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 next hot waiver commodity or trade target.
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 waiver wire 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 despite 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.
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Fantasy Baseball Watchlist: Waiver Wire & Trade Targets
Nick Fortes (C – TB)
Fortes is fast approaching must-add territory in two-catcher leagues. In reality, he probably is a must-add in those formats. The 29-year-old is batting .360 with a .407 on-base percentage, a .967 OPS and a home run through his first 27 plate appearances.
He’s also sporting a .357 xwOBA to go along with his usually very good contact numbers. The 29-year-old is striking out just 11.1% of the time so far, with a similarly elite 14.0% whiff rate.
The low strikeout rate is nothing new for the catcher, although it’s never been this low for a full season. Fortes has a lifetime 16.9% strikeout rate in 1,201 career Major League plate appearances.
While there were certainly other statistical factors at play, Fortes’ lower strikeout rates have never led to higher batting averages. Fortes is yet to hit higher than .230 in a season, while his strikeout rates have been between 12% and 20% in seasons in which he accumulated 200 or more plate appearances.
Most notably, Fortes struck out 12.2% of the time in 335 plate appearances with Miami in 2024, only to log a .246 BABIP and hit .227. Admittedly, a .247 xwOBA probably had something to do with that as well.
Still, the catcher’s BABIP for this season (.381) is a lot more ideal than his lifetime .252 number. As long as that BABIP stays high, Fortes is worth starting in all two-catcher leagues, particularly if he’s able to hit fifth or sixth on a regular basis as he has in the last few days. If he’s hitting near the middle of the Rays lineup with a low strikeout rate and a BABIP that’s close to even, say .320 or .330, he’s a potential starting fantasy option in standard, 12-team leagues, regardless of if said leagues are two-catcher leagues or not.
Victor Caratini (C, 1B – MIN)
Sticking with catchers, it only seems like a matter of time before the Minnesota Twins’ Victor Caratini turns things around at the plate.
From a surface-level stat standpoint, he’s hitting just .217 with a .308 on-base percentage and a .525 OPS in his first 26 plate appearances as of the start of play on Monday.
We’re obviously still dealing with small sample sizes here, but the 32-year-old’s underlying metrics tell a much different story.
As of the start of play on Monday, the veteran was sporting a .419 xwOBA, a .363 xBA, an 8.0% strikeout rate and a 10.5% whiff rate, collecting a pair of barrels on 20 batted ball events in the process.
Caratini has been slightly above league average from a wRC+ standpoint in each of the last two years, logging a 113 wRC+ in 274 plate appearances with the Houston Astros in 2024 and a 104 wRC+ in 386 plate appearances with the American League West club in 2025, so sustained quality production certainly isn’t out of the question.
Still, even if Caratini is just a short-term addition who’s a streaming option for the better part of a week or two, he’s very much worth a look for fantasy managers, as a boost for even a few weeks can make an outsized impact on a fantasy league’s standings come the end of the year. With such a low strikeout rate, strong quality of contact numbers and a .250 BABIP, it only seems a matter of time before his numbers turn around.
Add him now, ahead of time, so your fantasy team can benefit from the inevitable uptick in production at the plate.
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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 weekly fantasy baseball columns and provides weekly dynasty (top 700) and redraft (top 500) rankings updates for his own Substack page, Ben Rosener’s Fantasy Baseball Help Substack. He only refers to himself in the third person for bios.
