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.
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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.
Ke’Bryan Hayes (3B – CIN)
Ke’Bryan Hayes’ trade from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Cincinnati Reds might fly under the radar when all is said and done, considering it was made the day before the deadline, with plenty of hours left for the rest of the league to continue making deals.
While Hayes has never been a consistent power threat at the plate, reaching double-digit home runs just once in a season in his Major League career, he’s flashed the ability to contribute in other fantasy scoring categories plenty since making his Major League debut in 2020.
Hayes hit .271 in 2022 and has generally posted lower strikeout totals, with his strikeout rate never climbing above 22% in a full season. Hayes has also stolen at least 10 bases in each of the last four seasons, a stretch that includes this year.
Overall, the 28-year-old entered play on Wednesday hitting .236 with a .279 on-base percentage (OBP), two home runs and 10 stolen bases in 392 plate appearances for the Pirates.
Hayes is currently logging a 4.8% barrel rate. That number still ranks in the 17th percentile league-wide, a trade to the Reds and playing home games in Cincinnati could very well boost his fantasy ceiling moving forward from a power-hitting perspective.
Even with just a career 5% barrel rate in the Majors, Hayes’ counting stats could benefit significantly from the move. Hayes has hit 39 home runs so far in his Major League career. Per Statcast data, Hayes’ expected home run tally by ballpark for Cincinnati’s home stadium sits at 59, the highest number of any ballpark for the third baseman.
The trade to Cincinnati may not result in Hayes being a fantasy starter in 12-team leagues, but it improves his fantasy floor and ceiling considerably. He’s a solid starting option in 14-team (or more) leagues and could be a quality, short-term streaming option in most leagues when the Reds are playing a stretch of games at home.
JoJo Romero (RP – STL)
With the trade deadline officially upon us, real-life trades should continue to not only strengthen the fantasy ceiling of closers but also create ninth-inning opportunities for other relievers.
Providing he isn’t traded on Thursday, the latter could very much apply to JoJo Romero. The St. Louis Cardinals have already traded away closer Ryan Helsley and could, speculatively speaking, also trade set-up reliever Phil Maton.
Enter Romero, who currently ranks third in high-leverage appearances among relievers who have pitched for St. Louis this season. He’s also third on the team in fWAR among relievers after Maton and Steven Matz.
The 28-year-old entered play on Wednesday sporting a 2.12 ERA and a 2.89 FIP in 40 appearances spanning 34 innings of work.
Romero has struggled at times with allowing walks this season — his 10.6% walk rate ranks in the 19th percentile league-wide — the left-hander brings plenty to the table that could help him find success in the ninth inning.
So far in 2025, Romero has done well both in limiting loud contact, limiting batters to a 38.9% hard-hit rate and a 6.7% barrel rate, and in missing bats. The veteran ranks in the 64th percentile or better in both strikeout rate (24.1%, 64th percentile) and whiff rate (27.9%, 70th percentile).
Elsewhere, he’s induced grounders at an elite rate, sporting a 57.8% ground ball rate that ranks in the 96th percentile league-wide.
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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.
