Hidden Bounties: Waiver Wire Adds for May 11th-May 17th

Featuring Eric Sabrowski, Ryan Waldschmidt, and Christian Scott

By Justin May · May 11, 2026

{"template":"baseball-waiver-wire-picks","weekNumber":7,"weekDates":"May 11th-May 17th","intro":"Welcome back to another week of waiver hunting! Staying active on waivers is key at this time of year. The tough part about this being a weekly article, is that sometimes it's published a few days after a player's big breakout game. That's why I try to post instant updates on Twitter/X if there's something notable happening in that night's games as well. We'll look at some recommended waiver adds for this week, and of course some of you may need to decide on a couple of drops - so we'll cover those as well. These recommendations are mainly intended for redraft leagues, but some could be out there in dynasty leagues. Before we get started, I'd like to review some past recommendations from a month ago. I'll be doing this every week just as a personal audit, to see how these play out a month later. Adds from 4/8: Cam Smith: A .179 AVG and .498 OPS with 1 HR and 1 SB since 4/8 - hasn't been helpful like I thought he would be. L Colt Keith: The .293 AVG since 4/8 is helpful in some leagues but with 0 HRs and a .658 OPS I gotta take the L here. Joey Cantillo: 2-1 with a 3.56 ERA in 6 starts since 4/8. Too many 5 inning starts so he hasn't helped much in QS leagues. Hopefully he finds some more consistency soon, but in general his production has helped and didn't kill anyone with any starts in particular - so I'll take a W. Mark Vientos: .175 AVG and a .583 OPS since 4/8. Just hasn't had the bounceback that I expected so far. L Foster Griffin: The biggest W in the whole article was the most underrated name at the time. Go figure. 3-1 with a 1.96 ERA since 4/8, including 4 straight QS to date. Ownership all the way up to 52% too. Guess the moral here is stick to pitchers… Season record for adds: 6-7 (2 draws) Drops from 4/8: Bryan Abreu: Hasn't found any consistency since the drop recommendation. ERA still over 9 on the year. W Roki Sasaki: He's been pretty bad since 4/8, with a 5.49 ERA and an 18% K rate, with a walk rate near 11%. Workload concerns are still present. W Griffin Jax: Hasn't regained a high leverage role since the article posting, and is actually being stretched out as a starter now. I honestly didn't see that coming and it's possible he's an add now because of it? At least maybe in deeper leagues. He hasn't been great as a starter yet though so it may take some time - and honestly may be next season after he gets an entire offseason to prep as a starting pitcher. For now this is a W though since he hasn't regained the value he had at the start of the year. Alejandro Kirk: He hasn't played since his injury - gotta call this a draw. I've steered clear of recommending injured players as drops for the most part for this reason. Season record for drops: 7-1 (3 draws) Now let's get to this week ","adds":[{"playerName":"Erik Sabrowski","team":"CLE","position":"RP","rosteredPct":"22%","blurb":"I normally don't have relievers in here since it's the easiest position to fill - but this is more of a \"how is he still available in so many leagues?\" addition. He's been one of the best relievers in baseball, pitching in 20 games so far with a 2.08 ERA and an elite 44% K rate. He also leads the league in holds after winning the setup gig for a team that always finds themselves in close games. The exit velocity numbers haven't been great but so far it hasn't changed the fact that he's been nails just about every time he's come into the game. The high leverage opportunities aren't going anywhere, and this is a guy who's an elite option for save/hold leagues. ","espnId":"","matchups":""},{"playerName":"Ryan Waldschmidt","team":"ARI","position":"OF","rosteredPct":"15%","blurb":"We had some fun call up news this week, as Ryan Waldschmidt was brought up to help Arizona's bottom 10 offense. He was the Dbacks' top prospect, and he's poised to get every day playing time after Alek Thomas was designated for assignment. He's still just 23 and profiles as a solid power bat who should provide good ratios as well. I usually take Dbacks' minor league numbers with a grain of salt, since their AA ballpark is a bandbox and the AAA team is in the hitter-friendly PCL, but Waldschmidt's underlying data is solid. He has a good approach - he can lift the ball (44% flyball rate in AAA this year) and doesn't have contact concerns (85% zone contact in AAA). There's also enough raw power for it to make a difference, with a solid 104.8 mph EV90 in AAA. My only minor area of concern is that he's been very passive, with swing percentages below 40% at each of his minor league stops. Very few hitters can succeed in the bigs while being that passive - so it's something to watch. There's enough other reasons to get excited here though, so he's worth the speculative add. ","espnId":"5129344","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/5129344.png"},{"playerName":"Christian Scott","team":"NYM","position":"SP","rosteredPct":"10%","blurb":"Christian Scott was a top pitching prospect a couple years ago but struggled a bit in his debut season, before unfortunately needing Tommy John surgery. He finally made his return this year but walked 5 batters in just over an inning of work. He clearly had the yips in that game but luckily it didn't last, as his next 2 starts have been much better. He's pitched 9.2 innings, allowing 3 runs while striking out 14 hitters and walking just 2. That's more in line of what I expected and we should get that version of Scott moving forward. His fastball and sweeper are shaping up to be a lethal combo. His fastball in particular has gotten a velo bump up to 96 mph, and has been tough to square up. He should slowly start going deeper into games, where his K upside will pair well with QS potential. As long as he can keep throwing strikes, there's an avenue for him to remain in the Mets rotation all year. ","espnId":"4414215","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/4414215.png"},{"playerName":"Lucas Giolito","team":"SD","position":"SP","rosteredPct":"5%","blurb":"Giolito was a forgotten man in drafts after failing to sign a contract with any team before the season started. The Padres had a glaring need for starters and eventually signed Gio on April 22nd. It was speculated that he would need about a month to build up, but he looks to be back starting with the big club soon after throwing 6 innings (74 pitches) in a rehab start Sunday. I wouldn't expect the Giolito of old to return - his K upside definitely took a step back last year. His stuff isn't as good as it used to be either, with only his slider crossing the 30% whiff barrier in 2025. He really needs the changeup to step up and be that big whiff pitch that it was in the past. But regardless, he is a pretty safe arm for ratios and helpful in QS leagues. Pitching half his games in Petco should help as well. For leagues where the SP wire is barren, he's worth taking a shot on. ","espnId":"32697","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/32697.png"},{"playerName":"Zach Cole","team":"HOU","position":"OF","rosteredPct":"1%","blurb":"Cole is a bit polarizing, as there's definitely power upside present here, but also swing and miss concerns. He's already popped a 110 max EV on just 9 batted balls so far, and had a max of 114 mph last year. He can lift the ball and has some big time juice in that bat. Whether he makes enough contact remains to be seen, as contact rates in the 60s definitely won't play. He's an upside stash at this point but it was interesting to me that he drew a start against a lefty on Sunday. He was expected to be a platoon bat so that is something to monitor. Unfortunately he struck out twice against Andrew Abbott so who knows when the next opportunity will come against LHP - but maybe there's slowly some trust developing. The Astros are looking for anyone to jumpstart their offense alongside Yordan. I'm not sure if he'll be sent down once Jake Meyers and Joey Loperfido are healthy, but the bottom of the Astros' roster is essentially wide open - so anyone who steps up can claim a role. Cole is someone to monitor for power help. ","espnId":"5136815","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/5136815.png"}],"drops":[{"playerName":"Luis Castillo","team":"SEA","position":"SP","rosteredPct":"74%","blurb":"I used to be a big fan of Castillo and he was a nice value in drafts for years. But this year has been a struggle to say the least. His ERA is over 6 and his WHIP sits at 1.62 as of this writing. He's been getting absolutely crushed, allowing hard hits over 50% of the time with an average EV in the 2nd percentile. A few years back he had a terrible first half similar to this one, but rebounded in the 2nd half. However, that was when he had better stuff and bad luck helped explain the early struggles. There's really no avenue to bounce back when he's getting hit this hard consistently. News broke recently that he will piggyback with Bryce Miller for at least the next couple of starts. After that, who knows - but I'm not really interested in sticking around to find out. There's too many pitchers available in most leagues who are performing much better than Castillo. ","espnId":"35124","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/35124.png"},{"playerName":"Aaron Nola","team":"PHI","position":"SP","rosteredPct":"68%","blurb":"Nola has been a volatile pitcher from start to start for a few years now. He's even been alternating good and bad seasons, so after a rough 2025 some expected a better 2026. It hasn't happened, as his ERA currently sits at 5.14 and his WHIP is a career worst 1.48. His curve is actually performing well, but hitters aren't being fooled by any of his other offerings. His walk rate has increased a tad but the K rate is similar to recent years. His BABIP probably comes down a bit and will lower those ratios as a result - but he's another guy where I'm questioning what the ceiling is at this point even if he does bounce back. His volume can be helpful if he's having a good year, but at this point in his career he doesn't have enough K upside to stick with him when the ratios are rough. That combined with the start to start volatility is enough for me to cut in redrafts. ","espnId":"33709","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/33709.png"},{"playerName":"Zac Gallen","team":"ARI","position":"SP","rosteredPct":"54%","blurb":"Another Arizona SP makes the drop list this week, and it's a painful one as I had Gallen on my sleeper list in drafts. It's just time to face facts that he's not the elite option from a few years ago anymore. His metrics are down across the board, and that's after a down year in 2025. His hard hit rate is down to 14th percentile, while his whiff rate is in the 11th percentile. The curve just hasn't been there for him like it used to be - hitters are slugging .607 against it so far and the pitch has a career low whiff rate this year. He's never been a metrics darling, but his stuff has taken a step back at this point. It's clear the bounceback season isn't coming It's realistically too early to drop in all but the most shallow dynasty leagues out there, but for redrafts I don't see enough here to hold. I'm questioning how good a rebound will even be numbers-wise, if he can even rebound in the first place. ","espnId":"39910","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/39910.png"},{"playerName":"Ryan Walker","team":"SF","position":"RP","rosteredPct":"42%","blurb":"Walker has had a rough year, with his ERA currently sitting at 6.46. He hasn't been much help in high leverage situations and isn't generating whiffs like he used to a couple years back. The Giants bullpen has been pretty fluid this year in terms of roles, but Walker fell out of favor and was optioned to AAA on Sunday. He's an easy guy to swap out for a different rising reliever with a high leverage role. ","espnId":"5000950","matchups":"","headshotUrl":"https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/headshots/mlb/players/full/5000950.png"}]}

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