2016 Fantasy Baseball: Outfield Waiver Wire Adds
Given the unreliability of ownership percentages at the major fantasy sites I’m going to use 50 percent ownership as the cutoff for entry into this article.
Points-league add: Jackie Bradley, Jr. – Bradley has a 13-game hitting streak entering Sunday night’s game in which he’s hitting .340/.404/.723 with three doubles, three triples, and three home runs. Bradley’s not going to walk a ton, and even though he’s in a good lineup hitting eighth hurts him some. But in a points league or even a non-standard categories league Bradley can provide some value with his extra-base hitting ability. He’s in a perfect ballpark for it, which he’s been taking advantage of lately. Despite a mediocre average, he’s been producing consistently throughout the season already according to exit velocity.
Marcell Ozuna – Ozuna’s exit velocity in 2015 was above-average every week but one, and after a slow start to 2016 he’s been above-average each of the last three weeks. In that time he’s hit .318/.384/.606 with five home runs, two triples and over a hit per game. Ozuna’s working on a career-best walk-to-strikeout rate (0.3 compared to career 0.26) as well as a career-best isolated power mark (.222 compared to a .156 career mark). Ozuna’s already had a 23-homer season in 2014, and this year he should top that if he continues hitting the way he is.
Stolen bases: Kevin Kiermaier – Kiermaier has three homers and five steals, which puts him on pace to best last year’s 10 and 18 marks, respectively. Kiermaier’s upped his power output this year from Isos of .187 and .156 the last two seasons to .198 this year. He’s also working on career-best plate discipline marks, up from 0.3 walks-per-strikeout the last two seasons to 0.5 this year. Kiermaier struggles against lefties, but due to his defense he’s able to play against them. However, this year he has a 115 wRC+ against southpaws after marks of 42 and 71, respectively, the last two years. He already has four walks against lefties after just six last year. His power-speed combination potential makes him a quality pickup in deeper leagues.
Home runs: Adam Duvall – Duvall has eight doubles and six home runs in only 94 plate appearances for the Reds, and he actually has more homers than walks (five), which has lead to a .298 on-base percentage. But that’s nothing new for the 27-year-old. He rarely put up decent OBP numbers in the minors, but he had 27 and 26 homers, respectively, the last two years in the minors. He’s pulling the ball a ton (54 percent of the time), and that plays well in Cincinnati’s ballpark. He’s not going to help you much across the board, but the power is legitimate and should continue to occur.
Home runs, Runs, RBI: Brandon Moss – Moss is really only suitable for deep leagues where you can just put him in your lineup for a week and hope for some power production at the end of the week. Going into Sunday Moss was, among outfielders, 12th in runs with 19, and 19th in RBI with 17. He also was tied for seventh with seven home runs. Then he added a run and two RBI in Sunday’s game. So far this season, he’s producing at rates similar to his peak power production with a near-.300 Iso. But he’s also not starting every day; he already has three one-plate appearance games in May alone. But he has two home runs and five RBI in the month, too. He appears fully healthy after an injury-plagued 2015, and even though he’s not starting every day he deserves to be rostered in deep leagues where you can start five outfielders.