The waiver wire can often feel a bit thin this late in the year, but that does not mean that there are not options. In fact, there are some bats that are sparsely owned as they are platoon bats, but they have a string of matchups against their preferred handedness of pitchers. Now is the time to target them and reap the rewards.

Yusei Kikuchi – SP – HOU – 49% owned

He did very well for himself in his first as an Astro, struck out 11 with three walks, three hits and two earned runs allowed in 5.2 innings. When he arrived in Houston, the Astros had a talk with him about using his changeup more, and he did just that. He threw 25 changeups (26% usage) and earned a whopping 11 whiffs on 14 swings and a 48% CSW. On the year, he had thrown the change up just 11.8% of the time, but the numbers against have been fantastic, and the pitch he virtually cut, the curveball, was not. Consider the following:

• xBA: CH – .193, CB – .262
• xSLG: CH – .246, CB – .445
• xWOBA: CH – .209, CB – .303

After he threw just two curves, it is safe to say that pitch is all but put into the recycle bin in his brain.

On top of that, before the change, he has been well underperforming his ERA estimators

Real ERA – 4.67

• xERA – 3.90
• FIP – 3.64
• xFIP – 3.34
• SIERA – 3.41

Now that Kikuchi is in Houston, he is going to be in line for more wins, and is in a organization that knows pitching. There is no way he should be on waivers in standard leagues.

League size recommendation: 12-team leagues

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