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.
Joey Ortiz (3B, SS – MIL)
The Milwaukee Brewers haven’t had any trouble scoring runs this season. Entering play on Monday, only three other teams had outscored the Brewers. The National League Central club also ranked in the top 10 in wRC+, xwOBA, stolen bases, strikeout rate and on-base percentage (OBP).
Milwaukee’s upcoming schedule is decidedly hitter-friendly from a fantasy standpoint, only underscoring the fantasy ceiling of some of the Brewers hitters in particular.
That group of hitters includes Joey Ortiz, who is only batting .226 with a .298 OBP on the season, but has done so with a 17.5% strikeout rate. The strikeout rate ranks in the 71st percentile, while only 41 batters (minimum 250 plate appearances) have a lower batting average on balls in (BABIP).
In short, improved production looks to be on the horizon if Ortiz keeps making contact like this. Actually, continued improved production as Ortiz’s surface-level numbers already look to be in the midst of bouncing back. Since June 30th, he’s hitting .308 with a .357 OBP, a 131 wRC+, two home runs and a pair of stolen bases in his last 57 plate appearances.
And, moving forward, the Brewers’ upcoming schedule features the rest of the team’s current home series against the New York Mets and another home series against the Colorado Rockies. After that, Milwaukee will face the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels on the road.
Entering play this week, the Rockies, Giants and Angels all ranked in the top 10 in the league in terms of highest FIP. Elsewhere, the Angels and Giants had the respective lowest and fourth-lowest strikeout rates as a pitching staff.
Expect plenty of base hits in the coming weeks for Ortiz and the rest of the Brewers lineup.
Shane Drohan (SP, RP – MIL)
Sticking in Milwaukee with the Brewers, assuming the team’s rotation continues as is without any interruptions or changes, Shane Drohan will make his next two starts against the Rockies and Angels, starting with Friday’s projected outing against the Rockies.
You’ll want to add him now before another fantasy manager in your league does.
Drohan has not only been effective in general this season, with a 3.20 ERA and a .07 FIP in 76 innings for the National League Central club, but he’s also been effective as of late.
The 27-year-old has allowed three earned runs or fewer in each of his last six outings, a stretch that has seen him log a 2.70 ERA and a 3.52 FIP in 33.1 innings of work.
Facing the Rockies and Angels, he’ll get to match up with two teams who entered play this week with wRC+ numbers in the bottom third of the league.
Only three teams had a lower collective wRC+ (92) than the Rockies as of the start of play on Monday. The Angels weren’t too far ahead with a 96 number. Since the start of July, the Angels are third-worst in collective wRC+.
All told, start Drohan with confidence in both games.
There should be plenty of pitcher win potential, too. As of the start of the week, the Angels had the fewest wins in the league, while the Rockies had the second-fewest number of wins. The run differentials for the two clubs sat at -62 and -90, respectively.
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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.
