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
Javier Sanoja (2B, 3B, SS, OF – MIA)
There are two key factors here in terms of why you should add Javier Sanoja.
First and foremost are the matchups, which can often play a crucial role in determining fantasy start-and-sit decisions or which player to add via waivers.
Sanoja and the rest of his Miami Marlins teammates have arguably the best upcoming fantasy slate for the rest of the week. Or rather, the best upcoming fantasy slate you could draw up on paper.
The Marlins opened play on Monday in Colorado for four games against the Rockies before heading West for a matchup on the road with the Athletics.
Per Statcast, the ballparks of those clubs rank third and first, respectively, in overall park factor this season.
So, that’s a key part of it. That Sanoja has three multi-hit games in the last 11 days doesn’t hurt either.
But really, it’s the matchups; the Rockies and Athletics have the third- and fifth-highest FIP numbers in the league.
The infielder is striking out just 10.7% of the time in 196 plate appearances so far this season and has a lifetime 11.5% strikeout rate in 574 career Major League plate appearances.
And while his lifetime ISO at the game’s highest level is just .130, making plenty of contact on the road against the Rockies and Athletics is a recipe for fantasy success. Sanoja might only be a short-term fantasy addition, as the Marlins will eventually face much better pitching staffs in Seattle and Cleveland.
JP Sears (SP – SDP)
JP Sears is more of a deep-league addition for now, but if he’s able to stick in San Diego’s rotation, he could provide solid rest-of-season fantasy production.
Somewhat similar to Sanoja’s upcoming schedule, ballparks play a key factor here.
The Padres’ home stadium is tied for the second-lowest overall park factor this year, per Statcast.
Also, per Statcast, dating back to the start of last season, only the Mariners’ and Rangers’ home ballparks have a lower overall park factor.
And while Sears has struggled with elevated barrel rates in the past, he’s generally been anywhere from good to above-average at limiting walks. The veteran ranked in the 82nd percentile with a 6.2% walk rate last year and logged walk rates of 7.2% and 6.5% in the 2024 and 2023 seasons, respectively.
Even with elevated barrel rates, Sears finished in the 30th percentile last season at 9.4%. San Diego’s ballpark should help him limit the damage in that regard moving forward.
The 30-year-old might not be someone to keep in fantasy lineups when the Padres are on the road in a hitter-friendly ballpark, but at home and in other road starts, he has the potential to provide quality fantasy production.
Case in point, in his first start with the National League West ballclub this season, Sears held an Atlanta lineup that enters play this week with the 10th-most runs scored to just five hits, two earned runs and a pair of walks in 5.2 innings while striking out five.
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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.
