Hi it's Jack Thaler again. I hope you enjoyed last week's edition of My Fantasy Baseball Experience and had a good 4th of July weekend. This week I will be focusing on the question “is spring training useful?”.
We are far enough into the season where we have kind of determined what types of seasons players are having and we can use this information to solve an important question in the fantasy baseball world ... is spring training data useful. This season there were some main spring training breakouts I will look into. Curtis Mead, Aaron Judge, Kyren Paris, Rafael Devers , and Garrett Crochet. Let me sort these names into two groups, the ones who performed really well in spring training and the ones who didn’t. The ones who did well are Curtis Mead, Kyren Paris, and Garrett Crochet. The ones who didn’t perform are Judge and Devers.
Curtis Mead only had 18 AB’s in spring training but managed to go 14 for 18 with 1 HR, so far in the regular season he is batting .225 with only 3 HR’s. Paris started out strong but has been slumping and has returned to being a below average hitter. But Crochet is one of the best pitchers in baseball right now and has followed his spring training success. The two hitters who didn’t perform well are now two of the best hitters in the game (for Judge this is an understatement). What I can conclude is that spring training does not have a big impact on a player's regular season performance and you should not pay attention to a player's spring training stats for fantasy purposes.
With that said here are my waiver pickups of the week.
Pitchers:
Eury Perez
Edward Cabrera
Lucas Giolito
Trevor Rogers
Eury Perez made his first start since 2023 a couple weeks ago and got off to a rocky start but put up six shutout innings on July 3rd and looked like his old dominant self, the only risk I would give is if he gets hurt again or if he is still a little rusty. Edward Cabrera has looked dominant to start 2025 and has finally started to put it all together after years of disappointment and injuries. I would compare Edward Cabrera to one of my recommended waiver pickups of last week in Jose Soriano, they both have incredible stuff and I have believed that they both can be aces and both of them have performed that way in 2025. The only risk for Cabrera is that he has a ridiculous injury history so pick him up with caution. Lucas Giolito has shown a lot of success in the past and has been on a really good run lately so pay attention but watch out for his health. Trevor Rogers followed up a shutout performance with two more quality starts which makes me wonder if this is finally Trevor Rogers year so pay attention to him on the wire.
Hitters:
Trevor Story(SS)
Addison Barger(OF)
This week was a really pitcher heavy waiver wire so I only have two hitters for you. Trevor Story had a ridiculous stretch in the mid-late 2010’s with the Rockies but after signing a big contract with the Red Sox he has been disappointing for the past couple years, so far this year story has been pretty good but the run he has been on these past couple weeks is even better so watch out for Story on the wire and pay attention to his health and the fact that he has been disappointing in recent years. Addison Barger is a young outfielder for the Blue Jays who has been on a crazy run lately, although he was never a big prospect Barger has been on a crazy run and it is worth looking into him on the wire.
I hope these waiver adds help you and I hope to see you next week for my 5th edition of My Fantasy Baseball Experience.