Tick… Tick… Tick…

That’s the sound of the 2024 season slowly slipping away as we near the end of what has felt like a marathon season. To some, that sound might be a reprieve from having to worry about pulled hamstrings and Tommy John surgeries but to others, it’s the countdown to a potential championship celebration.

Want to make sure that you get to enjoy your own tickertape parade? Pick up the players below!

Spencer Schwellenbach – SP – ATL – 73% Yahoo, 87% CBS

If you’ve paid attention to my pickup columns in particular this season, you know I love to go diving into the deepest, darkest, most recessed parts of the waiver wire when it comes to my suggested adds – but I’m going to make an exception this week by highlighting the excellence of Spencer Schwellenbach since his ownership percentage (on Yahoo in particular) is far below where I feel it should be.

Case in point – this gorgeously red set of Statcast sliders;

In short, Schwellenbach excels at both getting batters to chase, which has led to a strong 9.81 K/9 and 77 strikeouts in 70.2 IP, while also getting them to chase pitches out of the zone for easy outs. Detractors might point to his Hard-Hit% as a weak point since it currently sits at about a league-average rate, but the thing to remember is that not all hard-hit balls are cut from the same cloth – some are pounded into the dirt for easily scooped groundballs, while others are rocketed at an extremely high launch angle for a routine flyball.

Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ metric (as displayed on Fangraphs) is also a fan of Schwellenbach, giving him an overall Pitching+ rating of 107, meaning he’s seven percent better than league average when it comes to his pitching arsenal and command, combined.

The profile screams “top-25 pitcher” to me so if he is still available on your wire, run, don’t walk, and grab him immediately! And if he is already owned and your trade deadline has yet to pass, see if you can fool his current manager by pointing to his current 3.95 ERA (while ignoring his shiny 3.09 xERA).

League size recommendation: 10-team leagues

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