Fantasy baseball waiver wire: JJ Bleday breakout looks real as former top prospect finds new life

He won't sustain a 1.200-plus OPS, and I'd bet on well more than 300 points of regression, even. But if he settled in as a mid-.800s OPS bat? Well, I'd be surprised, even now, but I wouldn't be shocked, at least. He's showing real signs of growth, and while they should be taken with a grain of salt, I think we should also treat it like we did with Vaughn last summer: Act like it is real, just in case. If you're wrong, you spend some FAB, and you drop him; if what he's shown is real at all, he could be an impact bat. It's worth betting on that when all it costs is some FAB and a few weeks in your lineup.

Here's what else you need to know about from Thursday's action around MLB:

Friday's top waiver-wire targets

Here's who we're looking to add coming out of Thursday's action:

AJ Ewing, OF, Mets (50%) – On Thursday's episode of Fantasy Baseball Today, Frank Stampfl asked us to rank Bleday, Ewing, and Carson Benge (who is hitting .338 with two homers and two steals over his past 19 games) for the rest of the season, and I went: Bleday, Ewing, and Benge. But I think all three should probably be rostered in all leagues after waivers run this weekend, and if you really wanted to pound the table for either Mets youngster ahead of Bleday, I wouldn't have much interest in arguing with you. Ewing showed off impressive power with his first homer Thursday, crushing one 405 feet at 110.5 mph, the kind of shot you don't really see from a light-hitting speedster like Ewing. Ewing's swing path makes it unlikely he'll hit for much power, but he has the potential for it, and he certainly hasn't looked overwhelmed so far, with three hits and four walks in his first three career games. I'm still hoping for batting average and speed from him primarily, but if he could give us even high single-digit homer totals, that would be a very welcome surprise.

Ben Brown, SP, Cubs (31%) – I'm still pretty skeptical that Brown has solved the two biggest problems that kept him from being a starter last year – his inability to turn lineups over a third time, and his inability to get lefties out. However, Thursday's start against a lefty-heavy Braves lineup was pretty impressive, as he allowed just one hit and one walk over four shutout innings, with seven strikeouts. Obviously, that still leaves the "third time through" question unanswered as he stretches out from his time in the bullpen, but he's been impressive enough both in the bullpen and then in both of his truncated starts to at least be worth adding in most leagues. Even if I'm probably not ready to start him next week just yet.

Austin Martin, OF, Twins (8%) – Martin is pretty interesting. The Twins sent Matt Wallner down Thursday and seem ready to give Martin a long leash to play every day, and he might be worth using in all Roto leagues right now. There's very little power here, but he's hitting .300/.405/.385 since the start of 2025 with 18 steals in 306 plate appearances, so you could dream on some pretty fun outcomes here, especially if he's hitting leadoff. Could he hit .280 with 25 steals and 90 runs (as a full-season pace)? That's asking a lot, but it seems reasonable enough from a guy with a combined xBA right around .280 over the past season-plus.

Gage Workman, 3B, Tigers () – With Gleyber Torres on the IL, Workman has a chance to play regularly for the Tigers, especially if he keeps hitting. He went 2 for 4 with a three-run homer off Nolan McLean Thursday, and that comes after he was hitting .358 with a 1.003 OPS and 93.9 mph average exit velocity down at Triple-A. There's always been some raw power here, but he often struggled to make enough contact to get to in games, at least before this season, when he had cut his strikeout rate to 23% before his promotion. It's a long shot, but it's one that could pay off in deeper formats, especially since he's 3B eligible right now and could gain 2B eligibility soon.

Thursday's standouts

Braxton Garrett, Marlins @MIN: 1.1 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 3 K – Wanna bump this one up to the top of the list, because I was touting Garrett as a viable pickup and he looked absolutely awful. It was his first time pitching in nine days, so maybe there was just some rust here, but he looked awful in his first MLB start since 2024, and it was in keeping with some of what we saw in the minors, where he walked 10 in 16 innings over his past three starts. Given the time off and the success he has shown in the past, I'm not totally writing Garrett off as a potentially fantasy-relevant pitcher, but I don't think anyone needs to go out and add him right now. Make him prove he can throw strikes consistently before you do so. He couldn't do that Thursday, at least.

Nolan McLean, Mets vs. DET: 7 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 7 K – When the Tigers jumped on McLean for three runs in the first inning, it looked like he might be stumbling for the second time in three starts. And then McLean buckled down for six shutout innings to close out the start even on a day when he didn't necessarily have his best stuff, missing just eight bats on 93 pitches. Finding ways to get it done when you don't have your best on any given day is one of the things that separates the greats from everyone else, and McLean seems to have it.

Chase Burns, Reds vs. WAS: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – Burns has pretty much lived up to expectations, though it's interesting that the strikeouts haven't quite been what we expected. A rate north of 26% is plenty good, but it's nearly a 10% drop from his rookie season. Burns has made up for that by being much better at limiting hard contact, which is certainly an unexpected development. The strikeout upside is still here – 18 swinging strikes Thursday! – and I suspect we'll see a few double-digit strikeout games before long. If he isn't quite as good as Jacob Misiorowski, McLean, and Cameron Schlittler, he isn't far behind.

Jesus Luzardo, Phillies @BOS: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – You just start him. I don't care what the last start looked like. You just start Luzardo. Ride the roller coaster or don't get a ticket for the ride. If, after two months of this, you find you don't have the stomach for it, give up your place in line – though know you'll likely be doing so at a discount as his ERA remains above 5.00. But don't sit him.

Ranger Suarez, Red Sox vs. PHI: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K – Remember when Suarez was struggling, and some were questioning whether the Red Sox made a mistake in signing him? Well, he's now down to a 2.44 ERA and 0.95 WHIP and looking every bit like the front-line starter the Red Sox paid for. The fact that Suarez generally doesn't miss as many bats as most other front-line starters does leave him a bit more open to some start-to-start variance, but the numbers at the end of the day have been a lot more good than bad for five years running.

Kyle Harrison, Brewers vs. SD: 5 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K – That fastball is just electric now that he's sitting around 95 mph and generating more ride than ever before. Harrison has a changeup that has been a solid addition, and the slurve is playing up with some extra break, but it all starts and ends with what looks like it might be a legitimately elite four-seamer. He generated 13 of his 17 whiffs with the pitch Thursday, and he's now sitting well above 30% whiff rate for the season with it, an enviable mark for basically any starter in the league not named "Jacob Misiorowski." There's room for regression if the pitch reverts back to last season's shape, but I'm feeling pretty confident in Harrison as a must-roster pitcher at this point.

Kris Bubic, Royals @CHW: 4 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – The stuff looks more or less like it did last season, but his execution has taken a big step back. That's a big problem for a pitcher who sits more around 92 mph than 95, with good but not great movement across the profile. I don't want to give up on Bubic because command is the kind of thing that can turn around in an instant, and he showed such upside last season (and at times this season). But with his walk rate remaining stubbornly above 12% nine starts in, Bubic certainly can't be viewed as a must-start pitcher anymore. I'm probably leaning toward sitting him against the Red Sox for his next start.

Mike Burrows, Astros vs. SEA: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – Aw, rats. Just when it looked like Burrows might be figuring it out – two quality starts in a row, five runs total over his previous three starts with 17 strikeouts in 18 innings – he puts up another stinker and goes right back to the waiver wire. And this time it wasn't even his fastballs that got crushed, or at least, not just his fastballs, as he allowed 12 balls in play on his changeup, slider and curveball with an average exit velocity of 92.2 mph. He still missed a decent number of bats across his secondaries, but that's not enough, given how poorly his fastballs have fared this season. I'm not totally out on Burrows being a useful pitcher at some point, but I'm happy to drop him yet again after this one.

Michael McGreevy, Cardinals @ATH: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – I am often accused of overrating strikeouts in my analysis of pitchers, leaving me vulnerable to underrating a pitch-to-contact guy like McGreevy. I dunno, maybe! If you've bought into McGreevy this season, you've been rewarded with a 2.10 ERA through his first nine starts, which is obviously incredible. But you'd also be buying into a guy with an expected ERA for the season over 5.00. This kind of profile can work for a while, but the problem with buying into the hot-hand theory for pitchers is, it often only takes one bad start to undo all the good that pitcher has done. McGreevy isn't the exact same pitcher he was last season – he's throwing his changeup a lot more, for one thing! – but the underlying ERA estimators suggest he has arguably been the luckiest pitcher in baseball, and at some point, the bill comes due.

Foster Griffin, Nationals @CIN: 4.1 IP, 7 H, 9 ER, 3 BB, 7 K – Speaking of! Griffin entered play Thursday with a similar 2.12 ERA and even better underlying numbers than McGreevy, and now he no longer has a 2.12 ERA. If you've used Griffin all season, you won't complain about his season-long 3.53 ERA and 1.14 WHIP, but you probably didn't use Griffin all season long. You probably added him fairly recently – let's be generous and say right at the start of his stretch of four quality starts in a row preceding Thursday's outing. Well, if that was the case, you now have a 3.86 ERA to show for it. Hey, that's not so bad, right? Take the win, drop him, and don't let him do any more damage to your ratios with another start like Thursday's.