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The fantasy baseball season is rolling, and we are not wasting any time here at RotoBaller. We've jumped right into our regularly scheduled content, and that includes this weekly starting pitcher waiver wire pickups piece!
I'm Jon Anderson, and I'll be publishing this every Sunday morning to give you some tips on pitchers to target on the waiver wire. Since more and more leagues have gone to FAAB (free agent auction bidding) systems, I will try to incorporate some thoughts about that into the piece as well.
Let's get to it – here are your starting pitcher fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups recommendations for Week 2 of the fantasy baseball season (April 3rd - April 9th).
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Waiver Wire Pickups for Shallow Leagues
Pitcher pickup recommendations for leagues of any size
Clarke Schmidt, New York Yankees (52% Rostered)
Schmidt was forced into the rotation with the injuries to Frankie Montas, Carlos Rodon, and Luis Severino – but I don't think the Yankees are worried too much about his spot in the rotation given the spring he had. After a 2022 season where he had good success in the minors and decent success in the Majors, Schmidt went back to the drawing board and added a cutter to his arsenal that was just dominant all spring long.
His stuff+ marks were great from the readings we got in those spring games (and in his start yesterday), so it's very exciting to see what the 27-year-old will do in pinstripes as a regular part of the rotation. His first start of the year wasn't fantastic as he got himself into trouble in the fourth and had to leave the start early - but he put up a really strong 16% SwStr% on the start and struck out five batters. I'm still confident about Schmidt being a useful starter for fantasy this year.
FAAB recommendation: be aggressive
Nick Martinez, San Diego Padres (34% Rostered)
Martinez has joined the Padres rotation after spending a lot of last year in the bullpen, and he looked pretty good in his first start on Friday night. It wasn't an overly encouraging start by the box score, as he gave up four earned runs and struck out just five in seven innings, but the underlying metrics were very nice. He earned a beautiful 14.9% SwStr% and put up a 55% GB%.
By the pitch modeling metrics, Martinez had above-average stuff (101 Stuff+) and really good locations (103 Location+) last season. On Friday, he threw five different pitches above 10% of the time, a really deep pitch mix that should help him regularly get deep into games.
Martinez is no spring chicken at the age of 32, but he has a talented arm and clearly has earned himself a spot in the rotation of a very competitive baseball team.
FAAB recommendation: be moderately aggressive
Kenta Maeda, Minnesota Twins (35% Rostered)
We have not seen Maeda yet this regular season, but he did have an encouraging spring. He struck out 14 hitters in as many innings in spring, although he did give up 10 walks – a worrying sign.
Kenta Maeda says today was the first day this spring where he’s finally felt like his pitches have all been in sync. He’s been feeling out adjustments and tweaks all spring to find himself after missing time.
Rocco called it “the definition of shaking off the rust.”
— Do-Hyoung Park (@dohyoungpark) March 24, 2023
That can all be forgiven since Maeda has been appearing in his first game action since 2021. Tommy John surgery cost him the 2022 campaign - and that is probably why he finds himself on so few rosters at the moment. The silver lining is that the surgery is distant in the past now (he had the surgery in September of 2021), so in reality he's been fully recovered for quite some time. I don't think there's any real reason to worry about re-injury right now.
Even if we're sure Maeda will stay healthy, he's not necessarily a guy that should be rostered in all leagues given the inconsistency he's shown us for most of his career - but we have seen flashes of greatness and some really great strikeout stuff from him in the past, so I would be more than willing to give him a shot on my fantasy teams early on this year until we see what we have.
FAAB recommendation: don't break the bank
Sean Manaea, San Francisco Giants (44% Rostered)
There are a lot of people that are excited about Manaea again now that he's joined the Giants and added some velocity. As I've explored on these pages before, a common thread we see running through the history of SP breakouts are team changes and added velocity – so it makes sense to give Manaea a speculative add here early on before we even see him toe the rubber.
FAAB recommendation: be moderately aggressive if he looks good early on
Michael Kopech, Chicago White Sox (28% Rostered)
Kopech is downright nasty. He has a high-90s fastball and a solid changeup. His four-seamer was one of the better ones in the game last year for starting pitchers earning a Stuff+ mark above 150 by some models.
The problem was that Kopech was unable to fool hitters and did not locate well. These things are problems! However, the arm is too good to not consider if you're lacking SP depth on your roster. He's a very fun pitcher to watch, and someone that could really be a difference-maker if he can take another step forward this year – I'll have a close eye on him moving forward.
FAAB recommendation: be moderately aggressive if he looks good early on
Waiver Wire Pickups for Deeper Leagues
Zach Eflin, Tampa Bay Rays (31% Rostered)
The Rays have a long history of squeezing the best out of their pitchers, so that's a reason to pay attention to Eflin early on this year.
I don't think the upside is high at all with the guy. He's a veteran (28), and leopards don't often change their spots. That said, he's never been bad in the Majors, so he's unlikely to be a guy to really tank a fantasy staff this year. We will have to pay attention to how many pitches they let him throw and the general usage of him because the Rays are a team that likes to pull pitchers quite early on in the game – and Eflin's history of being in the bullpen might push them toward that even harder in his case.
Keep an eye out on Eflin, there's certainly the possibility that he's a very useful back-of-the-rotation arm for your fantasy team in deeper leagues this year.
FAAB recommendation: don't pay for him
Tyler Mahle, Minnesota Twins (26% Rostered)
Mahle was a guy that did a lot of tinkering this offseason, and that makes him someone to watch closely early on this year. We have yet to see him make a start, but he's definitely one of the guys I'll be tuning in to see.
For years now, people have been predicting the Tyler Mahle step forward into acehood, and it just has not materialized. It seems like a long time ago that he escaped Cincinnati, but the truth is that he's only thrown 16 innings for his team in Minnesota.
The Twins are a good team to pitch for. The ballpark is neutral, the schedule is nice, and they have a pretty good offense and an elite bullpen behind this staff. I think Mahle being a very, very good pitcher this year is well within the range of possible outcomes given that he added to and refined his pitch repertoire this offseason. Keep an eye on him!
FAAB recommendation: don't break the bank
Eduardo Rodriguez, Detroit Tigers (24% Rostered)
It wasn't a bad start to open his 2023 campaign, but it was a little bit underwhelming. Rodriguez threw 5.1 innings giving up three runs on three hits, walking two, and striking out five.
Pitcher: Eduardo Rodriguez
DET vs TB
2023-03-30#DetroitRoots #DETvsTB pic.twitter.com/RWsljIXAjl— DeepMLB (@Deep_MLB) March 31, 2023
I'll take that for his first go at it. The most important thing for me to see from E-Rod this year was just him being in a uniform come Opening Day. Lots of strange things have been happening with Rodriguez over the last few years, but it seems like he's healthy and focused on baseball again – and that's enough to give him a shot in deeper leagues given the strikeout stuff he's capable of.
FAAB recommendation: don't break the bank
MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals (12% Rostered)
Gore has been toying with fantasy managers for a couple of years now. He was dominant in the minors and was one of the game's top overall prospects for a while. However, he had an awful 2021 season completely losing command of the baseball for long periods of time. Then he joined the Major Leagues in 2022 and pitched great at the beginning of the season, only to fall right back into those miserable ways where he could not throw strikes.
Now he is on a new team with a fresh start and a locked-in job in the Nationals rotation. There won't be much run support for him, presumably – but with the stuff the guy has, that might not matter too much if he can finally learn to throw solid, consistent strikes. The 116 Stuff+ he posted last year shows us there's all kinds of upside in the tank, so we'll be monitoring him closely here in April.
FAAB recommendation: be moderately aggressive if he's throwing strikes early on
Bailey Falter, Philadelphia Phillies (10% Rostered)
It was unclear if Falter would even make the club out of camp, but injuries to Ranger Suarez and Andrew Painter solidified his spot.
Falter threw 84 Major League innings last year between the rotation and the bullpen and put up a decent 3.84 ERA with a 1.21 WHIP. He was mostly reliant on his defense with just a 21% strikeout rate, but he didn't make life any harder on himself with a high walk rate either (4.9%).
The reason I really like Falter here is that he has this four-seam fastball that looks really solid, he just hasn't used it very much. Last year, he threw the sinker 33% of the time and put up a 9.8% SwStr% on the pitch (that is actually pretty good for a sinker). Then he threw the four-seamer 31% of the time, and hitters had a tough time with it at an 11% SwStr% and a tiny 2% barrel rate.
He also has two breaking balls he can mix in, a curveball and a slider. Neither of them was phenomenal last year but they weren't bad either. I just see a lot of different ways that Falter could take his game to the next level this year, and the floor feels really solid at the bottom of it all. I like Falter if you're looking for a safe, innings-eater type guy.
FAAB recommendation: safe to spend a little bit to make sure you get him if you're really hurting for innings
Other Waiver Wire Options
- Jack Flaherty, St. Louis Cardinals (45% Rostered)
- Trevor Rogers, Miami Marlins (31% Rostered)
- Justin Steele, Chicago Cubs (24% Rostered)
- Roansy Contreras, Pittsburgh Pirates (24% Rostered)
- Michael Wacha, San Diego Padres (13% Rostered)
- Mike Clevinger, Chicago White Sox (5% Rostered)
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