We are now at the playoffs of the long 2024 Fantasy Baseball season. The injury bug and underperformance trends are still rampant everywhere. Do you have any of Shane Bieber, Max Scherzer, Austin Riley, Kyle Tucker, Spencer Strider, Jacob DeGrom, Vinnie Pasquantino, Ozzie Albies, Mike Trout, Ronald Acuna Jr., or other injured stars? Chances are you do, and you will be looking to fill those gaps somehow this weekend when waivers run. Who are the players who can adequately give you some level of production with your studs out of the lineup? That’s what we will focus on in this piece today.
This weekly piece will examine five options at or under 50% rostered on Yahoo Fantasy for 12- and 14-team leagues worthy of waiver bids or claims. As the fantasy baseball playoffs get underway, we have three-fourths of a season’s sample of data from which to draw conclusions. With only about three weeks left in the fantasy baseball season, let’s figure out who to target to help our fantasy rosters.
Waiver Options For 12-Team Leagues
Connor Norby, 2B/3B, Miami Marlins (50% rostered) – Moving from the Baltimore Orioles to the Miami Marlins may not have been exactly what Connor Norby wanted this season, but it has offered him something his tenure in Baltimore really couldn’t: massive amounts of playing time. Norby has played 15 of 16 games since being called up from AAA and is hitting .284/329/.554 in the second half after .214/.214/.429 in his first-half audition. While his strikeout rate is up in the second half, so is his walk rate and his pull rate, which has helped in the power leveling up. Norby is a strong multi-position add for the rest of the year.
Austin Wells, C, New York Yankees (31% rostered) – Catcher Austin Wells is making a strong push for the AL Rookie of the Year in the second half. His odds (+210) now trail only Colton Cowser (-300) for the lead at FanDuel Sportsbook and it’s been largely due to a strong second half. He is hitting .298/.384/.508 in the second half with six home runs and 22 RBI, and has been one of the few positive aspects of the New York lineup. In August, his ground ball rate went way down and his fly ball rate went way up as he added more power to his already strong plate discipline (11% walk rate).
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF, Chicago Cubs (55% rostered) – After a rocky start to his official rookie season Pete Crow-Armstrong is now demolishing everything in site in August and September. In August, he hit .314/.375/.558 with four home runs and six stolen bases. This is the all-around player the Cubs acquired back in 2021 when he was a first-round pick the year before. Crow-Armstrong’s calling card in the Majors will be his on-base ability and his speed. He already has 26 stolen bases and that’s with two months of the season hitting under .200.
David Peterson, SP, New York Mets (50% rostered) – David Peterson is one of the most added pitchers in Yahoo leagues not only because of the hot bats the Mets are swinging right now but also because Peterson has been absolutely dominant in six straight starts. He had a career-high 11 strikeouts on Tuesday against Boston and now has a 1.81 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and 38 strikeouts since the beginning of August. Because he has so much run support right now, he has four wins since August started and gets a depleted Toronto team next time out.
Ben Joyce, RP, Los Angeles Angels (32% rostered) – If 105 miles per hour doesn’t get you excited about Ben Joyce in the ninth inning, I’m not really sure what to tell you. He is now one of the most overpowering pitchers in baseball. Joyce is the most recent candidate to move into the role for the rest of the season. Joyce has six strikeouts and a WHIP under 1.00 in his last four innings and has not allowed a run to score since August 11th. His fastball is a league-high 101.7 miles per hour and he has major strikeout potential if he is given the keys to the ninth inning sometime this month.
Waiver Options for 14-Team Leagues
Seth Brown, 1B/OF, Oakland Athletics (10% rostered) – Seth Brown was struggling early in the season and that led to a June demotion back to AAA. He came back up on July 11th and since then has been on absolute fire. He is hitting .310/.371/.504 in the second half since coming back and has six home runs in 124 plate appearances compared to seven in 209 in the first half. The big adjustment has been a massive improvement in strikeout rate (33% in the first half, 21% in the second half), and his luck swung back the other way on the home run per fly ball rate. He is now up over 16% in the second half after struggling to get 13% in the first.
Randal Grichuk, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks (6% rostered) – With Lourdes Gurriel out with an injury for at least 10 days, the Diamondbacks should turn to Randal Grichuk just about every day now. Grichuk has nine hits in his last 16 plate appearances, including four home runs as he is on a tremendous power binge right now. It has brought his average up to .283 on the year (career-high) and he has a slugging percentage of .484 (his best since 2018). What’s really helped Grichuk this year is cutting his strikeout rate. A career 25% strikeout hitter, he is only at 17% in 2024.
Victor Robles, OF, Seattle Mariners (12% rostered) – Finally free from Washington where he never lived up to lofty expectations as their former number one overall prospect, Victor Robles has found new life in Seattle. Routinely hitting first in the order, Robles now has a .282/.349/.410 line on the year with four homers and 22 steals. With a few more bags he can beat his career-high of 28 with the Nationals in 2019. He accomplished that in 155 games but has just 73 games through Wednesday for the Mariners. Credit must be given to how he has improved his ground ball rate from 52% last year to just 38.6% in 2024.
Luis L. Ortiz, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates (27% rostered) – Luis Ortiz is a great pickup in advance of his start with the Washington Nationals on Friday evening. Ortiz has allowed just four earned runs in his last 18 innings, and has struck out 17 batters in that time as he is now entrenched in the Pirates starting rotation. Since the All Star Break, Ortiz has a 3.69 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP to go along with the six wins he now carries on the year.
Calvin Facuher, RP, Miami Marlins (17% rostered) – Calvin Faucher is very far from a household name, but he is worth learning about for the last three weeks of the season. After the Tanner Scott trade, Calvin Faucher has been called upon to save three of Miami’s victories over the last two weeks and seems to have at least a time-share of the ninth innings all locked up. A closer time-share on a bad team is not ideal, but Faucher could have the upper hand with a 3.19 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 53.2 innings. He has given up earned runs only once in his last six games.
