RADIO
We've passed the midway point of April. Hopefully your fantasy squads are dominating to the point where you don't need any help. More likely, whether due to injury or ineffectiveness, you're in search of a boost. You've come to the right place.
Most of the players who will be written up in this feature won't be the next breakout star. Some may only be useful for a brief period. A few might not provide any value at all. It's the nature of the beast; if these players were slam dunks, they wouldn't be widely available for free. We're looking for plausible upside with naught but opportunity cost. By considering a wide swath of factors including but not limited to evidence of a change in approach, favorable upcoming schedules, and plain ol' potential, the goal is simply to find as much marginal value as possible.
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 waiver wire pickups for Week 4 - April 19th through April 25th.
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Pickups for Shallow Leagues
Colin Moran, 1B/2B/3B, Pittsburgh Pirates (37% rostered)
Moran is nobody's idea of a star, but he's been intermittently useful to fantasy managers over the past couple of seasons and is off to a nice start in 2021 with a .973 OPS entering Saturday's action. The 28-year-old hit .277 in each of his first two years with the Pirates, and though that dropped to .247 in the shortened 2020 campaign, it was the worthwhile cost of a power surge.
After totaling 24 home runs in nearly 300 games in that first pair of seasons, he smashed 10 in just 52 contests last year. Eligible at three positions and locked into the cleanup spot in the Steel City, Moran can be a great plug-and-play even in shallower formats.
Joey Wendle, 2B/3B/SS, Tampa Bay Rays (33% rostered)
Though he doesn't offer as much pop as Moran (homer on Saturday notwithstanding), Wendle has a similar background of occasional utility in fantasy and the positional versatility to merit a bench spot. Like seemingly every Tampa player, the 30-year-old plays all around the diamond.
He's finished with a batting average south of .286 only once - in an injury-plagued 2019 - and has 34 stolen bases in 1,154 career plate appearances. Wendle can provide sneaky value for as long as he's getting regular at-bats in the middle of the order.
Pickups for Deeper Leagues
Jurickson Profar, 2B/OF, San Diego Padres (22% rostered)
Profar has yet to go deep this season, but smacked 20 homers in both 2018 and 2019 and was on a similar pace last year. He also averaged double-digit steals in the former two campaigns, and has been running more often since, with seven steals in just 52 games last year and three already in 2021.
The 28-year-old will almost certainly never be the star many expected when he was a prospect, but he makes a lot of contact, draws walks, and is versatile enough in the field to amass plenty of at-bats even on a crowded San Diego roster.
Willi Castro, 3B/SS, Detroit Tigers (16% rostered)
A popular late-round target in many drafts, Castro's slow start has scared off many managers. But even if we shouldn't expect him to maintain the batted ball luck that led to an absurd .448 BABIP a year ago, there's still potential here that isn't erased by a couple of bad weeks.
Castro is still young - he'll turn 24 this week - and had multiple seasons with double-digit home runs and stolen bases in the minor leagues. He's also hit in the top third of the lineup every game so far save one, and the Tigers have every reason to keep putting him in a position to succeed given where they are in their rebuild.
The Watch List
Miguel Rojas, SS, Miami Marlins (7% rostered)
As a light-hitting utility infielder, Rojas had never really merited much attention for fantasy purposes in his first six seasons as a big leaguer. He wound up on a lot of winning fantasy rosters last year, however, after slashing .304/.392/.496 with four homers and five steals in just 40 games.
Maybe he's just in the midst of a hot streak in a weird year, but the 32-year-old has hit .279/.354/.395 entering Saturday, with three stolen bases and more walks than strikeouts. He's entrenched as the shortstop in Miami and has hit at least .282 in four of the last six seasons.
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