2024 Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Travis d’Arnaud, Luis Severino
This week's list of waiver wire adds is headlined by Luis Severino, Travis d'Arnaud and Reed Garrett, amongst other top performers.
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 April 23.
Hitters
Travis d’Arnaud – C – Atlanta Braves (48%)
As Sean Murphy continues to recover from an early-season oblique injury, d’Arnaud, as he’s done so many times over the last few years for the Braves, has stepped up in a big way. The veteran backstop has really been rolling of late, as he’s come up with three multi-hit games over the last five days, going 8 for 13 with a whopping five deep drives, one double, and 11 RBI.
At least until Murphy gets back, which is likely still a few weeks away, d’Arnaud should be locked into lineups. Even hitting toward the bottom of the Braves’ loaded batting order brings plenty of run-producing opportunities.
Luis Rengifo – 2B,3B,SS,OF – Los Angeles Angels (39%)
Angels’ manager Ron Washington finally seems to have embraced Rengifo as an everyday, or at least close to everyday, piece of his starting lineup. It took a minute, but the versatile Venezuelan has been in there for 12 of the club’s last 15 games.
Regifo has yet to show the pop that resulted in 17 and 16 homers respectively over the past two seasons. Still, he is providing fantasy value in one particular category, swiping five bases during that stretch. Washington tends to want his players active on the base paths, and Rengifo’s fantasy appeal has been enhanced by that already. If the power shows back up soon, his rostered percentage will soar.
Luis Garcia Jr. – 2B – Washington Nationals (16%)
Another Luis that’s displayed a significant boost in stolen-base upside so far this year, Garcia has already swiped five bags through his first 20 games. For comparison, he only stole 13 bases over his 325 career big-league games coming into 2024.
Garcia isn’t just showing improvement in that department. He’s also hitting the ball a lot harder on average this season, recording a 47.3 HardHit% and seven barrels (12.7%) across 70 plate appearances so far. Both of those percentages would be new career highs by a large margin, and they have resulted in a strong .318/.357/.470 slash line with a homer, seven doubles, and 10 RBI to this point.
Johan Rojas – OF – Philadelphia Phillies – (7%)
Here’s some more speed for the deeper formats out there. Rojas got off to a terrible start this season, going just 1 for 22 with six strikeouts, two walks, two runs, and one steal over his first eight games. Then, a three-hit day on April 8 began a current stretch that has seen him take off. Over his last dozen games, the fleet-footed center fielder has gone 15 for 38 (.395) with two doubles, a triple, five stolen bases, and seven runs scored.
Rojas has been making contact at an impressive rate (84.4 Contact%, 97.5 Z-Contact%) during this run. The lows will come with Rojas, but his elite defense keeps him in the lineup and the stolen-base potential alone makes him valuable to fantasy managers.
Pitchers
Luis Severino – SP – New York Mets (54%)
This certainly isn’t the Severino that was a two-time All-Star and Cy Young contender years ago, but what he’s been able to do so far through five starts this season is worthy of attention. The 30-year-old righty has gone at least five innings – six in his last two outings – each time out, surrendering three earned run or less en route to a 2.67 ERA overall. His WHIP is serviceable at 1.26, as he has kept the walks (7.8%) mostly in check. Since his first start in which he gave up 11 hits to the Brewers, Severino’s WHIP stands at a stellar 1.05 while limiting the opposition to a .180 AVG.
As far as strikeouts go, Severino has posted a solid 22.4 K%, recording 26 in total across 27 innings. Combine that with an excellent 58.2 GB% and 88.9 mph EV, and Severino has an encouraging 3.46 xFIP backing up his positive results to this point. It’s time for fantasy managers to start trusting him a bit once again.
Erick Fedde – SP – Chicago White Sox (8%)
Of course, Fedde’s 11 punchouts over six innings in Minnesota on Tuesday night have a little something to do with this pick. However, the 2023 KBO MVP has been one to watch since the White Sox brought him back to the States on a free-agent deal this past December.
Even before giving up only one run on three hits alongside all those strikeouts against the Twins last time out, Fedde had been pitching well for the most part. Through his prior four starts this year, he worked to a 3.10 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, and 19 strikeouts over 20.1 innings. The long ball was a problem early, as he surrendered five over his first 14.2 innings. However, Fedde has not allowed one in his last two starts (11.2 IP). The K-rate (27.3%) is promising, as are the groundballs (47.1%) and weak contact (87.3 EV).
Reed Garrett – RP – New York Mets (31%)
Talk about an early-season breakout coming out of nowhere: Garrett came into the season as a 31-year-old journeyman holding a 7.11 ERA and 32-to-28 K/BB over 44.1 career MLB innings combined between four different teams. So, for those who didn’t see anything coming from him at all, consider yourself among the overwhelming majority.
Garrett has so far made six appearances out of the Mets’ bullpen this season, giving up no earned runs (2 runs) on five hits and three walks across 10.2 innings. That’s good, but it’s his incredible strikeout rate (51.2%) that’s understandably gaining everyone’s attention. With mid-90s heat, a good splitter, and a devastating slider which he’s using 54.4% of the time, Garrett has racked up 21 strikeouts already.
Edwin Diaz is the unquestioned closer for the Mets. Garrett did grab his first career save this past Saturday though, doing so in relief of Diaz. Factoring that in along with the fact that Diaz is coming off a major injury that cost him all of last season, Garrett could certainly find several more opportunities for saves going forward. Even if he doesn’t, his strikeout potential and ratio stats make him worth an add right now.
Written by
Nate Miller is a feature writer at FantasyPros and Just Baseball. He has been an analyst in the fantasy sports industry for the past decade, covering…