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.
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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 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.
Bryan King (RP – HOU)
With an 8-15 record as of the start of play on Monday, the Houston Astros haven’t seen a ton of save chances. Losers of four straight before Monday’s season opener in Cleveland, the Astros entered the week with five saves.
With Josh Hader yet to pitch in the Majors this season and currently on the 60-day injured list (IL), those saves have been divided between Bryan Abreu, Cody Bolton, Enyel De Los Santos and Bryan King.
Abreu looked like the early favorite for saves and a potential impact fantasy closer, too, while Hader was on the IL. However, the right-hander has struggled immensely, with a 14.73 ERA in his first nine appearances spanning 7.1 innings. He recorded more walks (13) than strikeouts (12) during that span. Abreu also allowed 13 runs, 12 earned runs, nine hits and four home runs.
Bolton’s save was of the three-inning variety, and he then moved to the rotation before landing on the 15-day IL.
Which leaves us with King and De Los Santos.
King has been the more impactful reliever of the two so far, with a higher fWAR (0.3 to 0.1), lower FIP (2.53 to 3.39) and a higher strikeout rate (26.7% to 24.1%) than De Los Santos. But we’re splitting hairs between Houston’s best relievers in a season in which their bullpen has struggled to get outs.
Entering play on Monday, only the Washington Nationals at -2.0 had a worse collective fWAR from their relief pitchers than Houston’s -1.2 number.
De Los Santos currently has two saves to King’s one, but considering King is left-handed, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him get more ninth-inning looks in more optimal matchups. Of course, that’s entirely speculative on my part.
At worst, King could be part of a time-share in the ninth for an Astros team that, while they’ve dealt with pitching injuries and ineffectiveness, still rank in the top five in the league in home runs, runs scored, on-base percentage (OBP), slugging rate, xwOBA and wRC+ as of the start of play on Monday.
Best-case scenario, King could take over the job outright. If Houston can get better production from their starters and other relievers, the 29-year-old would have top-12 fantasy potential at his position. For the season, the left-hander has pitched to a 1.80 ERA and a 2.53 FIP in eight appearances spanning 10 innings of work, logging a save and a pair of holds.
King has also turned in a 26.7% strikeout rate to go with a 6.7% walk rate while sporting a 55.6% groundball rate. The left-hander has yet to allow a barrel or a home run so far.
Regardless of whether King is in a ninth-inning time share or is eventually Houston’s top ninth-inning option, you’ll want to add him via waivers ahead of time.
Jack Kochanowicz (SP – LAA)
With an elevated 15.2% walk rate this season in his first 23.1 innings, particularly after sporting an 11.3% walk rate in 23 starts and 111 innings last season, Jack Kochanowicz might not be someone who sticks on your fantasy roster for the entirety of the season. Still, if you’re in search of short-term rotation reinforcements in the coming weeks, he’s probably someone you should consider adding now.
Despite the higher walk rate, the 25-year-old right-hander has so far pitched to a 3.47 ERA and a 4.07 FIP in four starts spanning 23.1 innings of work. His 18.2% strikeout rate ranks in just the 26th percentile league-wide as of Monday, but the Angels starter has helped make up for the relative lack of strikeouts with a 57.6% ground ball rate.
Despite the lower strikeout rate and higher walk rate, you’ll want to add Kochanowicz ahead of time before your league mates do for his next few projected starts.
Kochanowicz makes his next start on Tuesday against a Toronto lineup that has struggled to score runs at times this season. Entering play on Monday, the Blue Jays had only outscored seven other teams. Their collective 99 wRC+ wasn’t much better in terms of the league leaderboard, ranking ahead of just 11 franchises.
After Tuesday’s start, assuming Los Angeles’ rotation continues as is without any interruptions, the right-hander will face the Chicago White Sox on the road, followed by a home matchup with the New York Mets and then a rematch with the same Blue Jays.
The White Sox, it should be noted, have outscored just six other Major League teams this season. The Mets, it should also be noted, have outscored just one other Major League team.
Elsewhere, the White Sox, Blue Jays and Mets all rank in the bottom half of the league in terms of highest groundball rates, with the National League East club sporting the fifth-highest groundball rate as a team with a 45.6% number as of the start of play on Monday.
The Angels, it should be noted, have scored the fifth-most runs in the sport, setting Kochanowicz up for plenty of pitcher win opportunities in the coming weeks.
One of those might come on Tuesday against Toronto.
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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.