Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Finding Xander Bogaerts replacement options

Heath Cummings discusses Sean Newcomb's strong outing and looks for possible replacements for Xander Bogaerts.

Week 3 Preview: Two-start pitcher rankings | Top-10 sleeper hitters

Replacing Bogaerts

With Xander Bogaerts placed on the DL Monday with an ankle injury, we now know you need a replacement. And there's still time. My first thought for replacing him was red-hot Tim Anderson, but that ship has sailed. Anderson is now owned in 78 percent of leagues. That's considerably more than Amed Rosario (49 percent), and I would rather have Rosario anyway. 

Of course, he's not available to 51 percent of you Bogaerts owners either. If he's not, the next player I would look for is Asdrubal Cabrera (41 percent). Cabrera has started the season on fire and looks to have a secure spot at either the top or middle of the Mets lineup. I get why people get more excited about guys like Anderson or Rosario but Cabrera has .282 average since the start of 2016 and a 162-game pace of 22 home runs, 79 runs and 71 RBI. He's a very solid option.

If you're in a deeper league than that I'd look for Nick Ahmed. Ahmed isn't quite as secure in his role as Cabrera, but he's also extremely hot at the plate and widely available on CBS. 

Newcomb's breakout?

I catch some grief from the guys here for "underreacting" to things that happen early in the year. And they aren't wrong. But if you're looking for a defense of that mindset you need to look no further than Sean Newcomb's first two starts.

In Newcomb's first outing of the year he was shelled by the Washington Nationals. He walked four, gave up six runs and only recorded one out in the fifth before being pulled. Now, if this type of outing happens in June against an offense of this caliber, we just shrug it off. But with it being his first of the year we saw panic from some owners, and now those owners are going to have to scramble to pick him back up.

That's because on Sunday Newcomb went into Coors Field and spun six shutout innings with nine strikeouts. It was hard to not add an exclamation point to that last sentence.  Most importantly, he didn't walk a batter. Walks were the one blemish left on this prospect and if he kicks that habit he could legitimately be a top 20 starting pitcher in 2018.

Newcomb was just the third starting pitcher in the history of Coors Field to throw at least six innings with at least nine strikeouts while allowing no runs or walks. The other two were Randy Johnson and Jon Gray. It's stunning to me that Newcomb is available in 46 percent of leagues, go make sure it's not one of yours.

Reynaldo Lopez wasn't as impressive as Newcomb on Sunday, and he wasn't pitching at Coors, but it's still pretty surprising to see him at 55 percent owned after his first two starts. This is a kid who just turned 24 years old and was a consensus top-50 prospect just a year ago. He's given up just one run in his first two starts of the season combined. It's time to get excited.

Yes, there's also reason for skepticism. Lopez walked five Tigers on Sunday, and hitters have a collective .069 BABIP against him so far this season. His FIP (3.95) and his SIERA (4.58) do not look like the peripherals of a good pitcher. But let's circle back around here: He's 24. He's still thrown just 104 innings in the majors. He would be worth a speculative add even if he wasn't having any success. 

I'd much rather have Newcomb, but Lopez is a nice consolation prize.

Maybe Maikel Franco just needed a little competition. After a promising rookie season, Franco has been a disappointment the last two years, to the point that he wasn't even drafted in a third of leagues entering 2018. Things got worse when Scott Kingery made the big league club and it looked like everyone on the Phillies was a platoon hitter. But you have to like the response from Franco.

In his last three games Franco is 6-for-12 with two home runs, a double and a triple. He's driven in 10 runs and he didn't strike out once. For the season he has as many walks and strikeouts (three) and he has more extra base hits (4) than either. This is a much different Phillies lineup than the one Franco grew up in, with Carlos Santana and Rhys Hoskins providing a lot of RBI opportunities for Franco if he can keep putting the bat on the ball.

Deep League Option

We didn't start Mike Fiers this week, for obvious reasons. But that first start in Detroit was enough to make me take a long look in AL-Only leagues and any league with 15 teams or more. Fiers slung six shutout innings in his 2018 debut and struck out six White Sox along the way. 

I wouldn't be adding Fiers in a standard league just yet; his velocity wasn't that impressive. But he could absolutely bolster your rotation in a deeper league.