Fantasy baseball waiver wire targets: Tim Tawa, Garrett Mitchell among second-half standouts
The second half of the season is firmly underway, and our margin for error shrinks with each passing week. Ratios and totals are what they are at this point. There’s no turning back the clock. Instead, our focus must shift to salvaging categories, shoring up any weak spots, and trying to claw up the standings, one spot at a time. No secret sauce or magic beans — the managers best equipped to remain laser-focused and ignore fantasy football prep separate in August. So let’s get into my favorite adds, top stashes and next week’s two-start pitchers.
Please prioritize positional lists over the featured player write-ups. I’m trying to avoid covering the same players more than once, and I don’t want any extra focus to be misconstrued as personal preference. Away we go!
Top waiver-wire hitter options
Catcher: Joe Mack, MIA
Like clockwork, another week of MLB means yet another viable catcher entering the fantasy fray. Give it up for Mack, a 23-year-old power-hitting backstop drafted right out of high school. Mack blipped on my preseason draft-and-hold radar, but I must admit being wrong. He’s far exceeded my expectations — I didn’t expect his initial impact until 2027. I honestly thought he’d be blocked all season by Agustín Ramírez, one of my biggest whiffs this season. I guess that’s why pencils have erasers. The most important thing is to stay vigilant and correct course, rather than chase failing assets.
Known for a power-first approach at the dish, my personal concern for Mack’s track record of elevated strikeout rates didn’t deter the Marlins from promoting him aggressively. In the future, I’ll make sure to dig a little further into minor-league disciplinary stats — his low MiLB chase rate’s never been commensurate with the resulting strikeouts. Anyway, Mack usurped the starting catcher role upon arrival in Miami, maintaining the same 26 HR per 600 PA pace achieved over his last two seasons of MiLB ball. I love these in-season adjustments he’s made without reaching outside the zone, which are giving me faith in a strong rest-of-season run.
First base: Tim Tawa, AZ
I just spent entirely too much time with my Claudebot trying to figure out how to spell Tim Allen’s famous grunt from “Home Improvement.” Best we could do was “Auuugh, auuugh.” No guarantees, but hopefully that earned a chuckle introducing Arizona’s Tim “The Toolman” Tawa. The Diamondbacks’ 27-year-old 1B/OF earned another shot at playing time in the bigs with the demotion of Pavin Smith — which I believe is now fairly cemented after Lourdes Gurriel’s recent trip to the IL. Tawa’s been nothing short of excellent during this recent stint (.286 BA/ 5 R/ 10 RBI/ 3 HR/ 2 SB), posting five-category contributions for an Arizona lineup playing its best offense of the season.
Across two MiLB levels in 2024, Tawa connected for 31 long balls to go with 14 steals — a mini-breakout in his magical age-27 season shouldn’t shock us, especially given the strong underpinning metrics during this current run — 45.2% Hard-Hit, 12.9% Barrel, 16.1% Air-Pull, .419 xwOBAcon.
Second base: Vaughn Grissom, LAA
I’m proud to say I possessed the foresight to roster Grissom as a late-round pick on every draft-and-hold team this year (Yay!). However, I’m also not sure he’s been in my active lineup for a single one of his productive weeks (Boo!). Grissom followed up a 10-day starting streak with an IL stint in early June that found him once more on the outside looking in. Then, after sitting more games than not for two weeks, Los Angeles DFA’d part-time utility man Donovan Walton, and Grissom’s started 90% of games for the Angels since. He also happens to be playing out of his mind right now, drastically cutting strikeouts as an every-day fixture in the Angles’ lineup. No, I obviously don’t think the .371 BA will stick throughout the summer, though it’s certainly worth noting his production during this run has been far a from a fluke (.364 xBA, 46.7% Hard-Hit, 10.0% Barrel, 16.7% Air-Pull, .462 xwOBAcon).
Shortstop: Jim Jarvis, ATL
Marvel fans may already know adding the Braves’ shortstop is Just A Rather Very Intelligent System for waiver-wire acquisition. For the rest of us that the nerdy reference evaded, Jarvis recently won Atlanta’s starting SS job, and manager Walt Weiss won’t stop raving about the 25-year-old speedster. Jarvis stole 32 bases in just 76 games this season in Triple A, so don’t fret that current goose egg in the MLB SB column; it’s coming. If anything, we’re benefitting from the lack of steals, or he’d be rostered in more than 1% of leagues. Crazy, right? I know.
I’d recommend adding Jarvis in deeper formats for batting average and steals alone, but it’s actually the display of MLB power that’s forcing me to consider him universally. Listen, he’ll never be a 30-HR masher, but a 38.9% hard-hit rate and 8.3% barrel rate will play. He flashed his power upside on July 9, destroying a high four-seam fastball for a nearly 400-foot no-doubter pulled over the wall in right-center. Not to mention some guy named Ronald Acuña is returning in a couple days to hit right behind Jarvis atop the Braves’ order, which can’t be a bad thing either.
Third base: Nick Gonzales, PIT
We’ve officially reached the oatmeal section of this week’s piece. For my money, third base has easily been the hardest position to fill on the fly this year. And of course, waiver darling Josh Jung left Wednesday’s game with calf tightness, placing even further stress on the supply. I’m scooping up Gonzales wherever possible as my favorite stopgap at the hot corner. Currently flying under the radar as fantasy’s No. 9 3B, he’s pieced together a very balanced 2026 without any single skill jumping off the page — .313 BA/ 58 R/ 46 RBI/ 6 HR/ 4 SB. More of a stat compiler than outright league winner, this scoop of Steel City oatmeal should nourish our rosters, as long as the Pirates remain near the top of MLB’s scoring leaderboard.
Outfield: Garrett Mitchell, MIL
The fact Mitchell is only 27 years old really threw me for a loop, having already repeated a few rotations of both appearing on and disappearing from my fantasy radar over the years. A 2020 20th-overall draft pick, Mitchell’s 334 MLB plate appearances aren’t merely a season high, they’re just over 100 away from his career total entering 2026. I’m trying to keep that specific nugget in mind before punishing Mitchell’s OF19 production over the past 30 days (.349 BA/ 13 R/ 14 RBI/ 3 HR/ 1 SB) with heavy regression. I’m also accounting for the extremely productive career MLB 600-PA pace — .277 BA/ 82 R/ 68 RBI/ 16 HR/ 23 SB. That stat line could easily belong to a top-70 hitter. Now factor in Mitchell has started 20 of the Brewers’ past 21 games — never batting lower than sixth in the order — and there’s a very clear path to OF2/3 rest-of-season production on the back of these year-to-date power metrics (49.1 Hard Hit, 14.1% Barrel, .487 xwOBAcon).
Hitter stash candidates
Top waiver-wire pitcher options
Starting Pitcher: Zac Thornton, NYM
Striking while the iron’s hot basically sums up my most compelling case for Thornton. Sure, I’d love to tout the pristine 1.93 ERA and 0.86 WHIP combo through his first 23.2 IP, but my honest fear is it has no chance to stick. With that, the pitching cupboards passed the point of being bare a month ago, and there’s hardly anywhere left to turn for starter help. Thornton’s a 2023 fifth-rounder out of Grand Canyon University with extremely strong numbers coming up through the minors, except for a lack of control upon reaching the upper levels — a lone red flag which generally does enough to push me off the prospect.
Sprinkle in some well-deserved doubt in the Mets’ ability to maximize output from young pitchers (see Jonah Tong), and you see why I waited extra time to pounce. Nevertheless, capitulation felt long overdue after Thornton’s most recent masterclass, dazzling the Brew Crew for six scoreless innings, bringing the streak to 18 (wow!). However, this profile doesn’t come without flaws.
For starters, Thornton doesn’t generate a lot of whiffs or throw particularly hard, topping out under 92 mph. Then, the arsenal’s not robust enough for my liking, featuring a fastball iteration ~80% of the time (four-seam, cutter, sinker). His zone-contact is also too high (90.8%) to get away with such a low home run rate (0.39 HR/9) in light of the excess of barrels allowed (12.5%). Lastly, there’s a real case for major regression regarding batted-ball results — Thornton’s sinker sports an alarming .555 xSLG but a .000 output. It literally cannot last. All the same, for all the warts, Thornton remains a must-add in the 77% of leagues he’s available (per Yahoo) on supply strain alone. In fact, we’re entering the part of the season where anyone with a healthy arm attached to their body checks that box as well. Stash, churn, and burn.
Relievers
Mining the perfect fantasy closer comes down to finding the ideal combination of skills and role. Remember not to get too hung up on the first part either — we’ll still take the bad pitcher getting save opportunities every time. For those managers who punted saves on draft day, the season begins on high alert, but fear not; you’re in luck. MLB’s save environment is literally as chaotic as ever.
Unbelievably, we’re now up to a remarkable 204 different pitchers who have already recorded a save in 2026 (Yes, I’m still tracking!). With that, the goal is to acquire a reliever who either has the job now or direct access to it soon. Given the incredible number of league types out there, our best course is to keep a running list of relievers; grab the best available.
Graduating class
The following players are now on many fantasy rosters, but those in 10-team leagues should look to them first before adding other, lesser-rostered players.