RADIO
We are reaching the dog days of summer. After the trade deadline, the standings begin to settle just a bit and teams fall into a groove. It could be a good groove or a bad groove, but through August, ruts can begin to take shape. The same goes for fantasy teams. It has been 19 weeks, and managers are sometimes resigned to having this current roster for the rest of the season and hoping things work out.
Of course, that isn't how this game works. For those who want to take breaks, go play fantasy football. For baseball, we keep searching for edges and moves each day for six months. That doesn't stop just because the trade deadline is in the rearview mirror and FAB budgets are low. There are still useful pieces to find.
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 20 - August 9 through August 15.
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Andres Gimenez, Cleveland Indians
18% Rostered
The first time didn't work out so well, but Cleveland is giving Gimenez another shot. The young, multi-position bat was called back up from Triple-A after hitting the ball very well in the minors. Those with short memories should recall that people were very excited about his ability to claim an everyday middle infield job following the trade of Francisco Lindor (oblique). Not that Lindor has been a boon yet for New York, but Gimenez did not stick long at all that first time around. Yet, the profile is something on which to come back around.
Gimenez is a speed and contact bat, which are two hot commodities for fantasy. He doesn't walk or hit for much power, but he ran a lot, especially in the lower minors, and has replicated the ability to get hits at every level except MLB thus far. I want to see how often Gimenez is allowed to start these next few weeks and where the team slots him in the batting order. He could be a legitimate four category contributor in the right circumstances, especially if people are on base in front of him.
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers
10% Rostered
I mean, it's not ideal, but there are worse places to turn than toward utilizing Cabrera's hot bat. A number of things are working in his favor. First, he is healthy and playing well. Second, he is playing nearly every day and batting in the middle of the order, boosting his production. Third, his batted-ball profile is looking mighty nice for the season as a whole. And finally, he gets the same Baltimore Orioles squad this week that he blasted for six hits and two home runs to start the month.
To touch on the batted-ball profile in more detail, Cabrera is certainly outperforming his expected stats, but it's because he is absolutely mashing the ball. He ranks in the 89th percentile in hard-hit rate and 83rd percentile in average exit velocity. He isn't making enough contact to be worth rostering for the remainder of the season, but picking him up for good matchups while the bat is hot is the right move.
It doesn't matter for fantasy, but Cabrera is also at 498 career home runs. After his drastic downturn, it didn't seem like he would get to 500 in 2021, but this hot streak may have been all he needed. He could get it done this week.
Rougned Odor, New York Yankees
4% Rostered
This past week, Odor gained 3B eligibility in most leagues. At a four percent rostered figure, this is hardly huge news, but it is something worth mentioning. There are scenarios where Odor is a useful piece to add to play the corner. First, and most obvious, he plays every day in an elite offensive lineup. The Yankees haven't been elite for much of the year, but they are rounding into shape at just the right time and have so many lethal bats around "fill-in" players like Odor.
Beyond that, Odor launches for the fences every swing he gets, and it pays off with impressive power numbers. He has a 40.5 percent hard-hit rate, a 9.2 percent barrel rate, and a max exit velocity that reached 112.1 mph. Going up hacking hurts his rate stats, but it's the reason why Odor has 31 runs, 35 RBI, and 13 home runs in just 73 games, despite a .307 OBP.
The Repeats
We kept waiting every week for Joey Votto's power numbers to better reflect the type of contact he was making. It happened in a major way. Andrew Vaughn (37% rostered) isn't quite on that level, but it's close. His batted-ball profile is impressive; his production is average. The latter should catch up to the former before long.
We've had our ups and downs with C.J. Cron (32%). He doesn't produce the elite power on a consistent basis that some of his positional peers do. But everything else is what we want: the ability to reach upper-echelon power every now and then, a great walk rate, and an 11.1 percent barrel rate.
You should have added Brandon Belt last week when he came off the IL. With two home runs in his first three games, he picked right up where he left off. At 17 percent rostered and sporting an .883 OPS, he is one of the most underutilized bats in the game.
Pavin Smith (15%) similarly returned from an absence and picked up right where he left off. His absence was a short one, for COVID contact tracing, and his performance doesn't possess the power upside of other bats, but Smith has been incredibly solid and reliable this season.
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