X
Lost password?

Don't have an account?
Gain Access Now

X

Receive free daily analysis

NFL
NBA
NHL
NASCAR
CFB
MLB
MMA
PGA
ESPORTS
BETTING

Already have an account? Log In

X

Forgot Password


POPULAR FANTASY TOOLS

Expert Advice
Articles & Tools
Import Your Leagues
Daily Stats & Leaders
All Pitcher Matchups
Compare Any Players
Compare Any Players
Rookies & Call-Ups
24x7 News and Alerts

Digging Deeper - Waiver Wire Options for Week 24

Matt Wallach outlines his favorite week 24 waiver wire pickups and adds for deep leagues, and AL-only or NL-only fantasy baseball leagues for the 2021 MLB season.

Welcome back to the NL-only and AL-only pickups column. Each week, I'll look at five players who are under 15% rostered in Yahoo! leagues and who can be considered as options to add in deep-league formats, such as 15-teamers or AL or NL-only leagues.

I'll also include a recommendation for what to do with each player on your roster. And lastly, I'll take a look at some of my picks from the previous week to see how they're performing.

Without further ado, let's get into it.

Be sure to check all of our fantasy baseball lineup tools and resources:

 

Edmundo Sosa - 2B/SS, Cardinals

8% rostered
Recommended move: Add for a few weeks 

Sosa has firmly taken hold of the starting shortstop spot for the Cardinals down the stretch with the continued struggles of Paul DeJong. It makes sense considering that Sosa has played well for a Cardinals team trying to make a late-season surge towards a wild card spot.

His overall line isn't all the overwhelming at a .275/.352/.399 mark (108 wRC+), but it does show that he can be at least a competent bat for fantasy purposes. He'll provide enough in terms of batting average to make up for little power and not the most counting stats. He has, however, been playing at an even greater pace since the start of August, with a .347/.424/.583 triple slash, which seems to explain why he continues to stick in the Cardinals' lineup on a near-everyday basis. His Statcast metrics aren't the most impressive in that span, with just a 36.7% hard-hit rate and a 6.7% barrel rate, so this level of production is probably not all sustainable, but maybe he can make it last a few weeks longer and still help out some fantasy teams.

It also doesn't hurt that Sosa is dual eligible at both middle infield spots, so he does offer some additional roster flexibility. Additionally, while he isn't a super-huge stolen base threat, he does have three of them, so perhaps there will be some extra opportunities in the final weeks of the year. All in all, Sosa looks like a decent enough option, who probably won't overwhelm with his performance, but should be solid enough.

 

Lane Thomas - OF, Nationals

8% rostered
Recommended move: Add for a few weeks

Thomas was acquired by the Nationals from the Cardinals in exchange for Jon Lester at the deadline back in July. After spending a couple of weeks in the Nationals' minor league system, they called him up on August 15th, and he's done nothing but hit in that span. He's hitting at a .333/.402/.556 (153 wRC+) clip since his call-up, which is miles ahead of what he did in limited playing time for the Cardinals this season and in 2020, in which he had wRC+ marks in the 20s.

How much should we buy into this though? Looking at Thomas' Statcast metrics since becoming a National, it does look like he's hitting the ball a lot harder, which corresponds with the strong results he's gotten. His hard-hit and barrel rates of 46.4% and 8.9% are both well ahead of where they were earlier in the year and last season. His barrel rate would only be topped by what he did in a brief look for the Cardinals back in 2019 when he had a strong 13.3% rate in just thirty batted balls. We are still dealing with a small sample though, and of course, we would rather have a lot more to base this off of, but it does appear that Thomas is doing a lot of things right at the plate, with the Statcast metrics backing up his actual ones in that regard.

He could come back down to Earth in the next couple of weeks, but he's hitting too well at the moment to be ignored, and if he can make this last for the rest of the season, it'll be very worth it for a few fantasy managers out there. There's not much to worry about when it comes to playing time, either. He's been hitting leadoff for the Nats pretty much since his call up, and there really isn't any reason for the team to move him down any time soon unless things get really ugly.

 

Bradley Zimmer - OF, Cleveland

3% rostered
Recommended move: Add for a few weeks 

Zimmer has been recommended here before, and while he's not coming off the best week in which he hit at an extremely weak .167/.259/.167 line, the overall trend on Zimmer still looks to be going up, as his performance in the second half of the year has been much better than what we saw from earlier in the year and in the past couple of seasons. For the second half, it's been a .259/.327/.424 slash line, which is solid, if unspectacular.

For Zimmer, his biggest weakness is his strikeout rate. Even in the better second half, his strikeout rate is still well over 30%, which limits just how much upside he has. But when he makes contact, he does really well. His overall 39.6% hard-hit rate is his highest mark since 2018, and the same goes for his barrel and average exit velocity marks. His maximum exit velocity is a strong 113.9 miles-per-hour, which places him in the 92nd percentile of all hitters this year, and his overall wOBA on contact mark of .430 is hovering around the same area of the leaderboard as Max Muncy, Bryan Reynolds, and Trea Turner. Zimmer definitely does get good results when he puts the ball in play, the problem is that it just doesn't happen enough. While that does have an impact on just how productive a fantasy player he will be, he does look to be a good source of power for those managers that are willing to stomach a lower batting average.

Zimmer is also a good option for some sneaky stolen base potential. He has 12 of them on the season, with two of them coming since August 26th. His power-speed profile could make him more intriguing for those looking to bank some extra steals for the stretch run of the season.

 

Ramon Urias - 2B/3B/SS, Orioles

3% rostered
Recommended move: Add for a few weeks 

Starting around late June, Urias has gotten the majority of playing time for the Orioles first at shortstop and now at either second or third base. He has quietly been a solid producer, with a .280/.361/.418 slash line, which is good enough for a 118 wRC+ in that span.

It's not the most glamorous type of fantasy production, as he isn't hitting for much power or providing much of anything in terms of stolen bases or counting stats, but it is a solid profile of competency at the plate-- something that can be rather difficult to find on the waiver wire this deep into the season and in deeper formats. He's also doing it with respectable barrel and hard-hit rates of 10.3% and 41.1%, respectively, both of which are well above the league average.

While we would obviously like for there to be something extra or something that truly stands out about Urias, there isn't anything overly wrong with being a boring, steady contributor, which is what Urias looks to be. He's going to be playing every day and with triple eligibility, he can be someone that a manager plugs and plays into their lineup to fill in for a couple of days a week in case a starter is on the bench or injured. It's not glamorous, but it is useful.

 

DJ Peters - OF, Rangers

3% rostered
Recommended move: Add for a few weeks 

Peters was a quiet waiver claim by the Rangers back in early August. He did have some fanfare as a prospect at one point, mostly due to his power, which got a 70 grade from FanGraphs coming into the year. However, as is typical for huge power hitters, that came with a high strikeout rate. His 35.2% strikeout rate for the season pretty much shows this, and with the Dodgers needing the space on their 40-man roster, they felt free to let him go to waivers.

He has been doing the whole power and hitting home runs thing since joining the Rangers, as he's hit nine of them in just a little over a month. He's still striking out a ton and not walking all that much, and overall, it's a .208/.234/.467 triple slash as a Ranger, which only translates to an 83 wRC+. Yet, he's been doing much better in the last two weeks or so. He's still not walking much at all, but the strikeouts have come down to a more manageable 26.8% rate and he's still hitting home runs, with a whopping six of them being hit since August 24th. All told, it's a .264/.286/.642 line in that span. He's absolutely crushing the ball, with a 17.9% barrel rate and a 46.2% hard-hit rate, and he's doing a good job of keeping the ball off the ground with just a 33.3% groundball rate in this hot stretch, which likely is a good explanation for this power surge.

Still just 25-years-old, the Rangers will definitely be interested in evaluating what they have in Peters for the remainder of the year. He's been locked into the starting lineup ever since becoming a Ranger and in the cleanup spot most nights. It's a one-dimensional profile, in that he's going to be hitting for a ton of power and not much else, it should still at least come with some decent counting stats. If he can keep this home run binge going for a few more weeks to close out the season, he could be quite the difference-maker in deep leagues,

 

Reviewing Last Week's Picks

At the end of each week's post, I'll review what happened with last week's picks and offer a suggestion for them in the future.

Odubel Herrera (OF, PHI)  

Last week: 9% rostered. This week: 13% rostered. 

Herrera had a good week last week, albeit a somewhat one-dimensional one with a .320/.414/.320 slash line. The batting average was certainly helpful, and he should remain somewhere around league-average to slightly above league-average for the rest of the year while continuing to hit leadoff for the Phillies. He should stick around on fantasy teams going forward.

Current recommendation: Hold.

Yadiel Hernandez (OF, WAS) 

Last week: 5% rostered. This week: 3% rostered. 

Hernandez did not have a good week last week, as he had just two hits. He should still be in the lineup most days going forward as the Nationals close out their season, but it is likely that there are better outfielders available on the wire (the aforementioned Thomas, his teammate, being one of them). He seems like a safe drop.

Current recommendation: Drop. 

Jorge Mateo (2B/SS/OF, BAL)

Last week: 3% rostered. This week: 3% rostered. 

After having an unsustainable BABIP during his time with the Orioles so far, Mateo did cool down last week, as he had just four hits. He did hit a home run and drove in three, so it wasn't all bad, but he did get caught stealing on his only attempt. It's probably worth holding onto him for one more week to see if he can get something back, and the stolen base threat he poses may be too juicy to drop.

Current recommendation: Hold.  

Emmanuel Rivera (3B, KC)

Last week: 1% rostered. This week: 0% rostered. 

Adalberto Mondesi came back from his oblique injury last week and is now playing third base, so that likely will mean the end of Rivera's time as an everyday player. Rivera only started twice since September 2nd, so this is definitely not worth holding.

Current recommendation: Drop. 

Josh VanMeter (1B/2B/3B/OF, ARI) 

Last week: 0% rostered. This week: 0% rostered. 

VanMeter started just three games for the D-Backs last week with the team facing just three right-handed starters. He had just two hits in those games, and didn't do anything particularly meaningful with them. The D-Backs do face the Rangers this week, but then get the Mariners and a batch of lefty starters, so it's unlikely VanMeter makes much of an impact this week, and there isn't much of a point to roster him in that case.

Current recommendation: Drop. 



Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App

Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy baseball app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, sleepers, prospects & more. All free!



More Fantasy Baseball Advice




POPULAR FANTASY TOOLS

Expert Advice
Articles & Tools
Import Your Leagues
Daily Stats & Leaders
All Pitcher Matchups
Compare Any Players
Compare Any Players
Rookies & Call-Ups
24x7 News and Alerts

REAL-TIME FANTASY NEWS

Corey Heim

Does Not Qualify for Cup Race at Chicago Street Course
LaJohntay Wester

Stands out on Special Teams
Clarke Schmidt

Likely to Undergo Tommy John Surgery
Nolan Arenado

Scratched from Saturday's Lineup
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Starting on Saturday
Corbin Carroll

Activated from 10-Day Injured List
Cincinnati Bengals

Shemar Stewart, Bengals Continue Contract Talks, No Progress Made
Giannis Antetokounmpo

Potential Giannis Antetokounmpo Trade may not Happen Until "August, September"
Ha-Seong Kim

Removed Early During Season Debut
ARI

Christian Fischer Retires From NHL at 28
NHL

Spencer Martin Moves to Russia
WAS

Anthony Beauvillier Re-Signs With Capitals for Two Years
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Sitting Out With Foot Issue
Isaiah Neyor

Impresses at Minicamp
Houston Rockets

Jock Landale Waived by Rockets
Bo Bichette

Back in Blue Jays Lineup
Jonas Valančiūnas

Jonas Valanciunas Considering Returning to Europe
Miles Sanders

Works With Starters During Mandatory Minicamp
Jabari Walker

Signs Two-Way Deal With Sixers
Chimere Dike

Titans Could Move Chimere Dike Inside
Keandre Lambert-Smith

KeAndre Lambert-Smith not Guaranteed Roster Spot
Anthony Bradford

Working Hard to Win Back Starting Job
Byron Young

Still Improving?
Cody Simon

Jonathan Gannon has Been Impressed With Cody Simon
SirVocea Dennis

has Impressive Offseason
Trevor Penning

Could Still Have a Role in New Orleans
Jonathan Kuminga

Warriors Decline Recent Offer for Jonathan Kuminga
Orlando Magic

Moritz Wagner, Magic Agree to One-Year Deal
Clarke Schmidt

Placed on Injured List
José Soriano

Jose Soriano Throws Gem Against Braves
Robbie Ray

Earns Ninth Win in Complete Game
T.J. Watt

Likely to Reset the Edge-Rush Market
George Springer

Blasts Two Homers, Drives in Four
James Wood

Goes Yard in Five-Hit Night
Bradley Beal

Suns Discussing Potential Buyout
Los Angeles Lakers

Jaxson Hayes Staying with the Lakers
NBA

Damian Lillard "Open" to Signing With a Team This Offseason
Max Muncy

Out at Least Six Weeks
Clarke Schmidt

Leaves Start with Forearm Tightness
Colson Montgomery

Promoted to the Major Leagues
Pittsburgh Steelers

Omar Khan, Steelers Agree to Three-Year Contract
Max Muncy

Goes on Injured List With Knee Bruise
Max Muncy

Out of Thursday's Lineup
James Wood

Joining Home Run Derby
SJ

Sharks Claim Nick Leddy Off Waivers
Max Scherzer

Cleared to Start on Saturday
SJ

Sharks Sign Dmitry Orlov to Two-Year, $13 Million Contract
CAR

Nikolaj Ehlers Joins Hurricanes on Six-Year Contract
Kodai Senga

Could be "in Play" to Return Before All-Star Break
Ha-Seong Kim

Rays Reinstate Ha-Seong Kim From Injured List
Chau Smith-Wade

Having Stellar Offseason
Ace Bailey

Inks Rookie Contract With Jazz
Divine Deablo

Could be the Quarterback of the Defense
Isaiah Rodgers

a Likely Starter for the Vikings
Jacob Monk

Sees Plenty of Work With Starters
Avonte Maddox

has Impressed Dan Campbell
Boston Celtics

Josh Minott Inks Deal With Celtics
Chicago Bears

Ruben Hyppolite Shows Notable Improvement
Sandro Mamukelashvili

Heading to Toronto
Daron Payne

Commanders Coaches Impressed With Daron Payne
Danny Gray

Makes Impression During Offseason Workouts
Jared McCain

Not on 76ers Summer League Roster
Dylan Harper

Unavailable for California Classic
COL

Brent Burns Inks One-Year Deal with Avalanche
STL

Blues Land Pius Suter on Two-Year Deal
Morgan Frost

Agrees to Two-Year Extension with Flames
WPG

Gustav Nyquist Moves to Winnipeg
Cody Glass

Devils Re-Sign Cody Glass to Two-Year Deal
PIT

Anthony Mantha Joins Penguins
Cleveland Cavaliers

Larry Nance Jr. Headed Back to Cavaliers
Eric Gordon

Remaining with 76ers
Los Angeles Lakers

Deandre Ayton Joining Lakers
Emil Heineman

Signs Two-Year Deal with Islanders
Simon Holmstrom

Re-Signs with Islanders for Two Years
UTA

Nate Schmidt Signs Three-Year Deal with Mammoth
UTA

Brandon Tanev Moves to Utah on Three-Year Contract
NJ

Evgenii Dadonov Joins Devils on One-Year Deal
BUF

Sabres Snap Up Alex Lyon on Two-Year Contract
Dallas Mavericks

Dante Exum Returning to Dallas
Ryan McLeod

Inks Four-Year Extension with Sabres
NAS

Predators Bring in Nick Perbix on Two-Year Deal
Jaren Jackson Jr.

Has Surgery to Repair a Turf Toe Injury
LA

Cody Ceci Moves to Los Angeles
Charlotte Hornets

Spencer Dinwiddie Lands With Charlotte
Bud Cauley

in Great Form Ahead of John Deere Classic
Christiaan Bezuidenhout

a Player to Avoid at John Deere Classic
Jake Knapp

Riding Momentum Ahead of John Deere Classic
PGA

Sungjae Im Looking for Consistency at John Deere Classic
Ryan Gerard

a Solid Option at John Deere Classic
Rickie Fowler

Looking to Rebound at John Deere Classic
Cameron Champ

a Volatile Option at John Deere Classic
Jackson Suber

Staying Below 70 is Key to Success for Jackson Suber
Kevin Roy

Playing Better Heading into John Deere Classic
Justin Lower

Hoping for Something Positive in Illinois
Ben Kohles

a Long Shot at John Deere Classic
Stephan Jaeger

Attempts to Stop Roller-Coaster Ride
Beau Hossler

Needs a Challenge in Illinois
Harry Higgs

Has Potential at John Deere Classic
Nick Dunlap

Keeps Plugging Through Tough 2025 Season
Milwaukee Bucks

Taurean Prince Staying in Milwaukee
Kevin Yu

a Near Must-Play at TPC Deere Run
PGA

J.T. Poston Returns to John Deere Classic Looking for Another High Finish
Thriston Lawrence

a Decent Fit For John Deere Classic
Tom Kim

Not Finding Much to be Happy About Ahead of John Deere Classic
Si Woo Kim

is a Prohibitive Fade at John Deere Classic
Ben Griffin

is the Appropriate Favorite at TPC Deere Run
Daniel Suarez

and Trackhouse Racing Parting Ways After 2025 Season
Ilia Topuria

Becomes The New Lightweight Champion
Charles Oliveira

Knocked Out At UFC 317
Kai Kara-France

Alexandre Pantoja Submits Kai Kara-France
Kai Kara-France

Submitted At UFC 317
Joshua Van

Extends His Win Streak
Brandon Royval

Drops Decision
Renato Moicano

Loses Back-To-Back Fights
Beneil Dariush

Gets Back In The Win Column
Felipe Lima

Suffers His First UFC Loss
Payton Talbott

Bounces Back
Alex Bowman

Competitive Run Ends With Third-Place Finish at Atlanta
Erik Jones

Secures A Top-Five Finish After Adversity In Atlanta
Tyler Reddick

Collects A New Career-Best Finish At Atlanta
RANKINGS
C
1B
2B
3B
SS
OF
SP
RP

RANKINGS

QB
RB
WR
TE
K
DEF