Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Searching for speed

Need a lineup boost when it comes to stolen bases? Chris Towers highlights a couple of speedsters who could give you what you need.

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Still reeling from the loss of Dee Gordon? He was one of the game's best hitters last season, and an absolute Fantasy stud, because owning him went a long way to securing your standing in the stolen base category. He couldn't quite win it all by himself, but it is awfully hard not to show well if you had him.

And now you don't. You haven't had him for nearly a week, and though that means you are only missing a few steals for the time being, you know you have to make it up at some point. The good news is, the second base position seems totally loaded this season, with 12 players sporting an OPS over .800 and contributing nicely. You shouldn't have much trouble finding someone to take Gordon's spot in your lineup, but even someone like D.J. LeMahieu or Starlin Castro who you might have been able to scoop up on waivers, isn't going to solve your speed issue. That will likely have to come from somewhere else.

Like, say, the outfield. Those guys are always running around covering a lot of ground, so you know they're fast. Maybe you can find stolen base help out there, perhaps in the form of one Danny Santana.

Santana, you might recall, was a very solid Fantasy option back in 2014, as he hit .319 with 20 steals in 101 games, a solid pace that could have seen him swipe 30 backs if he played the whole season. He struggled in all aspects of the game last season and ended up making just 91 appearances, but went down to Triple-A and hit .322, a sign that he wasn't quite done yet.

Still just 25, Santana is back in the majors and has seemingly been given the green light to run. Batting leadoff in all 12 of his appearances, Santana has attempted seven steals and racked up four stolen bases, a very nice pace. The question his struggles last season obviously bring up are whether he can hit enough to stick.

Plate discipline will never be a strong suit for Santana, but he struck out in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances a year ago, a wholly unworkable rate. In the early going this season he's down to 21.3 percent, and doing a good job of swinging at more pitches inside of the strike zone. Being aggressive at the plate can work -- Gordon is one great example of that -- but you still need to swing at the right pitches, and Santana seems to be doing that right now.

Santana isn't going to be a perfect replacement for Gordon, but he might be able to do a somewhat passable imitation for a while. When you lose a player of Gordon's caliber, you are left with an assortment of imperfect solutions, and Santana might be one worth trying.

Mallex Smith, OF, Braves (13 percent owned)

Smith got off to an absolutely abysmal start to his major-league career, which is definitely concerning for a player who wasn't exactly a huge prospect. He put up decent numbers in the minors, but wasn't really viewed as a can't-miss guy, so when he hit just .136 while striking out in 32 percent of his plate appearances to open his career, it was easy to give up on him. However, one benefit of the Braves' current rebuilding plan -- or whatever this thing is -- is that they don't have much pressure to pull the plug on struggling youngsters. Smith was given days off April 26 and 27, and was then brought back into the lineup the next day. He has gone 8 for 15 since. It's a tiny sample size, obviously, but he has struck out just once in that span, while picking up four extra-base hits and swiping a couple of bags, all great signs that he might be figuring it out. Smith's minor-league career saw him do a solid job of getting on base, and he stole 86 bases per-150 games down there too, an obviously huge number. If he figures out the batting part of things, Smith could be another potential replacement for Gordon.

Marcell Ozuna, OF, Marlins (42 percent owned)

When you watch Marlins games, you'll notice something interesting every time Ozuna goes deep; Barry Bonds absolutely loses it. Bonds and manager Don Mattingly reportedly lobbied the front office to keep Ozuna, and Bonds seems personally invested in Ozuna's development. That investment might be starting to pay dividends. Ozuna homered for the fifth time Tuesday, and his third straight game. Ozuna clubbed 23 homers in 2014 and has plus power, but hit just 10 last season in 123 games, as he struggled mightily with his game and was even sent down to the minors at one point. The big issue for Ozuna was that, though he has plus power, he had trouble putting that on display in games, because he was more of a groundball hitter than a flyball hitter. That trend has reversed itself so far. Ozuna has hit as many balls in the air as on the ground. For someone with Ozuna's kind of power, this might be the best way to maximize his value, so it's not much of a surprise that the results are starting to show up. He has 30-homer upside, which is rare to find on waivers.

Darren O'Day, RP, Orioles (30 percent owned)

If you eschewed closers in building your team, you've got to be quick on the trigger when it comes to streaming options. We know that O'Day will return to a setup role before long, but with Zach Britton dealing with an ankle injury, O'Day has current day value for as long as Britton is sidelined. It could be a few days, but it might be even longer, and O'Day is a proven commodity in the bullpen, posting an ERA below 2.60 in each of the last five seasons. It might just be a short-term fix, but O'Day could give you a couple of saves, and is a good enough pitcher that it wouldn't kill you to keep him around a little while longer to help with strikeouts and rate stats, too.