Hi, I'm Jack Thaler and I hoped you enjoyed last week's edition of My Fantasy Baseball Experience. This week I will be talking about playing time.Believe it or not, playing time affects fantasy baseball more than you probably think so today I will be talking about two emerging conflicts that involve playing time as the MLB season gets closer to the final stretch.
The first of these conflicts involves Andrew Vaughn’s recent breakout. Vaughn was only supposed to be the temporary Brewers first baseman while Rhys Hoskins spent some time on the IL with a left thumb sprain. Hoskins is supposed to return in mid-August but the question is will he still have the full time job because since Vaughn was traded to the Brewers he is batting .348 with 7 HR’s in 25 games. I actually think that the Brewers will end up platooning Vaughn and Hoskins at first base which will render both of them useless for fantasy baseball purposes since neither of them will be getting enough AB’s. So, enjoy Vaughn for the next week or so because you may need to drop him soon.
Another playing time conflict involves a young player by the name of Kristian Campbell. Campbell is a former top 10 overall prospect on MLB pipeline and he made his debut earlier this year. Campbell played almost three months of baseball from April to mid-June before he was sent down to AAA and it's not like his stats were horrific, he was batting .223 with 6 HR’s which is fine since this is his first year but the Red Sox decided to send him down anyways because it would also open up space for Wilyer Abreu to come back from the injured list. Campbell is heating up right now in AAA and I suspect the Red Sox will try to call him up soon. Right now David Hamilton and Ceddanne Rafaela have been playing 2B for the Red Sox so I expect that if Campbell gets called up he will be platooning with someone else at 2B which would obviously mean that you should not pick him up but we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Now for my waiver pickups of the week:
Pitchers:
Cade Cavalli & Cade Horton
Cade Cavalli just made his second career start and his first since Tommy John surgery. Cavalli went 3.1 innings striking out six and giving up 0 runs. I think Cavalli is a stud, he has ridiculous stuff but the only risk of course is his health. Cade Horton is a former top prospect who is on a ridiculous streak of not giving up any runs. He has gone 4 starts while allowing 0 earned runs and striking out 16. Horton has immense talent so watch out.
Hitters:
Jakob Marsee & Luke Keaschall
Jakob Marsee was just called up and made his debut a week ago. Marsee is batting .419 with 1 homer and also 5 bags in 11 games so watch out encase his success continues. Luke Keaschall showed some success in a 6 game span in April and was recently called up again. Since being called up he is batting .458 with 2 homers in 5 games so watch out because he has shown no signs of weaknesses or slowing down this year so far.
I hope these waiver adds help and I hope to see you next week for my 10th edition of My Fantasy Baseball Experience.