Austin Nola (C, SDP) - Week 22 Waiver Wire Pickups

Austin Nola is a fantasy baseball waiver wire pickup for Week 22 of the 2021 MLB season. Consider adding the C if he's a free agent in your leagues.

BALLER MOVE: Add in leagues of 10+ teams

ROSTERED IN: 41% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Volume is key when it comes to streaming, especially with catchers given how many days off they typically get. Well, our options are pretty limited at backstop this week so we're going against the grain with Austin Nola. The Padres are playing just five games, three against the Dodgers at home and two vs. the Angels on the road, so there's not a lot of volume here. The 31-year-old got off to a poor start this season before spraining his knee back in May. He missed nearly two months of the year and was activated from the IL in late July. He's slashing a healthy .353/.393/.451 with five doubles and nine RBI across 17 games since his activation and should keep it going next week.

Overall, he's slashing a solid .289/.383/.392 with one home run and 20 RBI across 97 at-bats this season. That's mainly been buoyed by his recent play and there's not a big disparity between his actual stats and his expected ones (.264 xBA/.331 xwOBA/.372 xSLG). Nola also has a solid 43.8% Hard Hit Rate, 8.7% Strikeout Rate, and 9.6% Walk Rate thus far. The Padres will face two left-handers next week in Julio Urias and Reid Detmers and Nola is slashing a hefty .400/.457/.500 in 46 plate appearances against southpaws. He's been less impressive against right-handed pitching (.649 OPS in 69 PA's) but he's been outplaying Victor Caratini lately and should start against Mitch White and Jaime Barria as well. He hasn't even registered 100 at-bats this season so we should take his numbers with a grain of salt given the small sample size. However, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better catcher option on the waiver wire outside of him or perhaps Carson Kelly.

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