Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: A true replacement for Corbin Carroll is unlikely but there are options, more

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A nightmare season for the Diamondbacks got even worse Monday. Josh Naylor left Monday’s game with a shoulder injury, while Eugenio Suarez left with a hand injury, and that wasn’t even the bad news for the Diamondbacks. 

The bad news is that Corbin Carroll has a chip fracture in his left wrist and will be going on the IL. How long he will be going on the IL for hasn’t been announced, and this specific injury doesn’t have a ton of precedent to point to that I could find. But there is one high-profile example, and it’s not going to make you feel good: Aaron Judge suffered a chip fracture in his right wrist back in 2018, and he missed 49 days while recovering – and he hit just .220/.333/.341 after returning, with one homer in 51 plate appearances. 

Of course, that’s just a sample of one. It doesn’t mean Carroll will miss the same amount of time or struggle in exactly the same way. But the timetable probably won’t look much different than that, at least — according to Baseball Prospectus’ Recovery Dashboard tool, hitters miss an average of 60 days with fractured wrists, with a median timetable of 50 days. Maybe Carroll’s won’t be that bad, but you should be preparing for a lengthy absence. 

Which means it’s time to look for some replacement options. We talked about a bunch on Monday’s episode of Fantasy Baseball Today, and we’ll kick off today’s newsletter with nine more names to know, covering the gamut from “available in just shallower leagues” to “available pretty much everywhere.” None of them will be a one-to-one replacement for Carroll, but if you’re looking to replace a difference maker, these nine could have upside worth chasing:

• Cam Smith, Astros (72%) – The hope here is Smith is starting to live up to all of that upside, though he followed up a seven-hits-in-two-games stretch by going 2 for 16 over his next four, so it hasn’t quite locked in yet. But he’s a high-upside play. 
• Joshua Lowe, Rays (71%) – The Rays have played nine games against lefty starters since Lowe came back from his injury, and he has started five of them. So, not quite every day, which is always the concern here. He also hasn’t quite gotten going, but there is obviously plenty of upside here – he had 20 homers and 32 steals in 2023. 
• Addison Barger, Blue Jays (65%) – Barger is the hot hand play, with an OPS north of .850 since May 1. And he has the underlying numbers to back it up, if not the track record. There are also some platoon concerns here, but he has started four of seven against lefties this month. 
• Ceddanne Rafaela, Red Sox (63%) – Earlier in the season, Rafaela had excellent underlying numbers and mediocre production. Now he’s actually hot with five homers and a .394 OPS in the month of June and mediocre .326 expected wOBA. Temper expectations, in other words, but give him a look if you want some speed and pop. 
• Jurickson Profar, Braves (59%) – This one won’t be an immediate help, though if you play in a league with weekly lineup locks, it won’t matter much. Profar is suspended until July 2, but he’ll be back at the top of the Braves lineup by then, and if he’s anything like the 2024 version of himself, that’s a must-start player in all formats. 
• Chandler Simpson, OF, Rays (47%) – Simpson is being recalled from Triple-A Tuesday, and he continues to have a very Fantasy-friendly skill set – remember, he hit .285 with 19 steals in 35 games before his demotion. The question is whether his defense will ever be good enough to keep him in the lineup. It’s a bet worth making, because a .285 average isn’t the ceiling for him. Not even close. 
• Tyler O’Neill, Orioles (45%) – O’Neill is, as he often is, dealing with an injury. But he’s back on his rehab assignment and still has plenty of upside if he can ever get and then remain healthy – remember, he hit 31 homers in just 113 games last season. 
• Parker Meadows, Tigers (33%) – Meadows hasn’t done much since coming off the IL, but the underlying data actually looks great – his .350 xwOBA would be a significant improvement over last season’s, and his .260 xBA will play in any format. There’s 20-20 upside if he gets going here. 

• Chase DeLauter, Guardians (19%) – Let’s toss one real long shot with real upside in here. DeLauter returned from hernia surgery about a month ago and has done what he has always done when healthy – raked. He is hitting .297/.418/.486 in 21 games at Triple-A and could be an option to boost the Guardians’ pitiful right field situation. I think he’s got a real chance of getting called up very soon. 

Here’s what else you need to know from Monday’s action around MLB: 

Tuesday’s top waiver-wire targets

Eduardo Rodriguez, SP, Diamondbacks (62%) – Here’s a full list of pitchers with more 10-strikeout games than Rodriguez this season: Logan Webb, Tarik Skubal, Chris Sale, Cole Ragans. That’s not quite a list of the five best pitchers in baseball, but it’s pretty impressive company. Yes, I’m aware that his ERA for the season is now down to 5.40, and that his six shutout innings Monday came against the White Sox, and those are reasonable arguments for being skeptical of what Rodriguez has done. But his peripheral stats suggest there’s been some bad luck there, as Rodriguez entered this start with a much more palatable 3.92 xERA. The highs have been high and the lows have been low, but I think Rodriguez is going to be more useful than not moving forward. 

Austin Hays, OF, Reds (48%) – Hays is working his way back from a foot injury and will begin a rehab assignment Tuesday, with the hope he’ll be activated from the IL by this weekend. Hays has missed a lot of time so far, but he’s been a perfect fit for Cincinnati’s small ballpark, hitting .303/.346/.555 through 31 games. He isn’t quite that good, but his .354 xwOBA is the best of his career, and his home park should continue to help. He should absolutely be on your list of Corbin Carroll replacements. 

Trevor Rogers, SP, Orioles (6%) – Rogers’ three starts so far have confirmed one thing for me: He is still capable of being a competent MLB pitcher. That’s not nothing! At the beginning of the season, I’m not sure anyone would have bet on that being the case. But here he sits with a 1.62 ERA and 0.78 WHIP through his first 16.2 innings of work this season. He obviously isn’t that good, but Rogers has rediscovered most of his lost velocity, and his changeup has looked pretty good so far, too.

I just don’t really buy that he’s much more than competent. He had just four strikeouts in his eight innings of work Monday against the Rangers, with just eight swinging strikes on 101 pitches. Competent-but-unspectacular pitchers have great starts all of the time, and they can even be useful for Fantasy. I just don’t think Rogers is likely to really be much more than that. 

Nick Gonzales, 2B, Pirates (7%) – Gonzales might just be tapping into some of the upside that made him a top-10 pick back in 2020. I’m not saying he’s going to be a star or anything, but he has chopped another few points off his strikeout rate (it’s down to 16.3%, a legitimately good mark!) without sacrificing anything in the way of contact quality. He had two doubles as part of a five-hit game Monday, and his quality of contact metrics are the best they’ve ever been. As a 2B in a deeper league or a middle infield option, Gonzales looks pretty solid. One thing that could make him even more interesting is if he turned his 89th percentile sprint speed into actual steals, as he has unsuccessfully attempted just one in 19 games. 

Dylan Lee, RP, Braves (10%) – Lee might just be the Braves closer now. It’s impossible to say that with any degree of confidence, of course, as Monday was their first save since May 16, but it came in awfully impressive circumstances: With Raisel Iglesias allowing consecutive two-out singles in the eighth inning, Lee came in to face Juan Soto to get out of the inning, and he then retired the side in order in the ninth for his second save. There haven’t been many opportunities lately, but the Braves still clearly don’t trust Iglesias as a shutdown bullpen arm, while Lee has been exactly that, sporting a 1.77 ERA with better than a strikeout per inning and good control. And he had a 2.11 ERA last season, so it might not be a fluke. I expect Iglesias to get back the ninth inning role at some point, but Lee could factor in until then. 

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