Working The Waiver Wire: July 25th

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  • By Jeff Clowers

    Last Updated on July 25, 2025 12:21 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: July 25, 2025

    Even the modest devoted baseball fan can admit the season is sometimes a bit of a slog. But with the first half of the season now firmly in the rearview with the All-Star festivities having passed, we have the bulk of the excitement still to come between trade season and the subsequent mad dash for a place among the playoff contenders this postseason – and that applies to both real life and fantasy.

    Even with the best parts of the season remaining though, there are undoubtedly a handful of owners who have checked out – fully or even just partially – causing players who are either bouncing back from injury or poor performance to be slightly less rostered than they should be. Several of our names below fit into that archetype and should provide a great return on investment for the remainder of the season.

    Zach Eflin – SP – BAL – 46% Yahoo, 65% CBS

    Last 14 Days: 5.0 IP – 3.60 ERA/1.69 FIP/0.60 WHIP – 5:1 K:BB – 0 HR

    In his first start back, returning from a month long stint on the injured list due to back soreness, Eflin looked like the time off has allowed him to return to his old form. Though he didn’t earn a decision, he held the Guardians to two runs on just two hits and one walk, compared to five strikeouts.

    The ability to avoid the free pass has always been Eflin’s strength, as he carries a career 4.9% walk rate, so it was more the return to a swinging-strike rate (11.9%) around league average in this game after sitting in the mid-9s the past two seasons that stands out as a positive indicator for his future performance. That’s not the only indication of improved health impacting performance either, as Eflin saw his fastball average 93.0mph after it sat 92.0mph earlier this season – and 92.4mph the year prior.

    His stats for the season are still quite ugly, with a 5.78 ERA backed by a 5.42 FIP, but they’re largely due to a career-high HR/FB rate of 18.8% when his career average stands at just 13.7% and had been closer to 11% in recent years. To that end, his xERA (4.12) and SIERA (4.34) sit noticeably below his actual marks so even with just normal regression to the mean on his statistics, he should be a solid (if unspectacular) starter going forward – especially if he is able to continue in good health.

    Trevor Rogers – SP – BAL – 51% Yahoo, 69% CBS

    Last 14 Days: 12.2 IP – 2.13 ERA/3.33 FIP/0.87 WHIP – 11:4 K:BB – 1 HR

    Through the first two years of his career, Trevor Rogers looked like a potential star-in-the-making down in Miami. Across 161 innings spread between the 2020 and 2021 seasons, he held a 3.24 ERA, 2.86 FIP, 1.23 WHIP and a 196:61 K:BB ratio but just as quickly as he burst onto the scene, he quickly flamed out to the tune of a 5.09 ERA, 1.52 WHIP and a 222:109 K:BB rate over his next 249.1 innings the following three seasons.

    The odd part was that despite the bloated figures, Rogers wasn’t suddenly getting crushed for hard hits – in fact, he saw his hard-hit rate either stay the same or drop the two years post-breakout. Instead, it seemed like hitters figured out how to lay off his pitches as his overall contact allowed jumped from 71.2% in 2021 to 79.1% the next three seasons to go along with a 1.6% decrease in swing rate.

    That put him out of sight and out of mind for fantasy managers – right up until about a month ago when he came off the injured list to pitch eight shutout innings against the Rangers. Including that outing against Texas, Rogers has now compiled 26 strikeouts and nine walks over his last 32.2 innings while maintaining a 1.38 ERA and 0.80 WHIP. His resurgence, like rotation-mate Eflin’s, has come with a bump in fastball velocity, as Rogers is averaging 93.4mph on the season after managing just a 91.9mph mark in 2024.

    Though this isn’t the same pitcher that we saw breakout back in 2021, there are now enough signs for me to comfortably say that Rogers is a safe bet to find himself somewhere between his sophomore performance and what he put forth the past few years. My expectation is somewhere in the range of a 3.80 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and and roughly 7.5 K/9. For someone who the 200th SP by ADP in the preseason (per FantasyPros), that’s a huge step forward and all but ensures he’ll be front-and-center as a piece in somebody’s fantasy championship run – will it be yours?!

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    July 25, 2025, 12:21 pm