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Happy Memorial Day Weekend, Rotoballers. The unofficial start of summer is a great time to take stock of the first third of the baseball season. If your team is still languishing at the bottom of the standings, it may be the time to make that big trade or to finally cut bait with that underperforming draft pick.
In this space, however, we'll look at widely available middle infielders that can improve our rosters for the next two-thirds of the season. There's still time to climb the standings, these guys could help.
As a reminder, we'll be looking at pickups for shallow leagues (30-49% rostered) and deeper formats (10-29%), as well as highlighting players in the single-digits who deserve a spot on your watch list at the very least. These are your second base and shortstop fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups for Week 8 – May 30th through June 5th.
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Waiver Wire Pickups for Shallow Leagues
Josh Rojas, 2B/SS/3B/OF, Arizona Diamondbacks (36% rostered)
The versatile Diamondback was in the first draft of this column a week ago after he launched three homers versus the Cubs last Friday. Alas, he left that game after being hit in the hand and subsequently missed three games. Rojas picked up his hot hitting, however, as he's got four hits and three RBI since returning on Thursday. Rojas only has 64 plate appearances this season due to injury, but in that small sample, he's batting .321 has a .406 on-base percentage and is slugging .509. Point is, as long as Rojas is healthy, he should be started in fantasy.
Kike Hernandez, 2B/OF, Boston Red Sox (30% rostered)
The Red Sox offense has been on fire lately and a big reason is their leadoff hitter, Kike Hernandez, finally finding his stroke. Hernandez is still batting just .200 on the season, but he's hit safely in all but one game since May 13 and has 12 runs scored in that span. Hernandez's 6.1 barrels-per-PA is a career high and he's striking out only 16 percent of the time, also a career-best. As the summer months roll into Boston, expect more offensive production from the Red Sox and Hernandez.
Waiver Wire Pickups for Deeper Leagues
Gio Urshela, SS/3B, Minnesota Twins (28% rostered)
Urshela is riding a seven-game hit streak as he finally seems to be getting comfortable in Minnesota. As we discussed with Boston, the offense should continue to tick up in Minnesota as the weather warms up. Urshela is currently sporting a career-best 13-percent K-rate and his .278 xBA implies better days could be ahead.
Nico Hoerner, 2B/SS, Chicago Cubs (8% rostered)
Hoerner missed time recently due to injury and some people, including yours truly, had to drop him due to a lack of IL space. He's back with vengeance, however, as he drove in a run as a pinch-hitter on Thursday and blasted a homer in his first start back from injury on Friday. Hoerner is a former prospect who should get plenty of playing time with the Cubs ad he's criminally under-rostered at just eight percent.
Waiver Wire Watch List
Rougned Odor, 2B, Baltimore Orioles (3% rostered)
Rougned Odor has had stints of usefulness in fantasy throughout his career and the streaky veteran looks like he may be entering another hot streak. His 11-game hit streak was snapped on Saturday, but Odor has always had decent pop in his bat and could provide some value in deep leagues while playing every day for the Orioles.
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