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The first full week of September means rosters have expanded for MLB teams and to keep an eye out for those September callups. Of course, the rules were different this year. Rosters were already expanded to 26, and September has only stretched that to 28. Thus, the famous day came with a trickle rather than a stream. There may be some late-season additions who make major waves at the big-league level, but the batch to choose from is quite small.
That's not to say that no one of note was given the life-changing call. A couple of high-level pitching prospects will be given their first taste or a second run. On the hitting side, there is less to bank on. All this may end up doing is muddying the waters, leaving fewer at-bats for guys we wanted to add for the final few weeks of the season. Be diligent with hunting in week 24.
For our purposes in this column, we are looking at Yahoo!'s rostered percentages, as well as its positional eligibility. We are searching for useful players rostered in fewer than 40 percent of Yahoo! leagues. With that being said, below are my first base and third base waiver wire pickups to consider for Week 24 - September 6 through September 12.
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Nathaniel Lowe, Texas Rangers
37% Rostered
After a very deep slide, Lowe looks to finally be heating up again. He was one of the hottest hitters at the beginning of the season and then completely fell off the radar. Lowe went from being near universally rostered to being back eligible for this column and yet not worth adding. That may be changing here. Lowe is hitting .391 and slugging .630 in his last 14 games. The slugging percentage is particularly pleasant to see, as he wasn't hitting for much power at all throughout the middle of the season.
As he heats up, the schedule also blesses him with two things: an early week appointment with the dregs in Arizona after one more against LAA and all road games. For the season, Lowe's OPS is 74 points higher on the road than at home.
Evan Longoria, San Francisco Giants
16% Rostered
Longoria finally returned from his long hiatus on the IL with a finger injury. When Longoria left, he was hitting like one of the better third basemen in the game, though one who probably deserved to be platooned based on his splits. Now, upon returning to the Giants active roster, he finds himself in a scenario where a platoon is almost certain to be thrust upon him. And that should work to his benefit.
The right-handed-hitting Longoria has a 1.218 OPS against lefties this year and a .776 mark against righties. In 49 ABs of the former, he has five home runs and 11 walks; he has the same amount of home runs and just 15 walks in a whopping 125 ABs against the latter. For his elite career, we don't see this type of gulf, but a pronounced split is there. If San Francisco does platoon him, keep an eye on each matchup. Longoria would be a must-start any time he does, indeed, start.
Colin Moran, Pittsburgh Pirates
11% Rostered
Moran is on a nine-game hitting streak, the last seven of which were all 1-for-4s that dropped his season average. That is to say Moran is a pretty good average hitter who is currently playing his best baseball of the season. There won't be a ton of power or any speed, but there could be three-category production thanks to batting fourth in the lineup every day and producing a 9.2 percent barrel rate with a 30.1 percent line-drive rate. Pittsburgh has very favorable series this week as well, with games against Detroit and Washington. Perhaps the only matchup better for Moran would be somehow facing his own staff.
The Repeats
Nick Solak is not going to be available much longer. He has been on a tear since getting called back up two weeks ago. He returned to the majors on August 21. In that time, he has played 11 games heading into Saturday night, and collected a hit in every one. His OPS jumped 46 points in those 11 games alone. As of publication, he is at 36 percent rostered, but he could cross 40 percent any day now.
Brandon Belt (29% rostered) has started to play against lefties too. He will be given the occasional day off thanks to the depth of the San Francisco lineup, but Belt is back to being an everyday bat. With a series at Colorado this week, there is no better time to pull the trigger.
In eight games against the Houston Astros, Abraham Toro (17%) is slugging .640. It's his second-best mark against any opponent. Toro gets yet another series against his old club this week, as well as another run against the Diamondbacks.
There have been ups and downs, but Carter Kieboom (6%) is still worth a look. In August, he got his longest run of any point of his career and did work. His season walk rate is up to 11.2 percent, with a 41.9 hard-hit rate. We still want more than 96 ABs as a sample, but there is a player here.
Bobby Bradley (3%) returned to the Cleveland lineup last week. In six games since returning, he has showcased exactly what we liked about him previously: power and production. He still needs to show a better eye at the plate, but he should be a two- or three-category producer the rest of the way (home runs, RBI, and runs).
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