Starting Pitcher Waiver Wire Pickups - Week 11

Welcome back to our SP waiver wire recommendations post series. If you've been following this every week, you've probably noticed that I've been beating the same drum quite a bit - and that is not going to change much today. Streaming starting pitchers has been hugely profitable this year, as it seems there are strong outings to be had on waivers in nearly every league.

The pool has slightly thinned this week as a few key names we've been focused on this year have finally been widely added. Fear not, there is still plenty of solid arms and upside to be had.

Here are five names to check the waiver wire for as we head into Week 11 - which will officially start June 7.

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Pickups for Shallow Leagues

Yusei Kikuchi, Seattle Mariners (54% Rostered)

This is at least my third straight article recommending the Kikuchi add, but I'm not going to quit until he reaches 60%. The three main ingredients of a successful pitcher are high strikeouts, low walks, and lots of ground-balls. Kikuchi checks those boxes with pretty thick ink with his 25% K%, 8% BB%, and 51% GB%. The underlying indicator metrics are solid as well with his 14% SwStr% and 31.2% CSW%. After another strong outing against Texas this week, Kikuchi has ripped off six consecutive quality starts. He has a 2.77 ERA and a 0.85 WHIP in that timespan. If the best pitcher on your pitching staff gave you those numbers over a month and a half span, you would be thrilled - and you could've gotten that production from a guy for free on waivers.

If Kikuchi is still available in your league, chances are you're doing pretty well because your competition is not paying attention (although that would suggest that neither are you, but at least you're here reading this!). Go add Kikuchi now, he's an easy top-50 arm moving forward.

Sunday note: Kikuchi was removed from his start on Saturday after being hit in the knee by a comebacker so make sure to keep an eye out for any updates on his status. 

Adbert Alzolay, Chicago Cubs (38% Rostered)

We talked about the three ingredients of success above, but we'll revisit here. If you focus on looking for high strikeouts, low walks, and high ground-balls for your pitchers, you will have a lot of success. Alzolay's K%-BB% ratio makes him look like an elite arm. He has a strong 27% K% and an elite 5% walk rate this year. His ground-ball rate is also strong at 45%. He's given up no more than three earned runs in any start since his first of the year, and sports a strong 3.62 ERA to go with his elite 0.91 WHIP. He has given up a 9.2% barrel rate, which suggests that the ERA might not stay as low as it is currently, but his stuff is more than good enough to turn him into a really, really good pitcher for the Cubs.

There just aren't that many guys out there walking less than 6% of the batters they face, which is hugely beneficial to the WHIP metric. I would expect Alzolay to keep his WHIP under 1.00 for quite some time here, and that can help almost any fantasy team. The one issue with Alzolay is pitch count. The Cubs are clearly being careful with him, as he's thrown more than 90 pitches just three times this year and was recently pulled after cruising through five innings with just 83 pitches thrown. The Cubs really like their bullpen, and they're hesitant to let the young guys face the lineup the third time through. That limits his chances of quality starts, but everything else is great - I'm sure your fantasy team has room for a guy like Alzolay.

Casey Mize, Detroit Tigers (58% Rostered)

This is my least favorite name of the three in this grouping, but you can see the name-value has Mize's ownership higher than the other pitchers. After a pretty brutal start to his career, Mize has seemed to turn a corner here recently. He's given up just 12 runs in his last 44 innings (seven starts) with 39 strikeouts and 13 walks. Over his last two starts, he has 13 strikeouts and no walks. That's a really, really good sign to see from a young pitcher.

To add on to the good news, Mize just had an outing with a 19% swinging-strike rate and 35% CSW%, his best marks of the year. He went seven full innings in that start, giving up three earned runs on three solo home runs. The reason Mize isn't my favorite of the bunch has nothing to do with ceiling, the kid clearly has a huge amount of potential, but I just don't want to buy into this after how bad the start to his career was. There's a good chance Mize is now a must-roster fantasy pitcher and will continue to be for years to come, but it's also possible that this is just a temporary hot streak and he will return to mediocrity soon. Whatever you believe, the upside is worth taking a shot on.

Pickups for Deeper Leagues

JT Brubaker, Pittsburgh Pirates (24% Rostered)

The Pirates righty went through a brutal patch where he gave up 12 earned runs in 11 innings in two starts against the Cardinals and the Braves. He just had a bounce-back start against Miami, throwing six scoreless innings with five strikeouts while allowing just four hits. He has been very solid overall in 2021 with a 23.6% strikeout rate, a 5.5% walk rate, and a 50.3% ground-ball rate. That all equates to a strong xFIP of 3.61.

The issue is that he is another guy that is being restricted in the pitch count arena. He has gone over 90 pitches just once all year, and the Pirates clearly have no real reason to push it with his arm. That will make it tough for him to rack up quality starts, and the lackluster offense behind him makes it tough for the wins to come as well. This is a deep-league only recommendation, but Brubaker should be able to improve your team's ratios in that situation.

Other Options To Consider

• Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers - 25%
• Austin Gomber, Colorado Rockies - 19%
• Ross Stripling, Toronto Blue Jays - 7%
• Alex Cobb, Los Angeles Angels - 32%
• Martin Perez, Boston Red Sox - 22%

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