This is ‘The Watchlist.’ This column is designed to help you monitor and pick up fantasy baseball players in the coming weeks and months. Whether they’re waiver wire or trade targets, these are the players you’ll want to add now before becoming the hot waiver commodity or trade target.
- Fantasy Baseball Research & Advice
- Fantasy Baseball Trade Analyzer
- Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Assistant
- MLB Prop Bet Cheat Sheet
- Rest-of-Season Projections
Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire & Trade Targets
Using underlying and advanced metrics, ‘The Watchlist’ will help you get ahead of the competition in your league and reap the rewards later from your pickups.
The players could be anyone from a prospect in an ideal situation close to the Majors, a reliever in a saves + holds league or even a starter doing well with misleading surface-level stats like ERA.
They might even be hitters with quality underlying stats. Or they could be none of those types of players and a different kind of player entirely. The point is they’ll help you find success in your fantasy league while staying ahead of the curve against your league mates.
Jorge Mateo (2B, SS, OF – BAL)
The Baltimore Orioles have struggled mightily at times this season.
They entered play Wednesday with a 23-36 record, 14 games back of the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East with an unideal -89 run differential as well.
Elsewhere, the Orioles began play on Wednesday with more runs scored than just five other teams. The team’s collective 98 wRC+ is a bit better, at least compared to the rest of the league. It outpaced 12 other Major League clubs as of Wednesday.
Still, this is a far cry from the perennial playoff contender that’s been built in Baltimore in recent years.
Jorge Mateo isn’t playing regularly for Baltimore at the moment, but with the team’s struggles, it’s possible he could see more plate appearances with his ability to play all over the field. Just this season alone, Mateo has appeared in games at shortstop, second base, center field, third base and in left field.
He’s hitting just .200 with a .254 on-base percentage and a 61 wRC+ on the season, adding a home run in just 59 plate appearances in the process. However, he’s also stolen 14 bases during that span and owns a 110 wRC+ in 34 plate appearances since the start of May.
Speculatively speaking, Baltimore seems more likely to give more plate appearances to prospects like Coby Mayo and Samuel Basallo if they end up trading veterans like Ryan O’Hearn, Ramon Urias or Dylan Carlson.
If Mateo gets a chance at extended playing time, whether it be before the trade deadline or after, he could provide impact fantasy production on the base paths — something that isn’t new for the 30-year-old.
During the 2022 season, Mateo stole 35 bases in 150 games and 533 plate appearances for the Orioles, adding 13 home runs in the process while hitting .221 with a .267 on-base percentage and an 84 wRC+.
He followed that up with 32 stolen baes in 350 plate appearances across 116 games during the 2023 campaign. Even in a sample size of 208 plate appearances (in 68 games) in 2024, Mateo still stole 13 bases.
Mateo already has 14 stolen bases in 30 games this season and could easily top his career-high of 35 if he keeps running at this rate and gets to play a reasonable amount of games the rest of the season.
Chandler Simpson (OF – TB)
Staying in the American League East, Chandler Simpson was mentioned in this column last month due to his ability to make a bunch of contact and steal plenty of bases.
Recently optioned to Triple-A by the Rays, Simpson seems like a candidate to be recalled at some point. Of course, this is all speculative, mind you, but the Rays are currently in a Wild Card position in the American League.
While their outfield has been reasonably productive so far – just 12 teams have received a better collective wRC+ from their outfielders than the Rays have — Tampa Bay is also playing a pair of outfielders who’ve struggled at the plate as of late.
Kameron Misner (95 wRC+) and Christopher Morel (98 wRC+) have both been around league average where wRC+ is concerned for the season.
But since the start of May, both have sported wRC+ numbers below 40 — 32 and 26, respectively. Elsewhere, both have struck out at fairly high rates during that span as well. Misner’s strikeout rate since the start of May is 38.3% in 94 plate appearances, Morel’s is 31.3% in 48 plate appearances.
If both continue to struggle and Tampa Bay can stay in a playoff spot, it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see Simpson recalled.
Of course, that’s all speculative on my part, but he can be an impact fantasy player on the base paths, and him being sent down might benefit fantasy managers long-term as adding him via the waiver wire now (if you have the roster space) is a decidedly different proposition than trying to work out a trade for Simpson while he was in the Majors.
Subscribe: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeart | Castbox | Amazon Music | Podcast Addict | SoundCloud | TuneIn
Ben Rosener is a fantasy baseball writer whose work has appeared on the digital pages of FantasyPros, Pitcher List and Bleacher Report. He also writes about fantasy baseball for his own Substack page, Ben Rosener’s Fantasy Baseball Help Substack. He only refers to himself in the third person for bios.
