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.
Tyler Holton (SP, RP – DET)
With a number of relievers on the injured list (IL) and Kenley Jansen struggling to start the year, Detroit Tigers reliever Tyler Holton is a name to keep an eye on moving forward.
Will Vest recently joined Connor Seabold, Beau Brieske and Bailey Horn on the IL, leaving Kyle Finnegan, Jansen, Burch Smith, Brant Hurter and Holton in high-leverage roles.
Holton, in particular, could provide quality fantasy production moving forward, given the role he’s occupied in the Tigers’ bullpen in the past.
Holton has pitched to a 5.54 ERA and a 5.84 FIP in 13 appearances spanning 13 innings so far this season, but he’s accumulated plenty of fantasy counting stats in recent years.
The lefthander threw 78.2 innings for Detroit last season and logged a 3.66 ERA and a 4.64 FIP. Perhaps most crucially for fantasy managers, he logged six pitcher wins and 17 holds while also making six starts.
Turn the clock back to 2024, and Holton registered seven pitcher wins, eight saves and 14 holds in 66 appearances spanning 94.1 innings of work.
Whether it’s as an opener, a multi-inning reliever or a high-leverage option, Holton has found plenty of success for both the Tigers and fantasy managers in years past.
With a bullpen somewhat short on options at the moment, it could only solidify the left-hander’s importance in the bullpen.
Holton is an under-the-radar reliever to add for potential ancillary save chances, and brings increased pitcher win upside thanks to his potential role in the Tigers’ bullpen.
Antonio Senzatela (SP, RP – COL)
Sticking with relievers who are under the radar saves options, Antiono Senzatela might actually have a more direct pathway to regular save chances this season than Holton.
The Colorado Rockies hurler has been excellent in his first full season in the bullpen, pitching to a 0.46 ERA and a 1.98 FIP in 19.2 innings so far. Those 19.2 innings have come in nine appearances and have included 19 strikeouts against just five walks.
Perhaps most crucially, the former starter has already collected a pair of saves to go along with a win and a hold.
The Rockies reliever is tied for second on the team in saves after Victor Vodnik, who paces the team with four. However, Senzatela far and away paces all traditional Rockies relievers with a 0.7 fWAR. What’s more, Vodnik has struggled at times, particularly with home runs.
So far this season, Vodnik has pitched to a 7.82 ERA and a 5.36 FIP in 12.2 innings, giving up 4.97 walks and 1.42 home runs per nine frames against 7.82 strikeouts per nine innings.
The Rockies’ home ballpark limits Senzatela’s ceiling somewhat, as well as the fact that he could (speculatively speaking) be a trade candidate come July if the team trades away veterans this summer.
Still, as a potential ninth-inning option for those looking to add saves, as well as help their weekly ERA and WHIP numbers, the former starter is a quality option to add ahead of time.
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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.
