We’re now past Memorial Day, a landmark date for the major league season. We must take an honest look at who’s playing well, who’s playing poorly, and who we can truly count on to help us out through the long summer months ahead.
So, we need to look a bit deeper to find gems on the waiver wire. Fear not, because there are still a handful of available players that have the chance to be difference makers in both the short and long term.
Syndication: Arizona Republic
Top fantasy baseball prospects: Jac Caglianone crushing in Omaha, Travis Sykora impressing on the mound
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A look at the top prospects who can help fantasy rosters in 2025 and beyond.
Here are three players that are under 40% rostered on Yahoo leagues that you should strongly consider adding.
If you want a larger list, Eric Samulski wrote his extended waiver wire piece on Sunday.
Chase Meidroth, 2B/3B/SS
(38% Rostered on Yahoo)
The most major league ready piece in the package that went back to the White Sox for Garrett Crochet this past winter, the 23-year-old Meidroth has played well to begin his career.
He’s riding a 13 game on-base streak as of Tuesday morning and has asserted himself as both their lead-off hitter and starting shortstop since being called up about a month ago.
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More than anything else, he is a pest at the plate. He consistently held high on-base percentages through the minor leagues by rarely striking out and drawing plenty of walks.
So far in the majors, Meidroth has the lowest swing rate of any player that has taken at least 100 plate appearances. On top of that, he has one of the highest zone-contact rates. So while he rarely swings, he will almost always make contact when the ball is in the zone and he decides to offer at it.
That approach has helped him to a .296 batting average and .387 on-base percentage through 31 games as a rookie.
This approach is not all that different from other contact mavens like Jacob Wilson, Luis Arraez, and Steven Kwan, Meidroth just takes it to an entirely different extreme by never swinging the bat.
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Of that trio, Meidroth’s approach is most similar to Kwan’s, who is also patient and takes his fair share of walks. Yet, Meidroth walks far more often, has a bit more raw power, and has managed a similar contact rate.
It doesn’t look like he’ll hit for much power though with just one home run and meager 107.1 mph max exit velocity. All four hitters from this group have very short swings – which minimizes their ceiling as power hitters – but often square-up the ball to shoot base hits all over the field.
Meidroth could still run into eight or so homers from this point on. He’s averaged that many in each of his last two minor league seasons and most projection models peg him for somewhere between five and seven the rest of the way. He also pulls his fly balls at a similar rate to Wilson, whose power output has been a surprise.
Instead, he’s surprisingly proven himself as a capable base stealer of late. He’s swiped five bags in his last 10 games and already has eight this season. He never stole more than 13 in any full minor league season. If this aggressiveness holds, it could dramatically increase his fantasy value.
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Bottom line, Meidroth is eligible all over the infield and will be a boost in both batting average and on-base percentage. Him stealing bases could be a huge bonus that counteract his minimal power production.
Brett Baty, 2B/3B Mets
(16% Rostered on Yahoo)
There’s some genuine skill growth happening right now with Baty. He has a .908 OPS since being recalled from the minor leagues on May 7th and has all practically usurped Mark Vientos as the Mets’ starting third baseman.
This is a borderline shock after he was statistically one of the worst players in baseball through April.
A hot spring training plus an injury to Jeff McNeil opened the door for Baty to make the opening day roster and get playing time at second base early on. While he held his own there defensively, he opened the season with a 3-for-27 slump.
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Worse than that slump, his approach at the plate was a disaster. He didn’t draw a walk, struck out over 40% of the time, and somehow fell behind 0-2 in the count in nearly half of his plate appearances during that stretch.
Again, it was an unmitigated disaster.
He showed some signs of life towards the end of the month with a handful of extra-base hits and a long home run against Zack Wheeler, but was demoted when McNeil returned from injury.
Now, he looks like a totally different player. His at-bats are much more consistent and his strikeout rate is down to 21.2% since coming back up. This comes with a zone-contact and overall contact rate that are right around league average.
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That’s very important for Baty because his carrying skill is his power and it will shine through as long as he’s literally able to make consistent contact. His pitch recognition was severely lacking though, until a recent and somewhat unorthodox adjustment.
While his bat speed is up there with the league’s elite power hitters, Baty has struggled to both pull and lift the ball in the past. To try and fix this, he seemed dead set on making contact with the ball out in front of the plate. That makes sense: if you want to pull and lift the ball for power, go out and get it.
It didn’t work though and forced him into many bad swings and an overall poor approach. More recently, he’s decided to let the ball travel deeper before making contact. He’s moved back in the box three inches and his intercept point is about six inches deeper than it was last season.
For most, this could decrease power. Since Baty has such freaky raw power and twitch, he can still generate top-end power and that extra split second he’s afforded himself has drastically improved his pitch recognition for the time being.
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These improvements at the plate have been underscored by his defensive prowess, where again he’s lightyears better than Vientos at third base and can hold his own at second.
All he needs to do is be something close to a league average hitter and he’ll play everyday. If he’s getting to this much power, he’ll be far better than that and a valuable asset in 12-team leagues with his dual position eligibility.
AJ Blubaugh, SP Astros
(0% Rostered on Yahoo)
This is one to file away for you deep league players.
The Astros’ rotation is beleaguered at the moment with Hayden Wesneski’s Tommy John surgery and Ronel Blanco’s elbow inflammation that landed him on the injured list. They joined Spencer Arrigheti who still hasn’t thrown after breaking his thumb seven weeks ago.
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With that, Ryan Gusto and Colton Gordon currently have spots on their pitching staff.
Gusto flashed some solid stuff early in the season, but his only plus pitch is a fastball and even that has drifted back closer to average. Gordon is a soft-tossing lefty that stays around the strike zone and doesn’t have many weapons to get right-handed batters out.
There’s a decent chance one of – if not both – of these two could be pushed out of the rotation before long.
And that’s without mentioning Lance McCullers Jr. who’s back after a two-year hiatus and walking nearly 15% of the batters he’s faced without completing five innings in any of his four starts so far.
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So, the door could be open for Blubaugh. Stuff wise, he’s more impressive than anyone on this list. He has a decent fastball that sits around 94 mph with solid ride and run plus a nasty sweeper, cutter, curveball, and changeup. That deep mix gives him ample weapons to attack hitters from each side of the plate.
He was called upon for a spot start on April 30th and struck out six Tigers. He also allowed two home runs and was pulled after four innings. Still, the stuff shone through and of this group of back-end starters in Houston, he has the most upside for the rest of the season.
Be vigilant on their team news and use the Rotoworld player news page to do so. That way, you can grab Blubaugh right when he snags one of these rotation spots.
Read the full article here
