Fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups: Red-hot Alec Burleson is top addition to target

It’s a great day to make fantasy baseball lineups a little better, folks. All players announced today are available in most Yahoo leagues and approved for use. Let’s go…

Few hitters are hotter than this guy right now. Burleson is currently on an eight-game hitting streak, with multiple hits in five of those eight. He’s playing, he’s stealing bases and he scores a run practically every day. In Burleson’s final full minor league season in 2022, he surpassed the 20-homer plateau by hitting .331/.372/.532 at Triple-A Memphis. It definitely offers multi-category appeal in fantasy.

As a team, the 2024 Cardinals have clearly been a disappointment, but Burleson has been a remarkable success story. His escape at age 25 seems quite legitimate. Burleson’s stats page is full of red.

Ortiz was part of the Brewers’ return package in the Corbin Burnes deal and he has definitely been an early-season success story. He played an everyday role and hit 14 extra-base hits (including five homers) with an OPS north of .900. Ortiz slashed .321/.378/.507 with 11 steals last year at Triple-A in Baltimore’s system, so it’s not like he hit the fantasy radar. If he remains single in his league, he deserves a look. Eligibility for multiple positions is a nice bonus.

Young is strictly a category specialist, but he can definitely help his team with steals. In 72 major league games over two seasons, he hit 28 boards in 30 attempts. Young’s sprint speed is obviously elite (97th percentile) and he has a 52-steal season to his credit in the minors. He’s batting .267 in his MLB career, so at least he’s not a liability on average. Add whenever you can use a speed booster.

Let’s just insert Caminero’s name here one last time before his roster percentage goes up even further and he becomes ineligible for the pickups feature. He’s obviously one of the game’s best hitting prospects, recently tying second base in Durham, and he has easy power to all fields.

Caminero is a career .311/.379/.548 hitter in the minors and is coming off a 31-home run season across two levels. So far this year, he has thrown seven bombs and 13 extra-base hits in 30 games. Whenever he arrives in Tampa, his promotion will be an actionable event.

James Wood, OF, Washington Nationals (23%)

While we consider the prospects, we should also note that Wood is tearing it up at Triple-A Rochester these days, hitting an absurd .358/.465/.600 with nine home runs, 10 steals, and almost as many walks (34) as Ks (37). As with Caminero, whenever Wood gets the call, he will have immediate fantasy relevance. Here he is launching a left-handed home run on Wednesday:

If you can use a guy with power, speed, and on-base upside, Wood is worth keeping today for later use. He is slightly injured at the momentbut his output is too great to be ignored.

Olson was thrown en masse into Yahoo’s fantasy landscape after leaving early in his most recent start following he was pierced in the hip by a line-drive. But there’s no concerning injury here other than a concussion, so we have no reason to think Olson’s future performance will be negatively impacted. We’ll remember that the 24-year-old right-hander has produced a 2.16 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP in his nine starts this season; he has been a valuable fantasy piece despite the complete lack of run support. Olson averaged 10.3 Ks per nine innings over his minor league career and 8.6 in the majors, so he shouldn’t be a liability in any starting pitching category.

This season, it feels like we’re either getting six scoreless frames from Soriano, or it’s a two-inning, four-run drubbing. There’s not much in between. So hey, maybe he’s not for everyone. But he’s a man with triple-digit speed and significant strikeout potential who has delivered a 3.30 ERA (3.87 xERA) thus far. As a fantasy manager (or Angels fan), you really love seeing quotes like this gem of a catcher:

“Every umpire I talk to thinks it’s in the top three in all of baseball,” catcher Matt Thaiss said. “It’s out of this world. As long as he does what he did today and fills the zone, he’s kind of unhittable.”

At his best, Soriano is overpowering. It’s definitely worth trying in our game. He will make his next move on Saturday against Cleveland.

Look, he’s a closer with a monster fastball and perfectly acceptable proportions. He also has SP eligibility, which allows for unusual flexibility. We’ve run out of new ways to explain that every MLB team is easily capable of making 30 closer saves. It’s amazing that Kopech remains so widely available. Even if he is traded at some point, all defenses until then will be yours.