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.
Grant Taylor (SP, RP – CWS)
The Chicago White Sox have recorded four saves since the calendar turned to August.
One went to Steven Wilson, as it happens, on the first day of the month. Following that, Jordan Leasure registered a save on August 2nd.
The third went to Grant Taylor on Sunday, and Leasure recorded Chicago’s most recent save on Tuesday.
With a 44-77 record, the White Sox aren’t likely to see too many save chances down the stretch.
The fact that Leasure has two of the team’s last four saves suggests he might be the favorite on paper and the reliever to add for fantasy managers. But Taylor looks like the better bet for saves fantasy-wise.
Leasure’s recent few saves only underscore Taylor’s under-the-radar upside.
First and foremost, Taylor is, after all, tied with Leasure for the team lead with four saves. And while the latter recorded a save on Tuesday, it was a one-out save after Mike Vasil allowed the Tigers to turn a six-run deficit in the ninth into a three-run deficit with a runner on first.
Taylor has been the White Sox’s best reliever so far, sporting a 1.0 fWAR, a 3.75 ERA and a 1.65 FIP in 24 innings this season. You can make the argument after the Adrian Houser trade that the reliever might be the Chicago club’s best pitcher full-stop. Only Shane Smith (1.2) had a higher fWAR than Taylor entering play on Wednesday.
There’s also the bat-missing metrics. To go along with the low fWAR, ERA and FIP, Taylor is sporting a 32.3% strikeout rate compared to a 9.4% walk rate this season.
While the walk rate could certainly be lower, Taylor is one of just two pitchers (the other being Aroldis Chapman) to sport both a strikeout rate north of 32% and a FIP below the 2.00 mark (minimum 20 innings).
Andrew Saalfrank (RP – ARI)
Speaking of teams that traded away veterans at the deadline, the Arizona Diamondbacks are without a surefire closer at the moment. Injuries to A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez certainly have played a part, but Arizona also dealt away Shelby Miller at the trade deadline.
With Anthony DeSclafani on the 15-day injured list (IL), and Kevin Ginkel joining Puk and Martinez on the 60-day IL, it leaves Arizona with no pitchers on the active roster who’ve logged more than one save for the National League West franchise this season.
Eight different hurlers have logged one as of the start of play on Wednesday. That list expands to nine if you include Wednesday’s contest with the inclusion of Andrew Saalfrank.
The left-hander made just 12 appearances totaling 11.1 innings in the Majors before this season. Including Wednesday’s outing, he’s at just 14 innings at the game’s highest level this season.
However, the left-hander has provided the Diamondbacks with some quality relief innings so far, pitching to a 0.63 ERA and a 2.89 FIP in 14 innings.
While the 27-year-old hasn’t logged a high strikeout rate so far — he entered play Wednesday with just a 17% strikeout rate — his ability to induce grounders at an elite rate could keep him in the mix for saves down the stretch. The 27-year-old began play on Wednesday with a 56.4% ground ball rate.
Elsewhere, unlike Taylor and the White Sox, Arizona should remain reasonably competitive down the stretch, even after several veterans (Miller, Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez) were traded and even with many veterans on the IL (Puk, Martinez, Corbin Burnes, Gabriel Moreno and Pavin Smith).
That’ll happen when your lineup is still spearheaded by Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte. As long as Arizona hovers around .500 the rest of the way, the team’s bullpen shouldn’t be hurting for save chances moving forward.
Even if Saalfrank is in a timeshare with another reliever or two, his additional potential saves could help make an impact for fantasy managers down the stretch. As long as he keeps inducing grounders at this rate, he should help keep weekly WHIP and ERA numbers down, too.
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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.