Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Travis Bazzana arrives as Connor Prielipp and Parker Messick keep rising

Top prospects and emerging arms continue reshaping the waiver wire landscape

The Guardians are calling up former No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana, and that's worth getting excited about. Even if he might not profile as the kind of superstar you expect from a former No. 1 overall pick. 

When he was in college, you could perhaps dream on some Jose Ramirez-esque outcomes where he combines elite bat-to-ball skills with big pull-side power, but that hasn't really come to fruition since he's been a pro. With two homers in his first 24 games this season, he's up to six in 50 career Triple-A games, while hitting .257/.421/.475. 

That's pretty underwhelming across the board, though Bazzana has been better this season than last, at least. He's lopped a few points off his strikeout rate, down to around an average 21.4% rate, and he's added a tick to his average exit velocity to push it to 90.5 mph so far this season. He hasn't turned into a big source of power, but he actually is hitting the ball harder than your average Triple-A hitter at the average, 90th percentile, and max levels. Combined with the improved contact skills, there's a lot to like here.

But one skill really hasn't followed him to the pros, and that's the pull-side power. In both stints in Triple-A so far, he has hit just around 12% of his batted balls in the air to the pull side, ranking around the 20th-25th percentile in both seasons. For a guy with elite power, that wouldn't matter so much – James Wood can hit 'em out to anywhere. But for a guy with merely good power like Bazzana's, the fact that he doesn't hit the ball to the right parts of the field is going to hold him back.

It's not hard to see him either continuing to improve his contact skills or getting back to tapping into that pull-side power, but he'll need to do one or the other to tap into real upside for Fantasy. He's still someone worth adding in all leagues, of course – in points and OBP leagues because he's likely to run huge walk rates and strong OBPs as a result, and in traditional categories leagues because he could be a 20-25 guy with a batting average that doesn't hurt you.

At second base, that could be very valuable. You could see some outcomes like an off-peak Ozzie Albies or Marcus Semien season from Bazzana on the higher end, and a more median outcome might be something like what Gleyber Torres has settled in as, albeit with more stolen base production than we've gotten the past few seasons. That's not an impact player anymore, but it's a serviceable starter at a weak position. 

That's probably what Bazzana can be these days. It's not the star-level outcome you hope for from a No. 1 overall pick, but it's enough to make him a top-15 option at the position right away, which is enough to make him worth adding in pretty much all leagues. 

Here's what else you need to know from Monday's action around MLB:

Tuesday's top waiver-wire targets

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

Connor Prielipp, SP, Twins (26%) – I think Prielipp is pretty good. I don't necessarily think he's a burgeoning ace, or anything, but he's a young lefty who can dial his fastball up to the mid-to-high 90s, and he's got a really good slider that generated six of his 11 whiffs Monday. The rest of the arsenal is a bit of a work in progress, which isn't a huge surprise for a guy who has never thrown 100 innings in season. He has struck out 11 in his first nine MLB innings, and given the quality of the stuff here, I don't think that's a fluke. He's not a must-add pitcher, but I think there's enough upside here to make him worth an add in deeper leagues. 

Moises Ballesteros, DH, Cubs (53%) – DH. For now. The hope with Ballesteros was always that he would make himself so indispensable to the Cubs that they would eventually have to find ways to get him into the lineup beyond just the DH spot. Well, he made his first start of the season at catcher Monday against the Padres, and his second appearance overall. It took a month to get two appearances there, so gaining eligibility might not be imminent exactly, but it's a sign that he is forcing the Cubs' hands a little bit more lately – a 1.181 OPS will do that. He homered Monday and looks like he could have top-12 upside if and when he gains catcher eligibility. 

Steven Matz, RP, Rays (61%) – I'm gonna be honest: My heart really isn't in this one. Matz started off with a pretty interesting stretch where he struck out 17 batters in his first 16 innings, and while he managed a couple of good starts in three since then, it's come with just 10 strikeouts to six walks in 15.1 innings. The results have mostly been pretty solid, with two or fewer earned runs allowed in five of his starts. And the Rays are doing their usual thing of prioritizing their pitcher's best pitches, in this case, Matz's changeup. But I just don't see much reason to think he's going to keep finding success moving forward. He's a fine option (especially as a SPaRP) when the matchups are right, and I suspect he'll be worth using late this week against the Giants. But he doesn't strike me as someone who needs to be rostered in all leagues, despite the success.

Monday's standouts

Dylan Cease, Blue Jays vs. BOS: 5.2 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 5 K – Cease just didn't have it today, as his velocity was down pretty much across the entirety of his arsenal. Given how much his performance has fluctuated in the past, I understand if you are extra-wary of this kind of showing from Cease. But he's been so dialed in this season – he allowed his first barrel of the season Monday! – that it's hard to get too upset about this one. I'm not saying there won't be any of the typical Cease headaches along the way, but he has made real strides in expanding his arsenal, most notably with a legitimate changeup that has generated tons of whiffs in the early going. I remain very confident in Cease moving forward. 

Ranger Suarez, Red Sox @TOR: 8 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 10 K – Remember Suarez's weird start to the season? Well, now he's down to a 3.09 ERA and 0.94 WHIP through his first six starts. His strikeout rate is still down a bit from the previous couple of seasons, but obviously it's trending up after this one. Suarez is the kind of pitcher who just tends to go in and out of stretches where he's unhittable without much in the way of tangible changes to explain it. He's just one of those guys who needs to execute at a high level to succeed because he doesn't have great stuff. The good news is that he usually finds it eventually, and he clearly has. 

Parker Messick, Guardians vs. TB: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K – His worst start of the season was three runs over five innings. His second-worst start of the season might have been this one. Messick came up an out short of the quality start, but he continues to pitch on an incredibly high level with his deep and effective arsenal. If you're looking for nits to pick, I'm not sure I buy him as a strikeout-per-inning kind of pitcher, and I still look back at walk rates closer to 3-4 per nine innings in the minors as a red flag. But those are reasons not to just jump him into the top-20 in the rankings, which is what he looks like he deserves right now. You should still absolutely be viewing him as a must-start pitcher. 

Luis Castillo, Mariners @MIN: 5 IP, 7 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 3 K – Castillo is very much not a must-start pitcher. And, frankly, he hasn't been one in a while – he had a 4.71 ERA on the road last season! I do still think T-Mobile Park is an advantageous enough environment that you should probably still keep Castillo around to use when he's at home, but honestly? I have a hard time making the case that he's even a must-roster pitcher at this point. The stuff just isn't close to what it once was. 

Matthew Boyd, Cubs @SD: 4 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – Boyd struggled immediately in this one, but he looked pretty good in his first start back from the IL and was dominant in the last one before that, so I'm going to be pretty forgiving about his 7.00 ERA. He doesn't have an incredibly long track record of success, but the stuff mostly looks good, so I'm not going to panic yet. 

Jack Leiter, Rangers vs. NYY: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – There will be good starts along the way. Leiter is talented, and he has the arm talent, arsenal depth, and willingness to tinker that could eventually lead to sustained success. I'm not discounting that possibility! But I'm past the point of counting on it. If that means I miss the breakout if and when it happens, that might be frustrating. But waiting on Leiter to emerge as something more than an inconsistent, end-of-rotation arm will probably be even more frustrating. 

Dustin May, Cardinals @PIT: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K – When you can miss the barrel of the bat the way May does, you're going to have stretches where you keep runs off the board, and May is very much in one of those stretches right now, having allowed just five runs over his past four starts. He's also given you just one start with more than four strikeouts, and that was just a five-strikeout effort the last time out. That just screams "streamer" to me, and I don't think I actually want to stream him for his next matchup against the Dodgers. 

Randy Vasquez, Padres vs. CHC: 5 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – For as much as I do believe Vasquez has taken a step forward, he was never going to sustain a sub-2.00 ERA. Even after this one, he's got a 2.94 ERA, and that ain't sustainable either. His newfound velocity has made him a legitimately better pitcher, but I think it would be going too far to say it's made him a legitimately great pitcher. Useful? Oh, certainly, especially at home. But not someone I'm counting on to be a fixture in my rotation. 

Fernando Tatis Jr., OF, Padres – OF. For now. Because Tatis was out there at second base yet again Monday, giving him his fourth appearance of the season there. One more to gain eligibility in CBS Fantasy leagues, which would be a huge deal – even amid his slow start to the season (which I very much do not expect to continue), Tatis would be the top player at the position in either Roto or points formats. The first time he played second, he repeated it the next day, so let's see if the Padres opt to follow the same pattern this time around. 

Corey Seager, SS, Rangers – Given the long track record of success, I've been pretty quick to dismiss concerns about Seager's slow start. But he turned 32 a few days ago and Monday was his third three-strikeout game of the season in just 28 games – he only struck out three times in a game four times in 102 tries last season. There isn't much evidence that Seager's bat has slowed enough to be concerned – his average bat speed is down from 72.6 mph to 71.9, but that isn't really a notable change. The whiff rate is higher than ever before and his .406 xwOBA on contact is his worst since 2019, so it's not nothing. I'm inclined to chalk it up to a slump, but it's worth noting here that this doesn't necessarily just look like your typical slow start, either. 

JJ Wetherholt, SS, Cardinals – The batting average hasn't been great, which is holding Wetherholt back a bit in Roto leagues, but everything else has pretty much been as advertised. He homered for the third consecutive game Monday and now has six on the season, and it really doesn't look flukey – his .350 wOBA is backed up by a .359 expected mark, for example. He has a great approach at the plate, has already tapped into solid power, and I expect that .238 average will creep up closer to .260 in the long run.