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Most breakout starters who were afterthoughts to start the year have found their way onto a fantasy roster by now. Such as Dylan Bundy, Dustin May, Aaron Civale, and even the legend that is Randy Dobnak. However, there are still plenty of young, high-upside starters to be plucked from the waiver wire.
Who to add to the backend of a rotation separates the fantasy champs from the fantasy chumps. It can make or break a head to head matchup or sink a team’s ratios in roto. Follow this list to find the players to ensure crossing the ever-approaching finish line in first place.
Players are listed in order of priority to claim on the waiver wire. *Framber Valdez narrowly exceeds the ownership percentage required to make this list. However, he definitely should be added wherever he is available.
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Merrill Kelly, Arizona Diamondbacks
44% rostered
Fantasy owners had every right to be skeptical of Kelly after his early-season success. However, now we are four starts in and he has logged a quality start in each. It’s not the kind of performances that are expected of 31-year-olds that spent their early twenty’s in the minors and their late twenty’s in the Korean Baseball League.
The pitching profile between last season and this season are fairly identical. However, so far, this season his control has been off the charts. He’s walked three batters in his four starts, the first came in the second inning of the first game, the second came all the way in the seventh inning of the fourth game, and the other was intentional.
Just like Framber Valdez, there isn’t much point in discussing Kelly much further because there is a good chance he’ll be over 50% owned by Sunday evening. If somehow, he’s still available, definitely add him and don’t think twice.
Pablo Lopez, Miami Marlins
23% rostered
The life of Pablo is looking pretty good right about now. He did great in his first couple of outings going five innings in both. Then on Friday night he came out and notched his first quality start of the season, striking out eight in six innings against the Acuna-less Braves.
It’s basically all fastball/changeup, with a little bit of his new cutter thrown in 7.8% of the time. That seems to be a good combo for the young Marlin. So far this season he has the third-highest GB rate (66.7% in the league.) But unlike Randy Dobnak and Brett Anderson whom he trails in that category, Lopez is above a strikeout per inning, and opponents are swinging and missing 14.2% of the time.
There isn’t much to say about Lopez that hasn’t already been said in all previous waiver wire articles. If his breakout isn’t crystal clear to a fantasy owner by now then that owner doesn’t deserve to have Pablo Lopez on their team. He’s the real deal and part of the reason the Marlins are the Cinderella story of baseball this season.
Zach Davies, San Diego Padres
25% rostered
Zach Davies has been everything that the Padres hoped he would be when they traded for his services this offseason. The former Brewer has been terrific in all three of his four outings this season. The only exception coming was his start in pitcher hell, aka Coors Field. Even in that start he only gave up four hits and three runs in five innings; not a disaster by any means.
After a strong seven-inning outing at Dodger Stadium, Davies is a proud owner of 2.78 ERA and 0.84 WHIP. 18 strikeouts in 22IP doesn't seem like a lot, but his 21.2 K% and 3.5 BB% so far are career highs and lows respectively.
This season the 27-year-old has basically cut his fastball usage in half, replacing it with a combination of more cutters and changeups. According to Fangraphs, Davies is throwing his 79.3MPH changeup 40.7% of the time. The 155lb pitcher is leaning on his off-speed stuff more than ever and it seems to be doing the trick so far.
Davies’s impressive numbers seem more sustainable and warranted than many of the pitchers on this list. Not only that, but he also has a two-start week against the Rangers and the surprisingly average Astros coming up. In fantasy, where most owners chase high upside, flame-throwing youngsters, Davies is too often overlooked. His ceiling may not be the highest but the savvy veteran is probably the safest bet on this list.
Dylan Cease, Chicago White Sox
24% rostered
All the people who dropped the White Sox prospect after his disastrous first outing are kicking themselves at the moment. Since then Cease has been 3-0 with two quality starts.
His last start didn’t go quite as smoothly as the 1ER in six innings would suggest. He did give up five runs and seven hits, two of which were home runs. However, the Tigers aren't the biggest laughing stock in the league like they were thought to have been.
Perhaps his ownership percentage is as low as it is because of the 1.40 WHIP and the low 16.9 K%, but a great deal of that is due to that aforementioned horrific first start. Since then it appears as though the righty has emphasized control, possibly at the expense of strikeouts. In his last game, for example, he didn’t walk a single batter and threw 69 of his 101 pitches for strikes but only logged 5Ks
By pitching over the plate more, the opponents swinging strike rate has dropped to 8.9% on the season. However, that’s a fair trade-off if it keeps lowering the walk rate that’s plagued Cease his whole career.
He’ll get another shot at the Tigers on Monday, before seeing if he can tame his former team, the Cubs on Saturday. It’s great to see that Cease is living up to the hype, even if he is finding success in a completely different way than was expected.
Chad Kuhl, Pittsburgh Pirates
6% rostered
Chad Kuhl has come out the gates hot to start 2020. He did great against the Tigers in his first start of the season. Then on Friday he “Kuhled” off a little bit, but still managed to strike out six Reds, only giving up four hits and walking one. The three earned runs he gave up were all to Jesse Winker who is swinging the bat as well as anybody right now.
On Thursdays start Kuhl should be almost fully stretched out and will be going against the Cleveland Indians who have the lowest runs per game (3.26) in all of baseball. It's definitely worth adding him just to see what he does in that start alone.
The 27-year-old has consistently finished with a mid 4s ERA in his first three seasons. Now it appears that the former ninth-round pick is diversifying his arsenal to try and take the leap from mediocre to above average. This season so far, he’s throwing fewer fastballs and changeups and more sliders and curveballs.
Kuhl is looking like he may be one of the few bright spots for the Pirates this season, grab him now before he takes the mound against the Indians.
Tony Gonsolin, Los Angeles Dodgers
10% rostered
Don’t be too upset if it’s taken a while to notice the bearded 26-year-old sitting on the waiver wire. It’s hard to add someone to a fantasy rotation when the Dodgers themselves didn’t expect him to stick around. However, he’s been so good in his first two starts it looks like the California native isn’t going anywhere. So far Dave Roberts has only guaranteed Gonsolin his next start, but if he pitches anywhere close to how he did in his first two he’s undroppable both in fantasy and reality.
In six starts and 40 total innings last season, Gonsolin finished with a 2.92 ERA and 1.02 WHIP, with help from a .208 BABIP. In 2020 he’s picked up right where he left off. After two games, he is yet to allow a run, and only given up four hits and struck out nine. Eight of which came against the Padres.
A few slight concerns with Gonsolin are first and foremost, job security. The Dodgers rotation is one of the best and deepest in all of baseball so just one shaky start may be enough for him to lose his spot. He had 13 days between starts, so clearly his services are surplus requirements.
Secondly, in his first start, he went 4IP, in the next, he went 4.2IP. It's encouraging that his pitch count went up from 63 to 81, but it'd still be nice to see him go deeper into games.
The final concern is that the former 9th round pick is having all this success with just two pitches in his arsenal. He throws the Four Seamer 44.1% of the time and the Split Finger 41.4% of the time (up 16.1% from last year.) The XBA on bother pitches are at least .100 higher than what the BA currently is. He has thrown his slider twelve times all year, and the curve nine.
With all that being said the talent is definitely there, it’s just a question of whether Dave Roberts can find a way to get him enough pitches in this stacked Dodgers rotation during this shortened season.
Casey Mize, Detroit Tigers
24% rostered
Entering the 2020 season the Tigers prospect was ranked seventh on MLB’s top ten prospect list. Since then Luis Robert, Jo Adell, and Nate Pearson have all been called up. Coming into the shortened season there was no real reason to even entertain the notion of bringing up their top prospect. However, with the last-minute playoff expansion, and the Motor City squad sitting second in the AL Central there is a lot of momentum to call up the 2018 1st overall pick.
On Friday, Tigers GM Al Avila told MLB Network Radio that the organization is going to “err on the side of caution” with the 23-year-old. It’s disappointing news, for fantasy owners who have been stashing Mize since the start of the year. However, this kind of rhetoric is commonplace in all of sports. Just a few weeks ago Joe Madden said that Jo Adell was unlikely to see action this season, and then a couple of days later he was called up. If the Tigers continue their playoff push or have an injury in the rotation the noise to call up the young phenome from both fans and the coaching staff will keep getting louder.
Mize has the kind of talent that can walk into the Majors and dominate. There has been a lot of hype surrounding Spencer Howard the last couple of weeks; well Mize’s pedigree is far superior. In order to guarantee his spot on a fantasy team, he’ll need to be added before his call up is announced. The question is just how long the wait will have to be and whose willing to use a roster spot on him in the interim. Ivan Nova landing on the IL could be the final push that the club needs to make the call.
Kevin Gausman, San Francisco Giants
12% rostered
We’ve been down this road before with Kevin Gausman. Throughout his seven-year career there always seemed to be a hot streak every season where he had pieced it all together. Then eventually it would all come crashing down.
The fourth overall pick in 2012 is such an intriguing player. He has a rather impressive career 8.36 K/9, and 2.68 BB/9, and yet he has a career ERA of 4.29. In five of the seven seasons, his FIP has been lower than his ERA, partly due to his .314 career BABIP. On the surface that seems encouraging but a seven-year career is too big of a sample size to call it bad luck. It's just who Gausman is at this point.
Fast forward to this season and Gausman is the Giant's best pitcher thus far. He has relied on the fastball a little less and thrown the changeup a little more. The righty has been dominant in every game, including his last two, at Colorado, and at the Dodgers. In that last outing, he went six innings for the first time this season and averaged 97.1 MPH on his heater. All good signs
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the former Oriole, after facing Oakland on Saturday, he has to see Mike Trout and the Angels, and then he’s back to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers again.
It should be more exciting to pick up a guy with a 25.6% K-BB and a career-low 1.10 WHIP. At 29-years-old maybe, just maybe things have clicked under Curt Young and the San Fran pitching staff. However, as previously stated, we’ve been down this road before hence his low ownership percentage. Feel free to ride the hot hand here, but this may be a “fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me” situation.
Alex Cobb, Baltimore Orioles
14% rostered
If it feels like Alex Cobb hasn’t been a fantasy-relevant pitcher in a very long time, that’s because he hasn’t. He was streamable in his final season with the Rays in 2017, but he has never come close to recapturing his phenomenal form from 2013 and 2014. Not saying that he will this season, but with all the uncertainty at the pitcher position, a bounce-back year from the 32-year-old would be a nice surprise.
After four starts Cobb’s statistics are well above what was expected from him before the season. Currently, he owns a 2.75 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and the highest strikeout rate (20.2%) he’s had since 2014. Another encouraging sign is that his fastball is sitting at a career-high 93.8 MPH.
The righty did have a moderately easy first three matchups but his performance on Tuesday against a good Phillies lineup should help silence any doubters. He held Philadelphia to two earned runs and three hits, albeit with only two strikeouts.
With that being said, it’s hard to get too excited about Cobb for a number of reasons. The primary concern is that the .182 BABIP against Cobb is the sixth lowest amongst all starters this season. Once the regression towards his average .288 BABIP begins, his numbers will definitely take a dive. Secondly, he hasn’t made it a full six innings once this season. The 87 pitches he threw in his second start against Tampa Bay was his season-high.
Essentially, the form he’s in right now is probably going to be as good as it gets, but if the former Ray can keep it up, he is definitely worth the add.
Asher Wojciechowski, Baltimore Orioles
2% rostered
For anyone in a deep league who just needs to get some innings, Wojciechowski may be someone to look at. He’s been a career minor leaguer, with his career-high in IP (82.1) coming last season at age 30. However, so far this season the situation for Baltimore and its pitching staff isn’t as dire as what was expected.
For the season, he has 15k’s and a 1.17 WHIP in 13.2 innings. His 3.95 ERA is inflated after giving up four runs in five innings to the mighty Yankees in his first start of the season. That’s a tough matchup for any hitter. Since then he’s been really effective for the second-placed team in the AL East.
So far, in a very limited sample size, Woj has used his curveball as his primary pitch, throwing it 40.3% of the time. Last season opponents hit .236 off it, this season it’s only been hit once, for minuscule 0.71 BA against. Hitters will catch up soon enough, but until they do Asher should see continued success with it.
His .229 BABIP likely means that he has some tough outings ahead but his actual matchups are relatively easy. If he is on a regular schedule, his next matchups after this week are the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, the Rays, and the Mets. Tampa has been hot lately but it’s not exactly a murderer’s row of teams.
More Young Guns to Monitor
- Elieser Hernandez
- Patrick Sandoval
- Kolby Allard
- Brandon Bielak
- Zach Eflin
- Spencer Howard
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