Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Parker Messick emerging as must-add arm after dominant stretch

Finding emerging arms worth targeting as upside becomes key early-season strategy

As much as anything else at this time of the season, you want to try to avoid falling victim to confirmation bias. If I'm going to preach caution on hot starts from players I was skeptical about, like James Wood and Oneil Cruz, I probably shouldn't turn around and declare every player I liked a superstar based on three good weeks. 

So, I'm not here to declare Parker Messick is going to win the American League Cy Young. He'll probably only finish, like, sixth, or something.

In all seriousness, it's pretty clear Messick was just being overlooked when he finished the spring with a 310.0 ADP in NFBC drafts. That was clear even before he flirted with a no-hitter Thursday against the Orioles - heck, it was clear when his ADP only rose to 277.3 in the final week or so of drafts after it was clear he was going to be in the rotation when the Guardians sent Logan Allen down to Triple-A. 

Why was he so overlooked? Part of it was a lack of prospect pedigree – Messick didn't enter 2025 as a top-100 prospect on any of the big lists. And part of it is because he just doesn't have The Look – he's not short, exactly, but he's stocky, and he doesn't check a lot of the stuff boxes. His fastball is right around 93 mph, and he doesn't have the huge spin rates or wipeout movement that generates highlight videos.

But Messick is just, for lack of a better word, a pitcher. His velocity plays up because he comes from a high arm angle combined with a relatively low release slot – he's a lot like Shota Imanaga in that way, except with an added tick of velo. He doesn't have Imanaga's outlier splitter, but Messick's changeup generates similar results for him, thanks to excellent command and fade that plays off the fastball well. And he's got a deep arsenal full of pitchers he can offer to batters of each handedness without getting predictable.

He just gave the Orioles fits Thursday. He got at least one whiff with each of his six pitches, but it was of course the changeup that did much of the heavy lifting, with nine of his 18 whiffs coming on that pitch against a righty-heavy lineup. He was amped up for this one and held his velocity well all the way to the ninth inning, ultimately finishing the game with two runs allowed on two hits and two walks while striking out nine. 

Despite how good he was Thursday and how much I like watching him pitch, I don't think Messick l is someone you need to treat like an ace all of a sudden. He's surely not as good as his 1.05 ERA, and the lack of velocity and relatively muted strikeout upside (Thursday notwithstanding) do put a ceiling on how much you can expect from him. He probably won't get to 200 strikeouts, and that does limit the margin for error here a bit. As we saw with Shota Imanaga and Matthew Boyd in the second half of last season, it doesn't take a ton to go wrong for this kind of pitcher to go sideways. 

But I do think Messick should be viewed as more or less a must-start pitcher. Does that mean he's a top-30 starter? No, I wouldn't go that far. Top 40? I could see it, but I think in the 50 range, it is easier to argue for him. That might mean there is a sell-high window for opening up with Messick, who has an ERA right around 2.00 through the first 11 starts of his career, but I don't think we're talking about a burgeoning rotation anchor like Nolan McLean. 

But this isn't a situation where I expect the bottom to just fall out with Messick. He's good. And that's not just confirmation bias. 

Now, let's get to everything else you need to know from Thursday's action around MLB:     

Friday's top waiver-wire targets

Here's who we're looking to add coming out of Thursday's action: 

Brandon Sproat, SP, Brewers (20%) – I'll put this out there first: I've never been much of a believer in Sproat's. But I'm not going to outright ignore a great start like Thursday's, as he limited the Blue Jays to just one run on four hits over 6.2 innings with, most importantly, just one walk. Sproat can have impressive stuff – though not always, which is part of the problem – but his career as a prospect was almost derailed by command issues. That wasn't an issue Thursday, albeit against a Blue Jays lineup that hasn't quite locked in just yet. Caveats aside, if we're always chasing upside at pitcher, Sproat certainly has some, which makes him worth chasing – even if I would certainly prioritize Mick Abel and maybe Spencer Arrighetti over him if all are available. 

Landen Roupp, SP, Giants (42%) – Roupp continues to generate strong results, and after Thursday's six shutout innings, he's down to a 2.38 ERA with 24 strikeouts to seven walks in 22.2 innings of work. He's gone six innings in three of his four starts, and he's doing it with a well-rounded skill set and deeper arsenal than in the past – though he's still capable of leaning on that curveball when he needs to, as he did Thursday, throwing it 43% of the time to lead the arsenal. Roupp has seen early improvement in his strikeout and walk rates, plus his damage on balls in play, which is how he has a 2.38 xERA to match his actual mark. I'm still skeptical, but he's making it all work right now, and he's got a great home park backing him up, if nothing else. The problem with adding him? He's set to face the Dodgers next week, and it's going to be tough to trust him. 

Chase Dollander, SP, Rockies (8%) – Last season, Dollander was such a disaster on the road that it totally hid that he was actually decent on the road. Not dominant, certainly, but a 3.46 ERA and 1.17 WHIP is useful even without any wins and a strikeout rate below one per inning. But it's hard to roster a pitcher with a ceiling that limited, so it's been nice to see some real signs of upside from Dollander in the early going, especially during Thursday's nine-strikeout effort against the Astros. The upside is still capped in a lot of ways – we're a long way from being able to trust Dolland at Coors Field, and the Rockies have only let him finish five innings once while pitching as a bulk reliever. But his stuff seems to have leveled up this season, and we're seeing signs that he might have a path to upside if they take the restrictors off. In deeper leagues, he's at least a bench stash to deploy strategically in the right situations. 

Steven Matz, RP, Rays (49%) – I know there are some folks who are buying into the Rays doing their thing and wringing value out of Matz, but I think he's still pretty fringy. It's been a solid start, but he still has the look of a streamer to me. The good news? He gets the Reds away from Cincinnati next week, so I'd feel pretty good about starting him there, at least. 

Josh Jung, 3B, Rangers (21%) – There's a part of me that's always going to believe in Jung, even if I recognize that the chances of him emerging as a big Fantasy contributor are probably extremely slim. Still, third base remains as much of a disaster as we feared coming into the season, so let's take a look at Jung, who hit his first homer Thursday. He's cut his strikeout rate from 28% for his career to 19% so far, though that has come with a predictable drop in quality of contact – and a rise in groundball rate. The swing isn't tuned in yet, but maybe this is the start of him figuring it out. In all honesty, there just weren't a lot of interesting hitting performances Thursday, so we'll throw Jung a bone here. 

Erik Miller, RP, Giants (1%) – This one's probably a long shot, seeing as the Giants have now used three different pitchers for three saves this season. But at the very least, it doesn't look like Ryan Walker is the closer, and Miller has some strikeout upside even beyond his three Ks Thursday. Given how many closer situations are in flux, Miller might be worth targeting to steal a save or two.