Eric Cross' Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Pickups - Hitters and Pitchers (Week 20)

Eric Cross' top fantasy baseball waiver wire adds for Week 20 of 2025 (August 11 - August 17). His favorite free agent hitters and pitchers under 40% rostered.

Just like that, we've blown past the two-thirds mark of the 2025 Major League season and have under two months remaining in the regular season. For those of you in head-to-head formats, that probably means your playoffs start in four or five weeks. It's now crunch time of the fantasy baseball season, and time is running out to make your team better for the playoff or championship push.

The players below are all under 40 percent rostered in Yahoo! leagues. Some of them might already be rostered in your leagues, but if they're available, I'd recommend considering them to see if they could be good fits for your fantasy teams.

Last week's recommendations were Andrew Vaughn, Warming Bernabel, Lenyn Sosa, Colson Montgomery, Kyle Manzardo, Randy Rodriguez, Dennis Santana, Cole Sands, and JoJo Romero.

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Luke Keaschall (2B - MIN)

43% Rostered on Yahoo

I'm going to slightly break my 40% threshold rule here for Luke Keaschall as his roster rate should be double what it currently is. Keaschall has three straight multi-hit games since coming off the IL a few days ago, and is slashing .406/.513/.656 in 39 plate appearances with the Minnesota Twins, along with a home run and five steals.

First game back off the IL, first Major League homer for Luke Keaschall!

MLB's No. 42 prospect (@Twins) is hitting .400 with a 1.256 OPS to begin his big league career: pic.twitter.com/IaDgnWqMYF

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 5, 2025

While Keaschall was never the buzzy prospect with huge power or speed, he was long considered one of the better pure hitters in the minors thanks to a .294 average and .411 OBP in 162 career minor league games with a 13.6% walk rate, 16.9% strikeout rate, and a contact rate above 80% at every level he played at. Keaschall is also an above-average to plus runner with enough power to be a 15-20 homer bat annually.

Keaschall should get plenty of run with the Twins down the stretch, so if he's still sitting on your league's waiver wire, I'd highly recommend scooping him up immediately.

Jakob Marsee (OF - MIA)

19% Rostered on Yahoo

Similarly to Keaschall, Jakob Marsee has enjoyed a nice start to his Major League career. In his first 29 plate appearances, Marsee is slashing .435/.552/.826 with a home run, two steals, and as many walks as strikeouts (6).

With a player like Marsee, you need to know what you're getting. There's not a ton of power upside with Marsee, who has mostly been a below-average power bat throughout his time in the minor leagues. However, the quality of contact wasn't terrible in Triple-A this season with an 87.3 mph AVG EV, 32% hard-hit rate, and a 9.3% barrel rate. But where Marsee can really provide value is with his legs, as he's a plus or better runner who swiped 47 bags in 60 attempts this season in Triple-A.

On top of that, Marsee has consistently made contact at a high clip in his professional career, including an 85.7% zone and 79.5% overall contact rate this season in Triple-A before his promotion to Miami.

Isaac Collins (OF - MIL)

19% Rostered on Yahoo

One of the more impressive rookies who hasn't been talked about enough this season is Milwaukee's Isaac Collins. In 307 plate appearances this season, Collins is slashing .290/.393/.432 with seven home runs and 13 steals. He has a shot at a 10/20 rookie season while hitting for a high average and posting an elite OBP. But even with that, Collins is still available in over 80% of Yahoo leagues.

Under the hood, Collins has posted a solid 82.2% zone and 76% overall contact rate while only chasing at a 19.2% clip. He's also walked at an elite 13% clip while keeping his strikeout rate in check at 22.5%. Collins will never be considered a masher or a burner, but he does have a 39.9% hard-hit rate and 88.5 mph AVG EV this season, and is around a league-average runner.

Given his ability to do a bit of everything while hitting third regularly for the Brewers, Collins is worth a look in all 12-team leagues or deeper if you need an outfielder.

Carlos Correa (3B/SS - HOU)

37% Rostered on Yahoo

Carlos Correa is once again a member of the Houston Astros following a trade deadline move, and I'm banking on a strong end to the season for him back with the team that he spent nine years with before signing with Minnesota entering the 2022 season.

It hasn't been a big season for Correa so far in 2025, which is why he's still available in over 60% of Yahoo leagues. In 397 plate appearances, he's slashing .276/.330/.399 with just eight home runs. But in seven games since returning to Houston, Correa is slashing .379/.455/.552 with two doubles and a home run.

Overall this season, Correa has been hitting the ball hard with a 47.5% hard-hit rate and a 91.1 mph AVG EV, while making plenty of contact with an 86.5% zone and 78% overall contact rate. He's just been limited by a higher 48.1% groundball rate.

Matt Wallner (OF - MIN)

12% Rostered on Yahoo

I've already given you a speed target and an AVG/OBP target, so why not a power target? Anyone who has ever watched Wallner knows that he has some of the best raw power in the game and can hit home runs in bunches, as he has lately. Wallner has already smacked six home runs in 73 plate appearances since the all-star break while slashing .259/.397/.638 with nearly as many walks (13) as strikeouts (16).

For the season, Wallner is now up to 16 home runs in 274 plate appearances with a 15.1% barrel rate, 91.7 mph AVG EV, and a 47.2% hard-hit rate. However, that had come with a lowly .218 AVG due to his usual low 70.9% zone and 63.4% overall contact rates.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that he's going to hit for a decent AVG over the remainder of the season or that he'll even get back to his 2023-2024 batting average levels, but if you need some power and can stomach the lower average, Wallner is a fine target right now.

Cade Horton (SP - CHC)

39% Rostered on Yahoo

Given how well he's been pitching lately, it's surprising to see Cade Horton still available in over 60% of Yahoo leagues. Horton hasn't allowed an earned run in any of his last four starts, totalling 22.2 innings, and his season ERA is now down to 3.18 in 79.1 innings with the Cubs. But while the ERA has been low for Horton so far, so has the strikeout rate. Horton has struck out just 18% of the batters he faced so far this season. Even over these last four starts, Horton has only racked up 16 strikeouts.

Cade Horton, Wicked 84mph Sweeper. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/w5UV3Nn2WW

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 20, 2025

However, with that said, there are reasons to be optimistic about his strikeout rate rising moving forward. Horton's two most-used secondary offerings behind his 4-seamer are his mid-80s sweeper and upper-80s changeup. Those two offerings have a 41.3% and 52.5% whiff rate, respectively. Horton also has an above-average 27.4% whiff rate overall, which is 2.4% higher than the Major League average.

Jacob Lopez (SP - ATH)

26% Rostered on Yahoo

After a four-start rough stretch from June 26 to July 21, Jacob Lopez has righted the ship over his last three starts, where he hasn't allowed an earned run in 17 combined innings. Lopez is also coming off the best outing of his career on Friday, where he tossed 7.2 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts while allowing just three hits and zero walks.

For the season, Lopez now sports a 3.59 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 9% walk rate, and a 28.2% strikeout rate across 77.2 innings of work. Among the 139 pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched so far this season, Lopez ranks tied for 11th in strikeout rate and 22nd in K-BB rate. He also ranks 40th in BAA and 33rd in SIERA.

There's plenty of red on his Baseball Savant page as well. Outside of a lower groundball rate and lower fastball velocity, Lopez ranks in the top-33% of pitchers in xERA, xBA, AVG EV allowed, whiff rate, strikeout rate, barrel rate allowed, and hard-hit rate allowed this season.

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