We’re nearly at the halfway point of the major league season and must take an honest look at who’s playing well, who’s playing poorly, and who we can truly count on to help us out through the long summer months ahead.
With that, the waiver wire has been picked over and it’s getting more difficult to find impact players readily available in most leagues. Especially pitchers of all kinds.
Fear not, because there are still a handful of available players that have the chance to be difference makers in both the short and long term.
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Here are three pitchers that are under 40% rostered on Yahoo leagues that you should strongly consider adding.
If you want a larger list, Eric Samulski wrote his extended waiver wire piece on Sunday.
Michael Soroka, SP Nationals
(13% Rostered on Yahoo)
An inconsistent season to this point has given Soroka an ugly 5.06 ERA and kept his rostership low despite some encouraging outings from him lately.
Two starts ago, he struck out what at the time was a career-high nine batters against the Rockies. Of course, that was a matchup with the Rockies outside of Coors Field so we have to take it with a grain of salt.
Then, this past Sunday, he struck out a new career-high 10 batters against the Dodgers. That suddenly makes Soroka’s hot streak feel more real and some pitch mix changes over the same stretch add to the encouragement.
Since recovering from his many injuries, Soroka has reinvented himself as a pitcher. Early in his career, he was a sinker-slider guy who showed some fastballs and changeups.
Now, he’s lowered his arm slot, increased his velocity a few ticks, and uses his four-seam fastball as his primary pitch. That along with a new and nasty slurve with a smattering of sinkers and changeups have turned him into a completely new pitcher compared to his younger days with the Braves.
Despite an improved shape, that fastball still hasn’t been great for Soroka. Opposing hitters have a .692 slugging percentage against it so far this season. His expected stats say that pitch has been a bit unlucky, but still isn’t missing enough bats for us to believe it’ll be significantly better moving forward.
So, in his last two starts, Soroka has hid that fastball by mixing in more slurves and sinkers to right-handed batters and changeups to left-handed batters.
Also interestingly, check out his pitch distribution based on count in that start against the Dodgers.
He threw a good few fastballs to start out at-bats, then leaned on it when behind in the count. Otherwise, he almost never threw any while he was ahead. Instead, hitters got a more steady diet of slurves.
That slurve has blatantly been his best pitch with a 36% whiff rate – and nearly 50% against righties – this season. He can find more success while throwing it more often as long as he can balance the usage of everything else so he can stay ahead in the count and force hitters ro chase it.
Funny enough, to remind you about the ugly 5.06 ERA and general inconsistencies, he’s one of just 17 pitchers in the league to have a strikeouts minus walk rate greater than 20%. The rest of the list is… pretty good.
Here, we have a bonafide plus pitch, plenty of strikeouts, few walks, and the tinkering of game plans to try and max out present skills. In a barren week for starting pitchers, that’s enough to take a shot on.
Didier Fuentes, SP Braves
(4% Rostered on Yahoo)
The 20-year-old Fuentes – who was only 19 at this time last week – made his major league debut for the Braves last Friday. His box score didn’t look all that special with four runs allowed and just three strikeouts across five innings against the Marlins, but he showed signs of being a capable major league starter.
Three of the four runs he allowed came via a mammoth home run from Agustín Ramírez in the third inning. By that point, Miami had eight hard-hit balls and four runs in on the rookie. They more or less ambushed him and the game felt like it could spiral out of control.
Yet, the young rookie settled himself down and got through the next two innings unscratched. He seemed more comfortable with his secondary stuff as the game went on and showed great maturity to fight past that early homer.
Navigating stressful situations like that is always a tall task for young pitchers, and Fuentes did so as the youngest in the league right now. Not only is he the youngest pitcher, he’s the youngest player overall.
The reason Atlanta felt so comfortable turning to him this early is because his stuff is that good. His fastball sits in the mid-90s with tons of life and will be able to force swings-and-misses in the strike zone. That pitch is so good that it can carry him.
Past that, he has both a solid sweeper and curveball. That curve is a bit more “slurve-y” in nature with more horizontal movement than the average curveball. Still, it’s his go-to breaking ball against left-handed batters with the sweeper being used more against right-handed batters.
He’s also toyed around with a splitter that could be the key to unlocking this whole repertoire as a more platoon-neutral off-speed pitch. Otherwise, he will still find success with his current trio on the strength of the fastball and the similar horizontal movement profiles of the sweeper and curve which can fool hitters.
Nevertheless, the key for Fuentes’ fantasy value is the recent injury to Chris Sale.
He was placed on the injured list this past weekend with a rib fracture and the team hasn’t shared a timeline for how long they expect him to be out. That opens the door for Fuentes to stick with the big club and possibly beat out Bryce Elder for the fifth starter’s job once Sale returns.
Plus stuff and a genuine opportunity make Fuentes an interesting target right now.
Grant Taylor, RP White Sox
(3% Rostered on Yahoo)
This is one to file away for your deeper leagues. Taylor is one of the most exciting pitching prospects in baseball with a fastball that can touch triple digits, a hammer curveball, and a cutter to bridge them. Also, nearly seven and a half feet of extension. He is a freak of the highest order.
After beginning the season as a starter with the White Sox’s Double-A affiliate, the Birmingham Barons, he shifted to the bullpen. That didn’t seem too weird since he’d only worked in three-inning increments as a starter anyway.
Then, the White Sox surprisingly called him up a few weeks ago to join their major league bullpen.
He’d been effective working in middle relief before what was just a roller coaster weekend where he pitched the seventh inning of their game Thursday, worked as a one-inning opener on Friday, then grabbed the save for them on Sunday.
For a moment there was a feeling maybe the White Sox were going to prepare him to start games and possibly stretch him out. Suddenly, it looks like he’s the closer.
His stuff is so good that even a handful of saves on this awful White Sox team make him viable in deeper leagues.
