Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Fade Dylan Bundy, but Nick Lodolo might be someone to buy
These players can help you improve now
By
Chris Towers
•
1 min read
If you're just going by the box score, Dylan Bundy had a heck of a start Monday against the Red Sox. He threw 5.1 innings of one-run ball, allowing just five hits while striking out six batters. Doing that against the Red Sox usual lineup is bound to open some eyes, and you might be considering adding him on the waiver wire as a result – especially considering he threw five shutout innings in his first start of the season, too.
I'm here to tell you it's not worth it.
Bundy has been a useful Fantasy option in the past, most notably in 2020, when he had a 3.29 ERA and 27% strikeout rate, so you might be wondering if he's recapturing some of that form. I'm skeptical, given how poorly he pitched last season.
Plus, Bundy's average fastball velocity is down to just 89 mph, the lowest of his career by a full tick. It's not impossible to be effective pitching at that velocity, but it's hard to see Bundy pulling off the trick. His slider has really been his only swing-and-miss pitch through two starts, and while that's long been his best pitch, he's not going to sustain a 60% whiff rate; when that comes back down to earth, he's going to get hammered.
At this point, Bundy is who he is, and it's going to take a lot more than one good start for me to buy in. It might take more than a month of good starts in a row for me to buy in, honestly. It was a nice start Monday, but I don't think there's anything to it.
Here are some players I am at least a little more excited about adding from Monday's action:
Waiver Wire Targets
Lodolo's first start wasn't terribly impressive, but he was much better the second time around Monday against the Padres. Lodolo racked up 16 swinging strikes on 90 pitches, with six of them coming on his sinker, six on the changeup, and three on his curveball. Through two starts, Lodolo has thrown his changeup and curveball around 20% of the time each, with a whiff rate of 40% with both; he's paired that with very strong quality of contact metrics overall, with an 80.3 mph average exit velocity allowed and 57% groundball rate. He's showing an intriguing combination of skills for a young left-handed starter, and I'm looking to add him in 12-team leagues right now. He doesn't have the upside of teammate and fellow rookie Hunter Greene, but Lodolo has shown enough to have value in his own right.
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At this point, it seems like Robertson is, indeed, the Cubs closer, with four of the team's five saves. Monday's was his second in as many days, and he's looked healthy and effective in the role so far. A 22.2% strikeout rate is nothing impressive so far, and it seems like he might still be searching for the feel on his curveball, which could be related; he has thrown it just 16% of the time so far, whereas he usually was in the 30%-plus range prior to his injuries over the past few seasons. That he's been effective without it seems like a good sign for his future prospects, and Robertson looks like a must-roster player in any format where saves matter.
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Castillo made the Pirates Opening Day roster without much fanfare, but there have been some interesting signs so far. He hit his first homer of the season Monday and has a solid 90.9 mph average exit velocity and 45.8% hard-hit rate while striking out just 17% of the time in the early going. Castillo hasn't been playing as much as he probably should on a pretty bad Pirates team, but if he keeps hitting the ball well, he's going to force the issue. And, with 19 homers and nine steals in 105 career games between Double-A and Triple-A, he's an interesting deep-league option.
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