RADIO
The All-Star Break is traditionally what breaks up the baseball season into the "first half" and the "second half," but that is a bit of a misnomer. The Midsummer Classic is weeks away, but the actual halfway point in the season will happen this week as teams play their 81st and 82nd games right as the calendar flips to July.
It's part of what makes the baseball season so interesting. On one hand, it feels like we've been doing this forever as those cold April games feel like an eternity ago. On the other, it feels like the season is flying by and we're running out of time to climb the standings in those roto leagues. Now is the time to assess your whole roster and make moves with the second half in mind.
As a reminder, we'll be looking at pickups for shallow leagues (30-49% rostered) and deeper formats (10-29%), as well as highlighting prospects in the single digits who may get the call and deserve a spot on your watch list at the very least. These are your second base and shortstop fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups for Week 14 -- June 26 through July 2.
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Waiver Wire Pickups for Shallow Leagues
Javier Baez, SS, Detroit Tigers (44% rostered)
Confession time: I have been playing fantasy baseball for the entirety of Javier Baez's career. Over the past five years, that's been five or six leagues per season. I do not recall ever having Baez on any of those teams. He strikes out way too much. He's too streaky. His cost was way too high during his heyday in Chicago when he was winning the World Series and going to All-Star games as a member of the Cubs.
Times have changed. Baez is in the middle of a huge contract with the Tigers. He hit .238 last season and is batting under .235 this season. As a result, he's available in over half of fantasy leagues and now may be the time to enter The Javy Baez Experience.
If we look at his OPS by month, we see a sub-.600 OPS bat in April and May, but we also see a major turnaround in June (.755 OPS). What we also see is a K rate over 30% whereas early in the season he was making more contact:
Hear me out...are more strikeouts good for Baez? For context, he whiffed over 33% of the time in 2021 and still blasted 31 homers with a .265 batting average. We established earlier that Baez is a notoriously streaky hitter. If he's entering a hot streak, you'll be glad you added him now. I added him in an important league myself, let's see where this wild ride ends up.
Ezequiel Tovar, SS, Colorado Rockies (28% rostered)
Ezequiel Tovar is no stranger to the waiver wire column, but this week we're moving him up a section as he needs to be rostered in most fantasy leagues, especially ahead of a full week of home games at Coors Field.
Tovar got off to a miserable start to the year as he batted .213 in March/April. Since then, he's been on a heater. From May 1 through now, he's batting .280 with a .472 slugging percentage. Tovar entered the season as the top prospect for Colorado, struggled for a month, then was cast aside like old garbage by fantasy managers. We need to be more patient than that, especially with 21-year-old rookies. If he's available in your league, rectify that.
Waiver Wire Pickups for Deeper Leagues
Maikel Garcia, SS/3B, Kansas City Royals (28% rostered)
Kansas City's offense needed a shot in the arm and it appears to have gotten one from 23-year-old rookie Maikel Garcia. The speedster scored eight runs across his last six games and is batting .363 with a .492 slugging percentage since June 7.
Yes, that is an arbitrary endpoint to frame his hot streak, but Garcia does have his season-long slugging percentage above .400 and has five stolen bases without being caught. With dual eligibility, more fantasy managers should look to Garcia and ride this hot streak.
Luis Garcia, 2B/SS, Washington Nationals (23% rostered)
The Nationals have been a sight for sore eyes this season, but one of the bright spots for the rebuilding club has been Luis Garcia. The 23-year-old is batting .276 with a .401 slugging percentage while supporting a microscopic 11.7% K rate, which ranks in the 97th percentile in the big leagues.
Garcia is another player who got off to a rough start to the season, but since May 1, he's hitting .304 with 23 runs and 20 RBI across 45 games. Given how infrequently he strikes out, Garcia should be a good bet to help in batting average for the rest of the season while accruing enough counting stats to be an asset in fantasy.
Other Options to Consider:
- Royce Lewis, SS/3B, Minnesota Twins (37% rostered)
- Owen Miller, 2B/1B/3B, Milwaukee Brewers (20% rostered)
Prospect Watch
David Hamilton, 2B/SS, Boston Red Sox (5% rostered)
The Red Sox promoted David Hamilton last week and if your team needs stolen bases, take a look at the 25-year-old prospect. Yes, Hamilton is older and lower ranked than most prospects featured in this section, but his blazing speed can be an asset to fantasy managers right now.
In Triple-A, he had 27 steals in only 52 games. Last year at Double-A, he stole 70 bases. Seven-ty. He's not just speed, however. In those 52 games in Triple-A, he also blasted 11 homers and was rocking an 11% BB rate at the time of his call-up to go along with a K rate better than the league average. But it's the speed that should get our attention:
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