Eric Cross' Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Pickups - Hitters and Pitchers (April 14 - April 20)

Eric Cross' top fantasy baseball waiver wire adds for Week 3 of 2025 (April 14 - April 20). His favorite free agent hitters and pitchers under 40% rostered.

As we are now over two weeks into the Major League regular season, you should probably have a decent feel for your team and where your strengths and weaknesses are. It's never too early to attack those areas or positions of weakness via trade or the waiver wire.

The players below are all under 40 percent rostered on Yahoo! leagues. Some of them might already be rostered in your leagues, but if they're available, I'd recommend giving them a look to see if they could be good fits for your fantasy teams.

Last week's recommendations were Ben Rice, Jung Hoo Lee, Isiah Kiner Falefa, Jordan Walker, Michael Conforto, Sean Murphy, Jordan Hicks, Chase Dollander, and Jose Alvarado.

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Cam Smith, 3B/OF, Houston Astros

25% Rostered on Yahoo

It should be a surprise that a prospect who was just drafted in 2024 with minimal minor league time struggled a bit after jumping Triple-A and switching positions upon debuting in the Majors. Cam Smith had just two hits in his first six games with zero extra-base hits and nine strikeouts. However, after a two-game hiatus from Houston's starting lineup, Smith has picked up five hits in his last three games, including his first career Major League home run.

Cam Smith blasts his first career home run 👏 pic.twitter.com/XWFZyLG8jO

— MLB (@MLB) April 12, 2025

If you were in on Smith before the season, your thought process shouldn't change due to his tough first six games. Smith has been hitting the ball hard with a 52.6% hard-hit rate while also having an 86th percentile bat speed and 96th percentile sprint speed. As long as Smith can make enough contact and keep the strikeout rate in check, I still believe this could be a solid rookie season for him.

Chase Meidroth, 2B, Chicago White Sox

3% Rostered on Yahoo

Sometimes waiver wire pickups aren't flashy. Sometimes the profile is more on the boring side. But sometimes, boring is helpful. Chase Meidroth has now entered the chat. Given that he doesn't possess notable power or speed, Meidroth has never ranked overly highly in prospect rankings, but the blend of contact and approach with a smidge of power should allow him to provide sneaky fantasy value moving forward.

In nine games this season, Meidroth was slashing .267/.450/.600 with three home runs and two steals. And once again, the elite contact and approach metrics were there with a 20% walk rate, 12.5% strikeout rate, 97.4% zone contact rate, and a 90.7% overall contact rate. Meidroth was making more impact at the point of contact with an 89.8 mph AVG EV and 40% hard-hit rate.

While he's probably not more than a 10-15 homer bat with 8-10 steals, Meidroth should provide a good AVG and OBP moving forward and should get plenty of run for the White Sox this season. In his Major League debut on Friday, Meidroth reached base all four times to the plate including a trio of walks.

Zach McKinstry, 2B/3B/SS/OF, Tigers

29% Rostered on Yahoo

If multi-positonal eligibility is your jam, Zach McKinstry will pull up a chair and jam with you. Depending on the platform you play on, McKinstry will be eligible at three or four positions, including up to three infield positions. That flexibility is key if you're looking for a bat you can plug into certain spots when your starter has the day off, especially in daily lineup formats.

Due to their multiple injuries, McKinstry has been playing close to every game for Detroit, and he's taken advantage of the additional playing time.

In 47 plate appearances, McKinstry is slashing .350/.426/.525  with eight runs, a home run, and a steal. While there's not a ton of power upside here, McKinstry has a 77th percentile sprint speed and has shown a good blend of contact and approach this season with a 12.8% walk rate, 14.9% strikeout rate, 87.9% zone contact rate, and a 77.4% overall contact rate. He's the perfect guy to plug in at multiple spots.

Sal Frelick, OF, Milwaukee Brewers

21% Rostered on Yahoo

Most of the hype was centered around Garrett Mitchell this offseason, but Sal Frelick is the Milwaukee outfielder off to a hot start this season. In his first 56 plate appearances, Frelick is hitting .340 with a .411 OBP, seven runs scored, and four steals. He's yet to hit his first home run and only has a .080 ISO, but you're not adding Frelick because you need power. No, you're adding him for his speed and AVG/OBP.

Frelick has a 91st percentile sprint speed and already has five stolen base attempts in 14 games this season, converting on four of them. He's also running a 92.1% zone contact rate, 89% overall contact rate, 4.3% SwStr rate, and has only struck out in 12.5% of his 56 plate appearances so far. If you need a boost in AVG and/or stolen bases, Frelick is a nice target this week.

Mike Yastrzemski, OF, San Francisco Giants

10% Rostered on Yahoo

As I've mentioned before, I'm not one to shy away from strong-side platoon bats as the cost is usually reasonable in fantasy leagues. That's exactly the case here with Mike Yastrzemski. In his first 43 plate appearances this season, Yastrzemski is slashing .343/.465/.600 with three doubles, two home runs, and even a pair of steals as well. He even recently moved into the leadoff spot against RHP and could stick there moving forward.

While Yastremski's Quality of Contact metrics are decent, he's not one to light up his savant page in red in those areas. But Yastremski has a higher barrel rate at 12.5% as he hits the ball at ideal angles, as evident by his 45.8% Sweet-Spot rate, 18.4° average launch angle, and 33.3% pull air rate. To add, Yastrzemski is also walking a ton more with an 18.6% walk rate so far and he continued to make contact at a decent 77.6% clip.

Max Meyer, SP, Miami Marlins

36% Rostered on Yahoo

It was a rough few years for anyone who rostered Max Meyer, but the 26-year-old right-hander looks better than ever to start the 2025 season. In his first three starts, Meyer has posted a 2.00 ERA and 1.11 WHIP with a 6.8% walk rate and a 25.7% strikeout rate. While I don't believe Meyer is going to turn into a stud arm for fantasy like he was projected to be back in the day, there have been some improvements and changes this year, which are encouraging.

Meyer's 4-seamer wasn't a good pitch for him last year (.330 BAA, .648 SLG), but he's cut back the usage rate from 39.6% to 24% so far while throwing more sinkers and sliders. The sinker has helped Meyer generate a 53.1% groundball rate, and his pulled-air rate allowed is down to just 8.2%. Meyer's slider is also missing bats at a 44.2% clip with a .097 BAA and .129 SLG allowed through his first three starts.

Zebby Matthews, SP, Minnesota Twins

19% Rostered on Yahoo

While it's not set in stone when Zebby Matthews will pitch for Minnesota, it's sounding like that time should be in the very near future, possibly even this week. So the time is now to pick Matthew up in mixed leagues as the upside is her for him to be a Top-50 SP for the rest of the season.

Just ignore the 6.69 ERA in his nine starts with the Twins last season. His 4.05 xFIP, 3.78 SIERA, and 18.1% K-BB rate show that he pitched much better than that surface ERA would indicate. In fact, Matthew's K-BB rate ranked 7th among rookie starting pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched last season, trailing Paul Skenes, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, Spencer Schwellenbach, David Festa, Jared Jones, and DJ Herz.

In 2024, Matthews had a whiff rate about 30% on both his slider and changeup, and has seen his velocity take a step forward so far in 2025, as you can see above from his last start in Triple-A when he struck out nine in five innings.

David Festa, SP, Minnesota Twins

7% Rostered on Yahoo

Speaking of David Festa, I'm recommending him this week as well. Festa returned to the Minnesota rotation on Friday and tossed 4.2 shutout innings with four strikeouts. The expectation is that Festa sticks in the rotation as long as Pablo Lopez is on the IL with a hamstring issue, and possibly even longer if he pitches well over the next few weeks.

As is the case with Matthews, Festa pitched better than his 4.90 ERA last season would indicate. That ERA was bloated due to Festa allowing 12 earned runs in his first 10 innings. Over his final 54.1 innings, Festa recorded a solid 3.81 ERA, 3.15 FIP, 1.25 WHIP, and a 20.4% K-BB rate.

Overall, Festa had a 27.8% strikeout rate last season and can miss bats with both his changeup and slider. Festa also threw two sinkers in his 2025 debut, so maybe that pitch becomes more of a factor for him moving forward.

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