2024 Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Adds: Jackson Merrill, Eddie Rosario, Clarke Schmidt

Playing the waiver wire effectively is crucial to fantasy baseball success throughout the season. Each week of the 2024 campaign, this article will help pinpoint which players are readily available to be picked up in most formats. All of them should help bolster fantasy rosters in the short and/or long term.

***Players included on the list below were rostered In less than 70 percent of Yahoo! Leagues at the time of writing. Stats are up to date through May 14

Hitters

Jackson Merrill – SS,OF – San Diego Padres (58%)

Merrill swiped his seventh base of the season and third over the past three days Tuesday. Over that span, the rookie has gone 6-for-11 with a homer. He went through a bit of a dry spell during the previous couple of weeks, but Merrill appears to be back on track. Strong contact rates (83.8 Contact%, 89.8 Z-Contact%) and an excellent 47.8 HardHit% have led to a .290 AVG, and now that he’s adding in more steals, Merrill should be rostered in far more leagues.  

Abraham Toro – 2B,3B – Oakland Athletics (52%)

How many out there could guess that Toro is the league leader in hits over the past two weeks?

In 14 games dating back to April 30, he has racked up 23 base knocks, including two homers, five doubles, eight RBI, and 13 runs. Toro has recorded 10 multi-hit performances in that stretch while posting an outstanding .377/.424/.557 slash line. Yes, his .420 BABIP is nowhere near sustainable. Still, a 30.8 LD% and elite contact rates (85.2 Contact%, 95.5 Z-Contact%) are promising.  

Eddie Rosario – OF – Washington Nationals (34%)

When a player homers four times in six games, expect his rostered rate to surge. Rosario is known to be a streaky hitter, and, for the second year in a row, he’s followed an incredibly slow start with an offensive burst.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Rosario was hitting under .100 after picking up only six hits over his first 70 at-bats. It seemed his days as a regular in Washington were going to be brief, but he has since hit in nine straight games, going 12-for-31 with those four deep drives, eight RBI, 11 runs, and four steals. Rosario has produced an amazing 63.6 HardHit% and 45.5 LD% in this stretch. He’s also stealing bases at a career-best rate while trying to maintain his spot in the lineup.

Leody Taveras – OF – Texas Rangers (25%)

Like Rosario, Taveras’ rostered rate has been soaring due to his hot bat. He really struggled to get much of anything going over the first few weeks of the season, but things started to click late last month. Dating back to April 26, Taveras has hit safely in 14 of 17 games, putting up an impressive .328/.409/.535 slash line with three homers, three doubles, eight RBI, two steals , and a whopping 15 runs. Hitting from the ninth spot isn’t such a bad thing in the Rangers’ lineup.

Pitchers

Clarke Schmidt – SP – New York Yankees (48%)

Schmidt turned in his best performance of the season this past Friday (5/10), holding the Rays scoreless across 6.2 innings while giving up just five hits and two walks with six punchouts. That dropped his season ERA down below 3.00, as he has not allowed more than three runs in any of his eight starts to date and logged at least five frames each time out.

Schmidt’s 1.27 WHIP and 8.6 BB% are a little higher than ideal, but he counters that with a strong 27.0 K%. In fact, he has struck out a minimum of five batters in all but one start so far this year and in each of his last six outings. Schmidt also has serious upside in the wins department pitching for the Yankees.  

Erick Fedde – SP – Chicago White Sox (40%)

Fedde began the month of May with a hiccup, as he issued five walks and surrendered five earned runs over 4.1 innings at St. Louis. Since then, he’s worked back-to-back scoreless outings, giving up only nine hits and no walks with nine strikeouts across 13 frames. Even with that shaky outing against the Cardinals, Fedde has turned in a stellar 1.93 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, and 36-to-8 K/BB across 37.1 innings in his last six starts.

Fedde’s 46.0 GB% and 36.0 HardHit% in the same span are encouraging, as is his 3.29 xFIP. That mark suggests some predictable regression is in store, but it’s still a positive number. Fedde was recommended in this article a few weeks back. His rostered rate has risen significantly. It should rise a little higher still.