – a lot of top draft picks! But Cowser may be the best of them all. He was torching AAA ball with a .330/.459/.537 line with 10 bombs, seven steals, and a crazy high 48 walks in his 56 games played in that league. Cowser flew the minors in just over two years and never had an on-base percentage below .339 at any level. Cowser is one of those hitters who could be special right away, so don’t be shy about bidding or grabbing him in your league. He can be an instant contributor, especially in OBP leagues.
Bryan Woo, SP, Seattle Mariners (39% rostered) – Does Ric Flair need to prepare to pass the “Woo!” torch soon? Seattle fans certainly think so if rookie Bryan Woo keeps up the pace over the last 30 days. He has faced some of the toughest offenses such as the Yankees, Angels, Rangers, and Giants, and come away with a 2.36 ERA, a 0.94 WHIP, and 35 strikeouts over 26.2 innings. His 12.24 K/9 and his 2.51 BB/9 are almost identical to his minor league rates and he isn’t getting unlucky with a .309 BABIP during his first six starts. He gets a depleted Houston offense on Friday night and looks to have a solid place locked into the Seattle rotation after the All-Star Break. With four solid pitches he relies on, including a 95-mile-per-hour sinker, Woo has a strong arsenal to keep this fantasy-friendly rookie season going.
Trevor May, RP, Oakland Athletics (8% rostered) – I think Trevor May is the third different Oakland closer I have recommended in this column in the first 15 weeks of the season. But A) every last save is precious in a 15-team league, and B) the Oakland Athletics have decided to start actually winning games which means some saves might be available! That makes whoever their closer will be (until the trade deadline) more valuable, and Trevor May seems to have seized control of the job. May has three saves in the last two weeks and only has one game with an earned run allowed over the last two weeks. One blowup on June 11th shot up his ERA, but May is a pitcher who is coming off six straight seasons with more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings. His BABIP is low (.242) but not crazy, and he is inducing almost 31% groundballs this year. Will he save 15 more games this season? Likely not, but May and Oakland could line up for 10-12 more throughout the next month (assuming he isn’t traded) and if you’re trying to fight and claw your way to the top of that category, May is at least worth a look.
