Waiver Wire Week 18
16 HR at 22% Rostered, a .286 Blue Jay at 2%, and a Rookie K-Machine the Wire Panic-Dropped at a 5 ERA
The trade deadline is six days out and the wire is quiet in three real places. Ty France’s Statcast is up across the board YoY, Nathan Lukes is still a free everyday bat, and the two-start slate has two arms under 20% rostered. Every name below the 35% line.
The MLB deadline is Friday, so every 12-team roster is about to get a shake, and I am not chasing rumors on this page. This is the wire. Every name below is rostered in fewer than 35% of Yahoo public leagues, so you can grab any of them without spending FAAB or burning a claim. The MLB probables are only posted through Tuesday right now, so I flagged every Sunday start as inference. I ran ownership on all of them first and threw out anyone at Triple-A or on the shelf.
Must-Add Hitters
Ty France, 1B, San Diego (22% rostered, +21 in seven days)
France was a .257/.320/.360 platoon corner with 7 HR in 138 games last year. This year he is hitting .277/.332/.546 with 16 HR and 43 RBI in 78 games. The +21 rostered delta in a week says the market is starting to notice, and the pitch is not just “he is hot.” The Statcast profile is a real breakout. Barrel rate 12.5% (up from 7.7% in 2025), average exit velo 92.4 mph (up from 89.5), hard-hit 50% (up from 44.2), launch angle 12.5 (up from 10.5), sweet-spot 38.6% (up from 35.2). Five of five loud pointers moved the right direction, and his max EV is 109.6.
The catch, and there is one, is that the .546 SLG is inflated. His xSLG sits at .453 and his xBA at .246, so the slug is running about 90 points ahead of what he has actually earned, the average about 30. Even the regressed number is a large jump from his .360 SLG last year. He has 5 HR in his last 8 games including a two-homer day at Kauffman on 7/19, and the deadline noise around Padre bats will keep him in the middle of the order regardless of what SD ships out.
Action: add in every 12-team and 15-team league. Chase the real power YoY jump and the RBI floor; discount the AVG toward .245 and the slug toward .460.
Nathan Lukes, RF, Toronto (2% rostered)
Lukes is a 31-year-old everyday Blue Jays right fielder hitting .286/.339/.392 with 5 HR in 68 games, and he is rostered in 2% of leagues. Two percent. He is on pace for 130-plus games and nobody has put him on a bench. His xBA is .258, so the .286 has some BABIP help in it, and I am not going to sell him as a power add. Barrel rate is 1.1% (down from 4.7% last year) and his bat speed is 67.3 mph, one of the slower cuts in the majors.
But he controls the zone (34 K in 239 PA, a 14.2% K rate near the top of MLB regulars), and Steamer sees him at .273 the rest of the way. Toronto is dead last in the majors in runs, so I am not projecting a giant R/RBI floor here, but a free .275 average with a runs-scored trickle at the top of the order beats the .215-with-no-role bench bat you are probably running there. The last 15 have cooled (12-for-50, .240, 1 HR), which is exactly why he is still at 2%; the season line is what you are adding.
Action: add in every 12-team OBP league today. In 15-team standard he is a plug-and-play OF5.
Michael Massey, 2B, Kansas City (2% rostered)
Career year for a 2B nobody rosters. Massey hit .244/.268/.313 with 3 HR in 77 games last year. This year he is at .276/.315/.433 with 7 HR in 85 games, and his last 15 read 18-for-48 (.375) with 6 walks. His xBA is .244 so the .276 is a little lucky, and the .375 last-15 is BABIP food, but the profile shift is real. Average EV 90.1 (up from 87.5), hard-hit 41.4% (up from 33.0), barrel rate 6.2% (up from 4.0). He is squaring the ball up more than any previous season.
Second base is a shallow position and a 2%-rostered everyday KC starter with a modest AVG floor and a 14-HR pace should not be sitting on wires this deep into July.
Michael Massey’s Statcast page
Action: add in every 15-team league and any 12-team format where your MI is a rotating tire fire.
Two-Start Pitchers (Mon 7/27 to Sun 8/2)
Brandon Sproat, RHP, Milwaukee (16% rostered, -11 in seven days)
The rostership dropped 11 points in a week because the ERA is 5.09 and that is the number owners see first. I get it. But Sproat is a 25-year-old rookie striking out 9.45 per nine, his xERA is 4.84 so most of the ERA is earned but the K stuff plays, and the schedule is what sells this call.
He is a confirmed probable Monday 7/27 at San Francisco. Oracle Park is one of the top-five pitcher parks in the league, the Giants are 28th in the majors in runs, and Sproat gets a soft top-of-the-order in a suppressed environment. His slot then lines up for Saturday 8/1 or Sunday 8/2 at the Angels, 20th in runs, in a roughly neutral park. The second start is inferred from rotation-slot math, not a posted probable. If Milwaukee slots him for 8/1 you get both starts inside every fantasy week; 8/2 same. If they push him to 8/3 I gave you one start against a bottom-three offense in a top-five pitcher park, and I will own that in Sunday’s Report Card.
Brandon Sproat’s Statcast page
Verdict: 15-team K-chasers plug him in for both starts. In 12-team roto the WHIP is a risk (43 BB in 86.2 IP is real) and I would only start him if my ratios can absorb one bumpy outing.
Kumar Rocker, RHP, Texas (9% rostered)
Rocker is the bigger name and the harder matchup. He is at 4.13 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 8.06 K/9 across 17 GS/96 IP. That is a full-run improvement on his 5.74 ERA rookie year. The xERA is 4.62 so there is regression waiting, and the last two starts split hard: 7/11 vs HOU 5.2 IP / 7 ER, then 7/21 vs CHW 6 IP / 0 ER / 1 H / 6 K. Command is the volatility on his bad nights.
He is confirmed Monday 7/27 at home vs Seattle, 29th in the majors in runs (a soft matchup). His rotation lines up for Saturday 8/1 or Sunday 8/2 at Houston, and Houston is 12th, right in the middle. The Sunday start is inferred and the road matchup in Houston raises the ratio risk. If you have a Sunday-ending fantasy week the second start is a coin flip on ratios; the K/W upside is the reason to take it.
Verdict: 15-team streamers roster and start both. 12-team leagues sit out the second start unless Monday vs SEA is a gem you want to double down on.
Deep League Stash
Marcell Ozuna, DH, Pittsburgh (3% rostered): I passed on Ozuna in the last two Buy/Sell articles for volume risk after his offseason move to PIT. The volume is coming back: he has started five of the last seven Pittsburgh games including both halves of the 7/22 doubleheader, hit 3 HR over his last 15 games, and his xSLG is .400 against a .331 actual, a 69-point gap that is the largest for any bat you can grab under 5%. Barrel rate 8.4%, avg EV 89.4. The .203 average is not going to fix itself and Pittsburgh is a bad lineup context, but this is a 40-HR bat in 2023 and a 39-HR bat in 2024 who is quietly on a 20-HR pace this year, and at 3% you are risking nothing. 15-team power/RBI stash only. Savant
Drop Candidate
Mickey Moniak, LF, Colorado (37% rostered): I told you to sell him in Week 8 and he graded A. The .277 avg / 16 HR line has kept him rostered anyway. Look at the split: xBA .229 (48-point gap under the actual .277), xSLG .436 (122-point gap under the actual .558, the widest I saw all week). The .558 SLG is doing all the fantasy work and none of it is holding through August. One HR in his last 15 games and the road splits are already ugly. Cut in every 12-team format that is not carrying four OF UTIL spots.
Closing
Deadline week will double the free-agent pool over the next seven days as rosters shed the pieces the deal desks did not want. Right now, France is the one I would burn a claim on before Saturday’s lineup lock, Lukes is the free .286 bat nobody has bothered to roster, and Sproat is the two-start lottery ticket if your ratios can handle a rookie’s WHIP. Oddsmyth is the free 9am email that pings me when one of these guys picks up a role change before Yahoo’s trending list catches on.
See you Sunday for the Report Card, where the Week 16 Buy/Sell picks and Week 16 waiver adds get their grades and I own the misses next to the hits. Sundays now also carry the DFS scorecard: every lineup the Oddsmyth optimizer builds, scored against the real box scores, the cashes and the busts both.