Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Mike Soroka shines in debut, Delino DeShields running

Heath Cummings looks at Mike Soroka's stashability and asks why Delino DeShields is still under-owned.

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The month of April was full of encouraging performances from young arms who don't have a spot in the rotation. Walker Buehler made a couple of spot starts, Jack Flaherty struck out nine Brewers, Josh Hader is excelling in his super-reliever role. And Mike Soroka started May in a similar fashion.

In his major-league debut, Soroka struck out five Mets over six one-run innings. He hit one batter, but didn't walk any on the way to his first big-league victory. His bat missing was even better than it's been in the minor leagues, as he generated 13 swinging strikes on just 80 pitches. And he may be going back to the minors. 

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The Braves still have a full pitching rotation and their worst starter so far has been Julio Teheran. They could easily choose to replace Anibal Sanchez, or just go with a six-man rotation for a week so Soroka can make a start in Atlanta. But even if he is sent down immediately, Soroka moves right up there with Jack Flaherty as one of the top pitchers to stash. There is opportunity coming in Atlanta, and Soroka looks up to the challenge.

Any other day I would have led this piece with Delino DeShields. DeShields homered on Tuesday and swiped another bag. He has four steals in 11 games this season, which puts him roughly on pace to be fourth in baseball if not for his stint on the disabled list. DeShields also has six hits in his past three games.

Looking at his ownership, it's pretty clear that points leagues owners are the people ignoring him. I get that because the steals are such a big part of his value. But you get points for steals as well, and DeShields is an average hitter who gets to hit leadoff every day. If he stays healthy he's going to be startable in points leagues more often than not.

Matt Boyd is still just 30 percent owned, so I guess most of you haven't bought in him any more heavily than I have. But after his fourth quality start in five outings, I'm sure you're getting more curious. Here's what I've got for you:

Boyd is throwing his fastball and his change up a lot less. That's probably a good thing, because the fastball is down 3 mph from last year. His slider usage is up 32 percent, which coincides with a big drop in his percentage of pitches in the strike zone (39.6 percent). But the mystery is that his swinging strike rate (9.7 percent) and strikeout rate (17.8 percent) are virtually unchanged. 

That's a long-winded way of saying everything I believe about evaluating pitchers says Boyd is an average to below average pitcher. His FIP is 4.10, his xFIP is 5.18 and his SIERA is 4.78. He's not getting whiffs or ground balls. I'm going to keep betting against Boyd, because this just doesn't look real.

One pitcher who does have the peripherals to match his success is Tyson Ross. He's 62 percent owned right now, but we need to drive that up to around 90 percent. Ross owns a K percent of 27 percent, which is higher than it ever was during his two-year stretch of dominance from 2014-15. His velocity still isn't quite as high as it was in his prime, but everything else looks great. While his two best starts have come against the Giants, the rest of his schedule has been pretty brutal. I'm ready to buy into Ross as a top-50 starting pitcher.

Jose Peraza may be turning into the player we'd hoped for last year. He's settled into the No. 2 spot in the Reds lineup, is making good contact slightly more often (still below average) and has five steals already. Peraza could be a good source of runs, average and steals in Rotisserie, and with his flexibility he should absolutely be owned in all of those leagues. He doesn't walk, which hurts him in points league. But he doesn't strike out either. If he hits .290, scores 100 runs and steals 25 bases, he'll be startable in any format.