Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: A starting pitcher to add in every league

There are plenty of pitchers worth adding on the wire, and Chris Towers gives you the latest options to consider.

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This has been a surprisingly great season for starting pitching on the waiver wire, and it's just continued in recent weeks. Wednesday saw another crop of intriguing arms take the mound, so let's run through them, with options to add for everything from shallow 10-team leagues to your deeper, league-specific formats.

The most widely-owned pitcher of the bunch is also looking like the best right now. Ross Stripling was dominant in relief for the Dodgers, posting a 2.33 ERA in his first 12 appearances of the season, and he's kept right on rolling since returning to the rotation. Wednesday's outing did end a streak of four starts where Stripling increased his strikeout total, but only because he wasn't able to match his previous outings' 10 strikeouts; he only had nine this time around. Since returning to the rotation on May 6, Stripling has racked up a whopping 40 strikeouts with just four walks in 29 innings of work, and even has a 10.5 percent swinging strike rate in that span. For his career, Stripling has a 3.40 ERA overall, and a 3.64 mark in 22 career starts, so this isn't a total fluke. And, with the Dodgers' injury issues, he has a chance to carve out a rotation spot for the rest of the season. He looks like the top priority on waivers wherever he is available, especially with SPARP — Starting Pitcher as Relief Pitcher — eligibility.

That's two very impressive starts to open the season from Joe Musgrove, though Wednesday's wasn't quite as impressive as his debut. Musgrove uncharacteristically issued four walks against the Cubs, but was still able to get through seven innings while allowing just one run. Musgrove has allowed just the one run in his first 14 innings of the season, with 12 strikeouts and four walks, but most impressively, he's managed to maintain his velocity gains from his time in the bullpen. Here is Musgrove's average fastball velocity for every start he's made in the majors per BrooksBaseball.net:

The two highest have come in the last two starts, which is a great sign. Musgrove faded a bit from where he was the last time out, but this is still a level we've never seen him at before. Suddenly, Musgrove looks a lot more interesting. I'm adding him everywhere I can't add Stripling.

Last season, Jose Urena was one of the luckiest pitchers in baseball; this season, he's showing signs that he might actually be good. Though his ERA has risen from 3.82 to 4.41, he's managed to improve his FIP from 5.20 to 3.98, and his SIERA (3.88) and DRA (3.59) suggest he's been even better than that. Urena has increased his strikeout rate to 20.1 percent and his groundball rate to 51.7 percent, while lowering his walk rate to 5.9 percent, giving him above-average marks in two of the three categories. Of course, Urena's on a bad team, so wins will continue to be hard to come by, but he looks like a potentially above-average pitcher. He deserves better than this.

Nathan Eovaldi was one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in baseball before his injury, and his return to the rotation showed he didn't lose much, as he averaged 98.2 mph with his four-seam fastball Wednesday. Of course, he also had just four strikeouts in six innings and six swinging strikes on 70 pitches, so he still pitched to contact more than you might expect when judging just by the radar gun. At this point, you're probably just hoping Eovaldi can be a slightly-above-average starter, and Wednesday was a good start to that end. He's worth adding in deeper leagues.

Dennis Santana, SP, Dodgers (6 percent owned)

The same injuries that have opened a spot in the rotation for Stripling are also giving prospect Dennis Santana a chance to show what he's got. Santana is a converted shortstop who has risen quickly through the system, jumping from High-A to the majors in less than a year. He posted a 4.11 ERA in 21 starts in 2017, and especially struggled with his control once he was called up to Double-A, but that hasn't been an issue for him so far this year.  In 10 starts between Double-A and Triple-A, Santana has struck out 40.3 percent of all opposing batters, while walking 9.9 percent. That's not an elite control mark by any means, but it represents improvement for a young pitcher with a live arm. It's not clear if Santana is up for a rotation spot or just to soak up some innings with Kenta Maeda on the DL, but he looks like an intriguing enough prospect that NL-only owners should be getting him on their rosters.