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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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 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.
Phil Maton (RP – CHC)
Activated from the injured list (IL) on Monday, the 33-year-old Phil Maton might be flying under the radar from a fantasy perspective for a few reasons.
First and foremost, he struggled to a 13.50 ERA and an 8.38 FIP in five appearances and four innings before landing on the IL. The early-season struggles certainly haven’t been the norm for Maton in his career. The veteran has logged an ERA below the 3.90 mark in the last four seasons and a FIP below 3.80 in five of his last seven full seasons.
Second, there are the overall struggles of Chicago’s bullpen.
Cubs relievers entered play on Monday tied for the fourth-lowest (-0.1) fWAR with the league’s 11th-highest FIP (4.34).
Closer Daniel Palencia hasn’t allowed a run in five innings but is currently on the IL. Ben Brown paces the team in fWAR and owns a 2.65 FIP in 19 innings, but has been primarily used as a multi-inning reliever so far.
That meant Caleb Thielbar stepped in as the team’s closer. He logged two saves and two pitcher wins in 11 appearances this season (to go along with a 3.12 ERA and a 5.32 FIP in 8.2 innings) before also landing on the IL himself.
Speculatively, Brown looks like the team’s best option on paper, but he hasn’t thrown fewer than two innings in an appearance this year.
If Maton returns to his past effectiveness on the mound, he may be an impact relief option, not just for the National League Central club, but for fantasy managers as well.
Last year, the 33-year-old made 63 appearances, pitching to a 2.79 ERA and a 2.60 FIP in 61.1 innings. For the season, he registered a career-best 1.5 fWAR while also accumulating five saves, four pitcher wins and 22 holds.
Perhaps most notably, he ranked in the 95th percentile or better in all of the following categories: xERA (2.84, 92nd percentile), xBA (.195, 95th percentile), whiff rate (36.2%, 98th percentile), strikeout rate (32.5%, 95th percentile), barrel rate (3.6%, 98th percentile) and hard-hit rate (30.7%, 99th percentile).
Other fantasy managers might try adding Brown via waivers, given his current run of form. However, given his multi-inning outings this year, the Cubs’ bullpen struggles in general and Maton’s past effectiveness, the latter might be the more impactful, long-term fantasy option.
Jack Perkins (SP, RP – ATH)
Sticking with late-inning relievers, Jack Perkins has been an impact fantasy reliever so far for the Athletics. He’s made six appearances for the American League West club, pitching to a 3.18 ERA and a 1.80 FIP.
Opposing batters have logged a 46.4% hard-hit rate and a 7.1% barrel rate against the right-hander, but he’s been excellent at missing bats and limiting walks, with a 41.5% chase rate, a 33.3% whiff rate, a 31.3% strikeout rate and a 6.3% walk rate.
Perhaps most crucially for fantasy managers, Perkins has two pitcher wins and two saves in his six appearances this year.
Joel Kuhnel leads the Athletics with four saves so far, but both Perkins and Mark Leiter Jr. have two each. Hogan Harris has registered another.
And while Kuhnel owns a 2.16 ERA and a 2.53 FIP in 8.1 innings, having allowed just one walk and no barrels, he hasn’t missed bats at an above-average rate. The reliever has struck out only four batters, and his whiff rate sits at just 20.4%.
Elsewhere, both of Perkins’ saves have been two-inning saves, but he has collected each of the Athletics’ last two saves. Even in a potential timeshare, the right-hander would be a quality fantasy relief option in most fantasy leagues, given his ability to miss bats. With Kuhnel’s save total so far, Perkins may be flying under the radar for other fantasy managers. You’ll want to add him now while that’s still the case.
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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.
