Vince Velasquez (SP/RP, PHI) - Week 18 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14+ Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 8% of leagues

ANALYSIS: There is still the chance that the Philadelphia Phillies make a move for a starting pitcher (probably a back-end rotation member), but if they decide to roll the dice with their current cast of characters in an attempt for the postseason, Vince Velasquez stands a solid chance of serving as an effective starter for the remainder of 2019. After one of his strongest outings of the year in his most recent performance, Velasquez now boasts a 3.48 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, and 16 strikeouts in the 10.1 IP over his last two starts, and it's all the more encouraging to see him mixing his high strikeout upside with some effective in-game endurance.

He's still relatively young at 27 years old, but he has been around long enough to build up a trusty track record full of considerable drawbacks like his inability to take the majority of appearances deep, his familiarity with the IL, and his vulnerability to power-hitting embodied by his 1.4 HR/9 for his career. However, blitzing through all of that noise comes the fact that Velasquez is a proven high-volume strikeout seeker. Thanks to a few tweaks in his repertoire (a big uptick in slider frequency and velocity), Vince Velasquez may be allowing more homers, but he is also striking the opposition out at a career-best K/9 of 10.7. If you're willing to deal with some temporary uncertainty, he is a nice high-reward acquisition in deeper leagues.