RADIO
Louie Varland is a fantasy baseball waiver wire pickup for pitchers heading into Week 8 (2023). Target Varland as a free agent pitcher on the waiver wire.
BALLER MOVE: Add in all leagues
ROSTERED IN: 16% of leagues
ANALYSIS:
Varland is the priority pick-up under 50% owned this week. What he's done in his three starts has been really impressive. Here's the whole list of pitchers this year with 3+ GS, a K% above 27%, a BB% below 9%, and a SwStr% above 15%:
| Pitcher | GS | K% | BB% | SwStr% |
| Pablo Lopez | 8 | 31% | 7% | 16.3% |
| Luis Castillo | 8 | 28% | 5% | 16.3% |
| Cristian Javier | 8 | 29% | 5% | 15.7% |
| Clayton Kershaw | 8 | 29% | 5% | 16.2% |
| Kevin Gausman | 7 | 34% | 4% | 15.6% |
| Joe Ryan | 7 | 27% | 4% | 15.2% |
| Hunter Greene | 7 | 29% | 9% | 16.4% |
| Freddy Peralta | 7 | 27% | 8% | 15.5% |
| Louie Varland | 3 | 28% | 7% | 15.5% |
It's a smaller sample size for Varland, but for what it's worth – he was absolutely dominant in the minor leagues (40% K%, 6.5% BB%).
To say more, Varland has above-average SwStr% on three different pitches, his four-seamer (12.4%), his cutter (15.9%), and his changeup (22.7%). To that he adds a decent slider, so he has a lot of different ways to go. We learned this week that Tyler Mahle is done for the year needing Tommy John surgery, so there is a long-term spot in the rotational available now and I think Varland is going to take it and keep it.
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