RADIO
The All-Star Break is a brief respite from the daily grind for fantasy managers, and a logical time to take stock of your situation. As the number of games remaining shrinks, so too does the difference any one player can make, but churning through waiver bats can lead to surprisingly buff stats in aggregate.
Most of the players who will be written up in this feature won't be the next breakout star. Some may only be useful for a brief period. A few might not provide any value at all. It's the nature of the beast; if these players were slam dunks, they wouldn't be widely available for free. We're looking for plausible upside with naught but opportunity cost. By considering a wide swath of factors including but not limited to evidence of a change in approach, favorable upcoming schedules, and plain ol' potential, the goal is simply to find as much marginal value as possible.
As a reminder, we'll be looking at pickups for shallow leagues (30-49% rostered) and deeper formats (10-29%), as well as highlighting players in the single-digits who deserve a spot on your watch list at the very least. These are your second base and shortstop waiver wire pickups for Week 16 - July 12 through July 18.
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Pickups for Shallow Leagues
Jace Peterson, 1B/2B/3B/OF, Milwaukee Brewers (44% rostered)
One of the most popular adds on the Yahoo! platform in recent days, Peterson has been scorching-hot. In the past 14 days, he ranks fifth among all players in 5x5 leagues thanks to a .390-12-2-12-2 line. It remains to be seen how long the well-traveled utility man can keep this up, but at the very least he's a hot hand worth riding.
Vidal Brujan, 2B, Tampa Bay Rays (42% rostered)
Brujan got the call to the big leagues on Wednesday as an emergency 27th man for the doubleheader the Rays were playing that day. He appeared in both games, going 1-for-6 with a run scored, an RBI, and a stolen base. After a brief on-paper demotion, they brought him back on Friday...and didn't start him in either that night's game or Saturday's. It seems unlikely that Tampa would let one of their top prospects languish on the bench, and Brujan's speed makes him instantly relevant in most formats.
Luis Urias, 2B/3B/SS, Milwaukee Brewers (34% rostered)
Urias has a pair of two-homer games in the last 11 days, along with a couple of stolen bases. In one of those multi-HR contests, he led off the game by turning on a 99 MPH fastball from some scrub named Jacob deGrom. Urias has barely been a factor in most of the other games during that span, but overall he has some solid counting stats (12 HR, 85 R+BI, 5 SB in 85 games) even if the .237 batting average leaves something to be desired.
Jonathan Villar, 2B/3B/SS, New York Mets (33% rostered)
Villar went hitless in his first nine at-bats after returning from the injured list last weekend, but has three home runs in his past two games. There's no batting average (.239) or RBI (18) help here, but the 30-year-old does have nine homers, eight steals, and 32 runs scored in his 227 plate appearances.
Pickups for Deeper Leagues
Cesar Hernandez, 2B, Cleveland (20% rostered)
As a longtime Hernandez apologist, it's strange to see him accruing value in the way he has in 2021. He's typically been a quality source of runs - with 52 in 85 games, that's certainly still the case - but he's already at 14 homers, just one fewer than his career best. And after hitting below .272 just once in six seasons as an everyday player (which is also his career mark as of today), the 31-year-old is hitting just .223. He also hasn't so much as attempted a stolen base since joining Cleveland last season. But if you need runs or homers, he can help.
Leury Garcia, 2B/3B/SS/OF, Chicago White Sox (10% rostered)
Garcia is in his ninth MLB season and has only been an everyday player in one of those years, but he's had brief periods of usefulness for fantasy managers sprinkled in here and there. We're in the midst of another as the 30-year-old has performed admirably since Nick Madrigal's (hamstring) injury pressed him into regular starting duty. In the past month, he's hit .314 with 12 runs, three homers, and 18 RBI, and much of that production has come in the last two weeks. With four eligible positions, he's a great injury patch.
The Watch List
Elvis Andrus, SS, Oakland Athletics (6% rostered)
Though he's still just 32 years old, Andrus looked like he might be cooked for most of the season's first half. Through June 10, he had hit just .207/.262/.264 with no home runs and four stolen bases. In the month since, he's put up a .290-15-2-13-4 line, good enough to slot comfortably inside the top 100 overall players in standard leagues.
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