2024 Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Adds: Luis Matos, Zach Neto, Taj Bradley

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 21.

Hitters

Luis Matos – OF – San Francisco Giants (49%)

From Monday through Saturday of last week, Matos went on a streak of five straight games with an RBI, including performances with three, five, and six. Now, that output, which earned him N.L. Player of the Week honors,  is obviously unsustainable, but something that should keep Matos producing is his ability to make a ton of solid contact.

Across 35 plate appearances so far this season, Matos has struck out just once while recording elite contact rates (90.3 Contact%, 97.1 Z-Contact%). In addition, his 45.5 HardHit% and 21.2 LD% have led to a .324 AVG with two homers and three doubles. The Giants have moved Matos toward the middle of the batting order in recent days, and he’s taken over in center field since Jung Hoo Lee (shoulder) went down for the season.  

Alec Burleson – 1B,OF – St. Louis Cardinals (24%)

Burleson has been rolling over the last couple of weeks. He’s currently hit safely in seven-straight games and 11 of 13. During that stretch, the 25-year-old has delivered six multi-hit efforts, hitting a cool .413 (19 for 46) with a 1.121 OPS, three home runs, and four doubles. He’s backed those numbers up with a healthy 45.2 HardHit% and elite 33.3 LD%.

Ride out Burleson’s hot streak. The Cardinals’ lineup has been getting healthy and much more productive overall lately. That should give him ample opportunity to put counting stats up on the board for fantasy managers.

Zach Neto – SS – Los Angeles Angels (21%)

Neto got off to a terrible start this season, hitting an ugly .167 with a meager .449 OPS and 31.6 K% across his first 21 games. However, he got hot around a month ago, hammering a homer and four doubles during a modest four-game hitting streak beginning April 22. Since then, the first-round draft pick from 2022 has not looked back.

Over his last 27 games, Neto has posted a strong .316/.356/.589 slash line with six long balls, eight doubles, 12 RBI, and 15 runs scored. Three of those deep drives have come in his last six games. He’s also trimmed his strikeout rate to 21.8% during this span while a strong 26.4 LD% has paved the way to a .358 BABIP.  Neto certainly appears to have settled in against big-league pitching, but his rostered rate is still lagging due to that poor start.

Pitchers

Taj Bradley – SP – Tampa Bay Rays (47%)

Over 104 2/3 innings as a rookie in 2023, Bradley turned in mixed results. His 5.59 ERA and 1.39 WHIP were lofty, but that ERA covered up a much more encouraging 3.83 xFIP. Combined with his 129 strikeouts (28.0 K%), most around the fantasy baseball world still believed in Bradley’s upside. Then, he suffered a right pectoral strain in Spring Training, delaying his season debut for the Rays to May 10.

Well, Bradley is back now and mowing down batters at an elite clip. Yes, he surrendered five earned runs to the Red Sox in his most recent outing. However, the 23-year-old righty still registered 10 punchouts, bringing his total to 23 (32.4%) across 18 frames on the season. In addition, he’s carrying a respectable 4.00 ERA, and his 0.94 WHIP is largely due to a much improved 4.2 BB% so far.

As evidenced by a 14.9 SwStr% and .209 AVG against, Bradley is plenty capable of dominating MLB hitters. Expect some volatility, but his rostered rate should be much higher.

Chris Paddack – SP – Minnesota Twins (20%)

As many pitchers have this season, Paddack had a rough outing against the Yankees in the first of two starts this past week. The reason to keep believing in the rejuvenated right-hander is due to how he quickly bounced back against another tough lineup in Cleveland on Sunday.

Paddack worked a season-high eight frames against the Guardians, limiting them to two runs on just three hits with no walks and six strikeouts. That marks the fourth time in his last six outings in which he has had at least six strikeouts. In that same span, Paddack has put up a 2.97 ERA and a remarkable 38-to-5 K/BB across 36.1 innings.

As with Bradley above, Paddack is quite likely to have a shaky effort here and there. However, his strikeout potential and command should make him a valuable hurler for the backend of any fantasy staff.