Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Week 4
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Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Week 4

Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Week 4

There goes Chris Colabello for 80 games. As they say though, one mans loss is another persons gain! That holds especially true for the Toronto Blue Jays. In this week’s Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire article, I’ll be breaking down the biggest must adds, players you can cut ties with, two-start pitchers and the latest trends going into the Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Week 4!

Must Adds:

Justin Smoak – 1B – Toronto Blue Jays
1% Owned
OPP: 3 vs CHW, 3 @ TB

With Chris Colabello out of the lineup for the foreseeable future due to a suspension, Justin Smoak takes over as the starter at first base. His wOBA is .378 to start the year so he’s having no trouble getting on base, his power numbers (like most of the Jays lineup) just haven’t come around yet. In deep mixed leagues, at 1% owned, Smoak is a low-risk high-reward player you can “wait-and-see” with.

Jordy Mercer – SS – Pittsburgh Pirates
5% Owned
OPP: 4 @ COL, 3 @ CIN

Against lefties, Jordy Mercer is the leadoff man for the Pirates. Against righties, he slides down the lineup a bit. Regardless of where he hits, he seems to be producing. His K% is down from 17.9% to 13.0% and his BB% is up from 6.3% to 9.7%. With 11 RBI to start the year, Mercer is producing in a position that is terribly hard to find production from.

Drops:

J.T. Realmuto – C – Miami Marlins
32% Owned
OPP: 4 @ LAD, 3 @ MIL

J.T. Realmuto’s offensive struggles are supposed to be highlighted by his base stealing abilities. Unfortunately for fantasy owners, he hasn’t been coming through. There seems to be no signs of life in his bat, either. Last year, he was hitting the ball hard 29.3% of the time. This year he’s down to 15%. With catchers seemingly coming out of nowhere this year – it’s safe to cut ties with Realmuto in 10-12 team leagues.

Mallex Smith – OF – Atlanta Braves
12% Owned
OPP: 2 vs BOS, 2 @ BOS, 3 @ CHC

The Mallex Smith hype has certainly worn off. He was called up as a highly touted prospect and many jumped to the waiver wire to scoop him up. He has an alarming 15 strikeouts in 37 at bats. He was supposed to make up for any offensive struggles by scorching the basepaths. Two stolen bases just isn’t going to cut it.

Two Start Pitchers:

Kendall Graveman – RHP – Oakland Athletics
7% Owned
OPP: Apr 25 @ DET, Apr 30 vs HOU

Kendall Graveman is the most intriguing option out there this week. Only five SP have both a 60% or higher groundball percentage and a 10% or higher swinging strikeout rate. Noah Syndergaard, Felix Hernandez, Steven Strasburg and Masahiro Tanaka are the first four and Graveman rounds out the list (H/T to @StephenNickrand for the stat!). He’s been implementing his slider more often (up to 13.7% from 8.4% last year) and that’s been dancing around the strike zone.

NOTE: Graveman is the only two start pitcher this week but an honorable mention goes to Ross Stripling (25% owned). If Stripling dazzles against Miami, scoop him up for his appearance against the lowly Padres later in the week.

Trends:

Blake Snell – LHP – Tampa Bay Rays
34% Owned
Triple-A Durham

Unless it’s a keeper league – I’m not usually into stashing prospects but Blake Snell has changed my mind. Used for a spot start, the Rays top prospect went five innings giving up one run and striking out six against the Yankees. The Rays desperately need some pitching help as it stands. Chris Archer hasn’t been performing well (Don’t panic Archer owners – he’ll come around) and Jake Odorizzi hasn’t been the greatest either. Blake Snell has shown the Rays what he can do and he’s definitely worth a stash in 12 man mixed leagues.

Thanks for reading! If you have any MLB DFS or season long questions, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter @BESTofMATT

Episode 013: Fantasy Baseball Joe Pisapia

Episode 013: The Fantasy Coach Podcast

Fantasy Baseball Edition: All Star Break Special

Featuring Joe Pisapia (@JoePisapia17) Fantasy Black Book

About My Guest: Joe Pisapia is the author of the #1 Best Selling Fantasy Baseball book in the Kindle store three years running, and is launching his new Fantasy Football series this season called The Fantasy Football Black Book 2014 Edition. He is also the co-host, with Dan Strafford, of The Fantasy Black Book Show on SiriusXM Fantasy Channel from 10 PM to 1 AM every Saturday night.

Episode Summary: Joe and I talk about some of the most important story lines in fantasy baseball at the All Star Break. We cover everything from players we expect big second halves from to former Cy-Young winners we may want to stay away from. This episode is loaded with excellent fantasy takes as well as examining why some players may be struggling this year because of things that happened last year.

Episode Breakdown:

Intro
We get to know Joe and talk about his show on Sirius XM as well get into some of the ways RPV can help fantasy sports players.
Players Discussed: Cliff Lee, Shelby Miller, Andrew McCutchen, Andrew Cashner, and many, many more.
The Coach’s Office: Will Eric Hosmer be a top 10 first baseman in the second half? Will Tim Lincecum keep up his recent form? Can I drop Shelby Miller for Jake Odorizzi or Kevin Gausman? Who should I trade away: Jared Weaver or Jake Shields?
Waiver Wire Adds for the second half of the fantasy baseball season
Outro

You can Download this episode as well as the previous three on Itunes and Stitcher Radio.

Thank Yous For Episode 013: I want to thank my buddy, Joe Pisapia, for coming on the podcast and sharing his fantasy baseball knowledge with me, and especially with my audience. I would also like to thank C-Quel for providing the intro music as well as the outro beat. You can Find all of C-Quel’s current music available here.

Waiver Watch

Waiver Watch: Pitchers For Week 1

Starting Pitchers:

James Paxton: The flame thrower from Seattle started out of the gates fast. The big thing with Paxton is you’ll get a nice bump in strikeouts and strikeouts are as hard as homers to find and there’s nothing like picking up a nice supply week 1 of the Fantasy Baseball season. Jump on while you can and look at my Mariners’ article for the reasons why I love this team.

Scott Kazmir: Fantasy Baseball owners were not believing that Kazmir could do it again. The funny thing is people drafted Ubaldo Jimenez even though he signed with the Orioles to pitch in a hitter’s park in a nightmare of a division, but wouldn’t touch Kazmir in Oakland. I wasn’t going to overpay for Kazmir in drafts, but I did take him pretty late where I could and picked him up off the waiver wire where he went undrafted because he was just too good to be sitting there. He’s available in a lot of 12 team leagues and that just shouldn’t be the case. Go grab him and hope he holds up physically.

Jenrry Mejia: Mejia can pitch. He’s a lot like Johnny Cueto and looks like a lesser version of Pedro Martinez. Think…Pedro towards the end of his career. He’ll throw a hook in any count and spot a fastball that only runs 90MPH, but looks 97 after his off speed pitches. He would have been a lot of analysts favorite sleeper if he had won the 5th starter job for the Mets earlier in Spring Training. Don’t expect big K numbers, but he’ll help your ERA and WHIP.

Erasmo Ramirez: The Eraser is a personal favorite of mine, but not because I think he’s going to be a top 30 starter or anything. It’s just the way he pitches. He spots his fastball and puts a little on and takes a little off all while having a very good change up. I think his ceiling is Kuroda-esque.

Jake Odorizzi: I have no doubt that Odorizzi is going to have a big impact on many fantasy teams this season. I think he has the ability to pitch well enough to have the Rays think twice about giving Hellickson back his rotation spot and he could keep his spot if David Price is moved before the trade deadline. Odorizzi is one of these young starters that actually found a change up that works early in his career. If he can continue to hone that change up he can help you win your league.

Nate Eovaldi: Eovaldi is an underrated commodity in fantasy baseball right now. The Marlins are an up and coming team (that is currently playing above their talent level on offense) that should help Eovaldi continue to build on his skills. He is an injury concern and is known as a one-pitch pitcher, but he has tried to work in a league average change up that just might make his hard sinker look even harder.

Closers:

Before I start, I know that many of you have had these guys picked up already in your leagues. These lists are mainly for Fantasy Baseball GM’s that do weekly waivers or Faab.

Sergio Santos: Santos is one fill-in closer that I would actually target. There is no guarantee that Casey Janssen will make it back quickly and even if he does, Santos may have already nailed down the closer’s role. Of the injury fill-ins he’s my top guy.

Jose Valverde: I was lucky enough to watch a lot of the Mets’ spring training (wait did I just say I was lucky to watch that?, Oh never mind.) and it was clearly visible that there was something wrong with Bobby Parnell. His velocity was way down and he had no command. Luckily for the Mets they had given Valverde a shot to make the team and now it looks like he may be the closer for the rest of the year. (I know that Parnell may try to rehab, but I have my doubts that it will work.) The Mets have some decent starters (Gee, Wheeler, and Mejia) and not much offense so there should be some opportunity for Valverde to get some saves.

Francisco Rodriguez: K-Rod is back in the closer’s spotlight thanks to Jim Henderson being out of sorts. The Brewers strongly hinted that the job will be Henderson’s if and when he gets his stuff together. Personally I would stay away if I could, but if your league weighs saves heavily then you could do worse than K-Rod.

Josh Fields: Bo Porter, Houston Astros Manager, is going with the company line that his relievers just get outs when called upon. I think Fields will get the bulk of the early opportunities and if he pitches the way he did the other night when he nailed down his first save against the Yankees, he may just shift the company stance.

Matt Lindstrom/Nate Jones: An injury to Jones slowed hi this spring and it gave Matt Lindstrom the chance to win the White Sox closer’s job out of Spring Training. Both have struggled so far, but I think it will eventually be Jones that wins the job. For now I would stay away unless I had unlimited DL spots and then I would take a chance on Jones since he’s currently on the DL for a Glute problem.

Jonathan Broxton: Broxton looks to be the closer in Cincinnati until Aroldis Chapman is fully recovered. Broxton should be coming off the DL some time next week and Hoover has pitched himself out of the temporary closer situation. The Reds have a very good rotation that could lead to a bunch of opportunities for Broxton in the short term.

***Check Back Tomorrow For Position Players***