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 they become the hot waiver commodity or trade target.
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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.
Andrew Benintendi (OF, DH – CWS)
Andrew Benintendi might be flying under the radar due to his team’s place in the standings and the fact that he’s hitting just .248 with a .312 on-base percentage (OBP) in 447 plate appearances so far this season. At least as of the start of play on Wednesday.
While the batting average could certainly be better, the 31-year-old has found success this season from a power-hitting standpoint. Benintendi has connected on 18 home runs to go along with a 10.8% barrel rate, a .454 xSLG and a .185 ISO. He’s also striking out just 16.6% of the time so far, a number that, when paired with the outfielder’s .258 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), could lead to an uptick in surface-level production.
That uptick in surface-level production could be happening as we speak. Benintendi’s BABIP is .298 since the start of August in 131 plate appearances with a nearly identical strikeout rate (16.8%) to his season-long total.
During that span, the outfielder is hitting .275 with a .328 oOBP, a 111 wRC+, five home runs and a .158 ISO. He’s been even more productive as of late, with a 222 wRC+ since the start of September, with three home runs in 31 plate appearances this month.
On fantasy rosters in just 8% of leagues, add Benintendi now before someone else in your league does.
Josh Bell (1B – WSH)
Bell, like Benintendi, has been a candidate for positive regression where his surface-level stats are concerned. He ranks in the 88th percentile league-wide in xwOBA with a .369 number, is striking out just 15.9% of the time and sits in the 64th percentile or better in xBA, xSLG, barrel rate and hard-hit rate. However, for the season, the veteran is batting just .231 with a .322 OBP.
All that said, Bell, like Benintendi, is on far too few fantasy rosters. Just 6% of them, to be exact, as of the start of play on Wednesday. And Bell, also like Benintendi, has been much better at the plate as of late.
The infielder, who was mentioned in this column back in July, has provided impact production at the plate in the second half.
Bell is hitting .259 with a .358 OBP, nine home runs, a 136 wRC+ and identical 12.6% strikeout and walk rates in 159 second-half plate appearances. The rostered rate is far too low.
Like Benintendi, you’ll want him on your fantasy team for the last few weeks of the regular season.
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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.
