With the fantasy season now coming down to the stretch run in most regular seasons and the majority of trade deadlines now having passed, one of the most fun things left to do is evaluating where your roster is at this point in the year, and then shopping the waiver wire for who is available to fill any remaining needs. Picking up a player who then makes immediate points contributions is really satisfying, and it’s a big part of the reason why so many non-producing players are expendable this late in the year — if they’re not producing, there is always going to be somebody on the wire who is.
Knowing when to make these moves can be the difference between winning and losing a points league week, and now is when those wins matter most. It all adds up, and being an active manager can make a huge difference in points leagues. With that said, let us get into some players who are currently massively under-rostered for the points production that they’re putting up.
Jesús Sánchez – OF (HOU)
2025 Stats (372 PA): .257 AVG | .320 OBP | .420 SLG | 10 HR | 37 RBI | 46 R | 9 SB | 8% Rostered (Yahoo!)
The Houston Astros believed in Jesús Sánchez enough to not only trade for him at the deadline but to then also immediately insert him into the second spot in their lineup. While it’s impossible to say if that role will continue for the rest of the season, it’s worth picking Sánchez up now while he is producing in the heart of his new team’s order.
Still less than 10% rostered in Yahoo! leagues, the athletic 27-year-old Dominican outfielder has hit .280 over the past week and is scoring runs at a rapid clip, with six runs scored over his last eight games. He is putting up solid points production, hitting lots of doubles and getting driven in by those ahead of him in an increasingly productive Houston lineup, and most importantly, his at-bats have looked very relaxed and in control.
Sánchez has displayed a solid approach all season long, but his Process+ rolling chart confirms the fact that he is currently in his best form of the year.
His chart is just starting to get comfortable hanging out around that 125 mark (signifying an approach rated 25% better than league average), which is familiar territory for most of the reliable points producers across the league and a mark that I personally look for when researching hitters. Decision-making is one aspect of his game that Sánchez has not displayed consistently in the past, but even that has improved markedly in his recent games with the Astros.
It will be interesting to see if that piece of his game can stick moving forward – Sánchez has yet to hit a home run with his new team, so if he finds himself starting to chase power again in the near future, we could see those decision-making metrics start to tick back down again. Sánchez would be wise to continue his current approach, though, since even though he has not cleared the fences for the Astros yet, his Process+ chart suggests that he has not actually lost any of the power that he brought over with him from Miami. Being patient and content with the doubles that he is currently hitting should lead to further dividends and eventually even greater points production.
There is plenty of other data to suggest Sanchez has an approach that should continue to lead to success.
With one of the highest bat speeds and average exit velocities in the league, home runs should be expected to come soon, though maybe not in bunches. With a hard-contact rate of 33.1% that ranks 54th among all qualifying batters, Sánchez can be expected to continue to do damage and produce points regardless of the resulting home run totals.
He is worth a grab now as a bench bat at the least, and maybe even as a starter if you have a utility spot that is not producing up to par.
Jorge Polanco – 2B/3B (SEA)
2025 Stats (372 PA): .250 AVG | .319 OBP | .455 SLG | 18 HR | 53 RBI | 43 R | 5 SB | 40% Rostered (Yahoo!)
This is more of a buy-low recommendation – Jorge Polanco is in a bit of a slump of late, which his Process+ rolling chart more than confirms.
Polanco’s approach, solidly well above average for the majority of the season, started its dip at the beginning of July, and that slide remained unhalted until he recently fell below the league-average. The bet here, especially considering the fact that the buy-low price is likely a free grab off the wire, is that Polanco will be able to turn it around in the next week or two and feed off the momentum and buzz building in Seattle after the major deadline acquisitions of Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez. Now hitting sixth most nights right behind those aforementioned two, Polanco should have plenty of chances to drive in runs if he can regain the approach he so consistently displayed for the first three months of the season.
Several of Pitcher List’s hitting metrics suggest that the odds are heavily in Polanco’s favor to start producing again at a high clip.
Note that these metrics are valued by rank among qualifying hitters and not by percentile, and Polanco is squarely inside the top-50 hitters in all of xAVG, xwOBA, and Hard-Contact rate.
Add in a squared-up rate of 31.4% that is in the 89th percentile of all hitters, and a strikeout rate of 15.1% that is 84th percentile, and you have the profile of a well-rounded hitter who generally knows how to succeed at the plate. With the absolutely stacked top half of the Mariners lineup that now includes the likes of Randy Arozarena, Julio Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh, Josh Naylor, and Eugenio Suárez, it’s worth grabbing Polanco now off the wire to see if hitting in Seattle can become contagious. If so, Polanco will be a total steal.
Ramón Laureano – OF (SD)
2025 Stats (326 PA): .290 AVG | .353 OBP | .529 SLG | 16 HR | 54 RBI | 49 R | 4 SB | 50% Rostered (Yahoo!)
Prior to the trade deadline, Ramon Laureano was one of the few Baltimore Orioles playing above the expectations set heading into the 2025 season. The journeyman outfielder, playing for his fourth team since 2023, had become a reliable run-producing piece of the middle of the Baltimore order, and the team capitalized on that production by sending Laureano to yet another new destination.
Now playing for San Diego, his fifth team in two years, Laureano will be happy with the upgrade in team surroundings, as this is probably the best chance he has had for success in his career. Already putting up one of his better years at the plate in his age-31 season, the versatile outfielder’s momentum seems to have been propelled even further by the recent trade, as he has driven in eight runs in his first eight games with the Padres. His Process+ rolling chart confirms the fact that Laureano has recently taken his game to greater heights.
Having recently passed that aforementioned 125 mark in his rolling average, Laureano’s power-driven approach was always mixed with solid decision-making, but it now also includes above-average contact metrics that are helping him to stay even more consistent. Laureano’s Ideal-Plate-Appearance rate of 30.4% ranks 54th among all qualifying hitters, suggesting that he is stringing together quality at-bats at an elite level. Much of his other underlying metrics bear this out as well.
Combining a barrel path that allows him to find a productive launch angle more often than not, with a sharp eye that generally limits chasing out of the strike zone, Laureano is able to command most of his at-bats and wait for the pitch that he wants to drive. Now hitting behind the likes of Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill, expect Laureano’s success to continue and for his points production to remain worth rostering.
The least likely of all the names on this week’s list to still be available, grab Laureano now if you still can.
Jeremiah Estrada – RP (SD)
2025 Stats (53.2 IP): 4-4 | 2.52 ERA | 0.99 WHIP | 78 K | 24 Holds | 3 Saves | 23% Rostered (Yahoo!)
I was planning on including the above three hitters in this week’s column and then waiting until next week for a separate pitcher’s article, but there is no reason to wait another week to point out just how well Jeremiah Estrada is pitching out of the San Diego Padres‘ bullpen.
Somewhat lost in the mix of the best pen in baseball before they added Mason Miller at the deadline, Estrada has been a key piece all year for the Padres and has picked up even more momentum of late. Having given up only one earned run in the past month, Estrada’s already-impressive strikeout percentage has seen a massive uptick of late, as evidenced by his previous four outings.
His most recent outing against Boston was electric, striking out five of the six batters he faced while not allowing a base runner in a multi-inning performance. That aforementioned addition of the flamethrowing Miller to the Padres bullpen shouldn’t affect Estrada’s fantasy performance in the least, as he already was not getting regular save opportunities. His value comes from innings, strikeouts, holds, and, equally important, limiting damage, which all of his underlying metrics suggest he will continue to do.
Ranking within the top-20 of all qualifying relief pitchers in all of the most important Pitcher List metrics, Estrada not only has the raw stuff to continue to perform at an elite level but has shown that he has the fortitude as well to consistently get the job done. While no reliever finishes the season with a 0.00 ERA and a bump in the road can be expected to happen from time to time, Estrada has been as good as it gets in terms of both preventing negative-point outings and maximizing his positive-point potential when he takes the mound.
If you’re currently unhappy with any of your relievers — those guys that deep down in your gut you really don’t trust despite them being rostered at a higher rate — then now is the time to switch them out for someone like Estrada.
Cade Cavalli – SP (WSH)
2025 Stats (4.1 IP): 0-0 | 0.00 ERA | 0.92 WHIP | 6 K | 7% Rostered (Yahoo!)
By far the most speculative of all of this week’s recommendations, Cade Cavalli finally made his 2025 debut for the Washington Nationals last week in an August 6th matchup against the Athletics — and the results, both to the eye and on paper, were encouraging enough to suggest he deserves a spot on the tail-end of your roster.
Cavalli’s first two innings made most of the headlines when he struck out four and reached 100 mph on the four-seamer. While the fastball did come back down to around 96 mph later in the outing, there was plenty in Cavalli’s five-pitch mix to like.
As you can see, PLV likes his four-seamer and changeup in particular, creating a great foundation for him to then expand upon. The curveball, while lacking a bit in PLV score, looked pretty nasty to the eye and was able to induce an elite 38.5% CSW%. Both the sinker and cutter looked more like pitches that he is mixing in to keep guys off balance versus true put-away pitches, but the fact that both of those secondary pitches returned a 100% ground-ball rate is very encouraging for limiting damage in future outings.
Generating whiffs on the four-seamer, curveball, and changeup, while inducing easy ground-outs with the sinker and cutter, would be the best-case scenario here. It’s a lot to ask from the former first-round pick in 2020 who has spent the better part of three years now rehabbing from multiple injuries that included Tommy John surgery, and it must be noted that Cavalli was having mixed results in the minors prior to his call-up. As any big leaguer will tell you, though, there truly is nothing like stepping onto a big league mound, and when you have the underlying elite talent, it actually can make things easier in some ways.
All the underlying tools are there for it to happen for Cavalli, and with the lack of reliable starting pitching once we get out of the top-50 or so arms, there is likely someone at the bottom of your roster worth swapping for Cavalli on the chance that he spends the next six weeks looking like the ace that the Nationals hoped they were drafting five years ago.
