It’s that time of year, friends: regardless of how much we love fantasy baseball, there’s a lot going on to distract us. Graduations, beach days, summer trips, fantasy football previews… and if you’re feeling like fantasy baseball hasn’t been loving you back lately, it’s especially easy to take the foot off the gas pedal when it comes to driving your teams through a hopefully successful season. I’ve definitely felt this way myself in several of my leagues of late, but that just means it’s time for one of our frequent reminders to push on where and when you have the time to. Granted, it’s also the time of year where we’re in a bit of a dead zone in terms of picked-clean waiver wires, but no reason not to at least look. Even in leagues that may be a lost cause for this year, you never know what players you might stumble upon that might make an impact on a fantasy team in 2025 or beyond. Most of the ultra-deep league fliers we talk about here won’t fall into this category, but every once in a while, we’ll find someone who ultimately impacts a future team. Occasionally, we’ll even find a few players that will help us more in June or July than we thought possible, and may even provide an assist in terms of getting us back in the thick of things for the current season. Which, of course, moves us right into our weekly check-in of a handful of players that might be on the radar for those of us in AL-only, NL-only, and other deep leagues.
AL
Taylor Walls. Walls recently had an under the radar return from the IL to the Rays active roster, which is of zero interest to most fantasy baseball folk but might catch the attention of the deep league crowd. He’s just 2 for his first 14 since he’s been back, but has already stolen a base, so perhaps he’s just getting warmed up. Players who are eligible at multiple positions is going to be a running theme this week, and Walls qualifies at second, third, and short. If his production follows the same pattern it has the last three seasons, you’ll get a moderate amount of playing time with a stomach-churning average, a little pop, and a lot of speed. I have to say, that doesn’t sound too bad to me in a few leagues right now.
Lenyn Sosa. I grabbed Sosa in the CBS AL-only analysts league a couple weeks ago, and if nothing else he’s been getting a fair amount of playing time in the White Sox infield. He started with a decent little hitting run, though he’s 0 for his last 8 as I type this and has a disturbing 21 Ks vs. 4 walks in 24 games, so there may not be much to see here even in very deep leagues. In a league like the one I just mentioned, though, where there’s basically no active major league hitters in the free agent pool and every run and RBI counts big time, I’m hoping he’ll help me more than he hurts me for now.
Ezequiel Duran. I noticed Duran has inched up from 6% to 7% owned in CBS leagues, and he has indeed been playing pretty well of late. He’s played every position but pitcher and catcher for the Rangers this year, and qualifies at 1B/3B/SS/OF in at least some of my leagues. He has an 8-game hitting streak going as I write this on Thursday, and could definitely be a decent counting stats accumulator in deeper leagues if he’s sitting around available in yours.
Nick Loftin. In part time play for the Royals, Loftin is now up to 70 at bats, and has yet to record a home run or a steal. So, not exactly a 5×5 fantasy monster. He’s doing okay in the other three categories, though, with a .271 average, 12 runs scored, and 8 RBI. He also qualifies at both 1B and 2B in most leagues. Like Sosa above, Loftin is 0 for his last 8, so we’ll see if he can continue to find his way into the Royals lineup (he’s started five of the last six games at second) and keep himself both on their major league team and on the deeper end of the fantasy pool radar.
NL
Cavan Biggio. It feels like Biggio deserves at least a quick shout out after his arrival in the NL. Thinking Max Muncy must be a long ways off from a return for the Dodgers to make this move, though I suppose the horrific hitting of utility man Chris Taylor and disappointing-even-for-him play of Enrique Hernandez probably had something to do with it as well. Biggio likely qualifies at multiple positions in your league, which is always an even nicer perk if those leagues happen to be of the deeper varitey. He now has a career batting average just as bad as you would have guessed (.227), but he’s never been adverse to drawing a walk, at least. Technically we can still call him a power/speed guy as he’s up to 48 homers and 32 steals in his MLB career, even if it took him six seasons to get there.
Michael Toglia. Toglia’s now had a few chances to show he belongs at the major league level for the Rockies, and so far it’s been an epic fail. Will his current opportunity be the one? Probably not, but might be worth a deep league flier just in case. He’s played 15 games at first and 14 in the outfield, and should continue to get at bats with both Kris Bryant and Sean Bouchard on the IL. I don’t think the average will ever be pretty, but it wouldn’t be out of the question to see him go on a mini power binge.
Garrett Stubbs. Word on the street is that the Phillies will add a catcher in the wake of J.T. Realmuto being down for a while, but even with a slight bump in playing time Stubbs might be worth very deep league consideration. His average will be awful as is typical for a catcher, but he earns the mention here largely because he’s stolen 4 bases in 20 games/56 at bats, which is worth a sliver of interest in NL-only type leagues. He doesn’t have a homer yet this season, but did have 5 in 50 games a couple years ago, so maybe the power will make an occasional cameo appearance as well.
Tyler Kinley. It pains me to write up a pitcher who currently has an ERA of over 8 and a WHIP of almost 2, but I was desperate enough for saves in one NL-only league to add Kinley a week or two ago, causing considerable angst that only readers of this column will understand. He’s picked up 3 (badly pitched) saves over the last week and a half, so if you want to join me in this Titanic-like voyage of desperately searching for a closer, feel free to jump aboard!
