Fantasy Reflections: April Waiver Gems

With the end of April looming, we’ve completed one month of the 2018 MLB season. As usual, there have been plenty of early surprises.

Today, we’ll look at five of the best waiver wire pickups from the season’s first 30 days. Four of the five players covered below fell outside the top 400 in ADP, yet all of them have been hugely valuable fantasy assets thus far.

Will that continue? Let’s hazard some guesses!

Fast Starters

Jed Lowrie, 2B, Oakland Athletics

Lowrie is 34 years old and entered the season with a career .740 OPS. He’s always had a good eye at the plate and solid contact skills, but that foundation hadn’t translated to exciting results. His career bests: 16 HR (2012, albeit in just 97 games), 86 R (last year), and 75 RBI (2013). Through 25 games, he’s hitting .352/.414/.600 with six home runs and 24 RBI. There’s not much in the profile to support this performance, unfortunately. Lowrie’s exit velocity is up slightly, but otherwise not a lot has changed for him. He currently sports a .397 BABIP (100 points above his career mark) and a 20.0 HR/FB% (triple his career rate). While some of the power surge might be sticky, you should expect significant regression overall.

Christian Villanueva, 3B, San Diego Padres

Because I get paid to write about this game, it’s rare for a player to emerge whom I’ve literally never heard of. Even though he slashed .296/.369/.528 with 20 bombs in 109 games at Triple- A last year, then homering four more times in 32 MLB plate appearances, Villanueva was completely off the radar for me and most other fantasy owners. Never a highly-regarded prospect or particularly impressive in the minor leagues before last season, Villanueva has hit an absurd .355/.444/.774 with seven homers in 19 games. Three of those came in one game back on April 3 that put him on the map. Villanueva hits a ton of balls in the air, most of them to the pull side, and has been crushing fastballs and changeups. The bad news is he’s also running a 17.4% swinging strike rate and an O-Swing north of 40 percent, and getting eaten alive by breaking pitches. Pitchers are already starting to throw fewer fastballs and going out of the strike zone more often. Villanueva has some adjustments to make.

Matt Kemp, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers

The only player in this group who was drafted inside the top 400 (303 ADP), Kemp’s return to Los Angeles has yielded strong results to this point. He’s hit .313/.348/.563 with four home runs, proving to be a bright spot for the Dodgers amid their surprisingly mediocre start to the season. There’s nothing fluky about the power, but Kemp is currently making contact on pitches in the zone less than 70 percent of time, which is worse than all but two qualified hitters. Given that he’s chasing bad pitches just as much as ever, it’s hard to believe Kemp can maintain anything close to a .300 average moving forward. The counting stats should be fine though, particularly if he remains near the heart of the lineup in LA.

Nick Pivetta, SP, Philadelphia Phillies

Here’s what I wrote about Pivetta two weeks ago:

“Pivetta posted ghastly ratios last season as a rookie (6.02 ERA, 1.51 WHIP), thanks in large part to allowing 25 home runs in just 133 innings. Look closer, though, and you can see reasons for optimism. Pivetta’s 18.2 HR/FB% isn’t likely to repeat itself in 2018, nor is his 67.1% strand rate. He also got rather unlucky with a league-worst .327 BABIP on ground balls, when his expected BABIP on those based on hard-hit rate would have come in at .249 – much closer to the .241 league average. The 25-year-old off to a terrific start in 2018…He’s locating his curveball better and throwing it more often, while essentially abandoning his lousy changeup.”

Pivetta himself has acknowledged that he’s “stopped trying to be so fine,” and trust his stuff more, and early returns are impressive. He’s added a couple of ticks to his SwStr% and ranks fourth among qualified starters with a 70.0 F-Strike%. Even if the ratios (2.57 ERA, 1.00 WHIP) don’t stay this pretty, Pivetta should provide enough strikeouts to be worth rostering in most leagues.

Bud Norris, RP, St. Louis Cardinals

Fresh off a 19-save season for the Angels last year that featured well over a strikeout per inning but middling ratios, Norris is suddenly doing a credible Andrew Miller impression with St. Louis. With Greg Holland still shaking off rust after signing late, Norris has taken control of the closer role, locking down all five of his save opportunities and running a 37.5 K-BB%. Holland is still likely to take back the ninth at some point, but Norris isn’t making it easy. He’s worth owning in all leagues as long as he’s getting save chances.

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