Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Braden Montgomery, Cole Carrigg Lead New Prospect Upside

We've got another couple of interesting young outfield prospect promotions to get to know, so before we get to anything else from Tuesday's game, let's get to know Braden Montgomery of the White Sox and Cole Carrigg of the Rockies .

White Sox promote Braden Montgomery

Montgomery was the 12th pick in the 2024 draft for the Red Sox , but he didn't even log a game for them before he was sent to the South Side of Chicago in the Garrett Crochet trade after recovering from a fractured ankle that ended his college career early. Despite that injury, Montgomery has moved about as quickly through the minors as you would expect from a college player taken in the first half of the first round, and his profile fits in with Colson Montgomery , Munetaka Murakami , and Jakob Gonzales among the White Sox's slugging core. There are going to be some contact concerns here, most notably against non-fastballs – he has a 34% whiff rate overall (18th percentile among Triple-A hitters) and is worse than that against sweepers, changeups, and sliders so far.

But if you hang it, he can hit it a long way, and he's mostly been excellent so far this season at Triple-A. Despite the swing and miss, he's sporting a manageable 24% strikeout rate, thanks to an approach at the plate that sees him lay off pitches out of the strike zone well enough while going after pitches in the zone aggressively. He's sporting a 93.2 mph average exit velocity and 54% hard-hit rate this season, though, like many young sluggers, he isn't elevating the ball as much as you'd like to see just yet. Also, like many young switch hitters, he's more comfortable from one side of the plate than the other, though in his case, the fact that he's better against righties (.868 OPS, 24% strikeout rate across 2025 and 2026) than lefties (.828, 30%) is hardly a knock on him.

The fact that Montgomery isn't likely to help much in batting average or steals puts a lot of pressure on the power to show up early … and he went out and hit a walkoff homer in his MLB debut Tuesday, which is exactly what you want to see. He isn't a perfect prospect, but he's a pretty exciting one in a lineup that has been surprisingly feisty this season. The upside here is worth adding Montgomery in most leagues just to see if he can build on that debut dinger.

Rockies promote Cole Carrigg

Carrigg comes to the majors with less pedigree and less hype than Montgomery, as he didn't crack any top-100 lists entering the season. But he's been crushing it at the Rockies' Triple-A affiliate, hitting .338/.414/.529 – though, notably, that's in Albuquerque, one of the few offensive environments in professional baseball that might be even more hitter-friendly than Coors Field. But Carrigg is making a bunch of contact, has non-zero power, and is wreaking havoc on the bases, which is a very interesting skill set to take to Coors Field. If he can keep that strikeout rate around 20% (it was 15% in Triple-A), Carrigg could benefit from Coors' BABIP-inflating nature to run helpful batting averages while stealing a bunch of bases. There are some playing time concerns even in Colorado – they've called up interesting young players only to start them sporadically in the past – but Carrigg is at least worth a look in categories leagues if you're looking for stolen base upside.

Here's what else you need to know about from Tuesday's action around MLB :

Wednesday's top waiver-wire targets

Here's who we're looking to add coming out of Tuesday's action:

Jac Caglianone , OF, Royals (62%) – The production mostly hasn't been there, but there were still reasons to be optimistic about Caglianone even before his big two-homer game Tuesday night. He's been hitting the ball hard all season long, but earlier on was hitting the ball into the ground way too often to take advantage of it. That hasn't been as much of an issue lately – his average launch angle has gone from three degrees in April to 11 in May to now 17 in June. There's still an awful lot of swing and miss in Caglianone's game, but you can live with that if he's going to be a big source of power, and it looks like he's finally starting to figure that out. And hey, if he wants to start running more often – two steals in seven June games – well, we won't complain about that one bit. This might be your last chance to add Caglianone before the breakout happens.

Dustin May , SP, Cardinals (65%) – He just keeps rolling. May shut the Mets out over six innings Tuesday with six strikeouts and just one walk, and now he's down to a 2.89 ERA and 1.09 WHIP over his past 11 starts. He's averaging just under six innings per start and has merely good, not great, strikeout numbers, but May is inducing weak contact and letting the strong defense behind him take care of things, and right now it's working. He's not a true-talent, sub-3.00 ERA pitcher, but I'm going to happily start him with a two-start week coming up against the Padres and Royals.

Gabriel Moreno , C, Diamondbacks (77%) – Moreno has failed to build on what looked like a breakout 2025, but there's still an awful lot to like about his profile. Despite being pretty disappointing to date, Moreno is actually putting up the best underlying numbers of his career, with a .368 xwOBA dwarfing his actual .325 mark. He hasn't really been an underperformer in that regard in the past, so maybe his two homers over the past two games are a sign that he's starting to figure it out.

Spencer Jones , OF, Yankees (37%) – I'm very skeptical that Jones is going to make enough contact to stick in the majors, but with the Yankees down three starting outfielders (if you include Giancarlo Stanton , that is), he's getting some run right now. And he isn't looking overmatched right now, going 6 for 12 since getting recalled from Triple-A four games ago, and he even hit his first career homer Tuesday, a 443-foot bomb to dead center that hints at the kind of power upside he brings to the table. That power is considerable, and if he could manage to be even a 30% strikeout rate guy, Jones could be a real difference maker. Might as well see if he can keep doing it in deeper categories leagues.

Grant Taylor , RP, White Sox (34%) – Maybe the White Sox are getting ready to make a switch in the ninth inning? Taylor got a save over the weekend, and then they used Seranthony Dominguez in the eighth inning of a tied game Tuesday against the Braves , with Taylor working the ninth and 10th for the win. That isn't positive proof Taylor is suddenly the closer, but I definitely think he's the best reliever in the White Sox bullpen this season, with his ERA down to 1.82 and his strikeout rate up to 36%. They still probably like to have Taylor's multi-inning flexibility available, so I'm not ready to say he's definitely the closer here. But you'll get elite ratios and strikeouts out of him and at least the occasional save – and then by the trade deadline, he might be firmly entrenched in the role and capable of finishing the season with 15 or so saves. And that isn't the ceiling here.

Tuesday's standouts

Paul Skenes , Pirates vs. LAD: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – You weren't worried, were you? Skenes entered this start in the midst of a rare cold spell, but there was never any reason to think it was anything but a bump in the road. Skenes may not be the No. 1 pitcher in Fantasy anymore , but he's still no worse than No. 2, and it's going to take a lot more than a few mediocre starts to change that.

Dylan Cease , Blue Jays vs. PHI: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 11 K – As a general rule, I want to give pitchers a grace start when they first are coming off the IL, though that's less true when you're talking about just a two-week absence like the one Cease was dealing with. He looked great in his rehab start last week, and it looked like all systems go for his first start back – and boy was it ever. He generated a truly absurd 29 swinging strikes on just 93 pitches, including seven or more on his four-seamer, changeup, and slider, en route to the 11 strikeouts. The eight whiffs on the changeup is especially notable, as it is double the most he has ever had in a start, and the previous career-high came in his second-to-last start before the injury. Cease is finally throwing a real-deal changeup after years of toying with a novelty eephus-type slowball, and it's suddenly looking like a real weapon. Cease has a career-high strikeout rate and the second-best xwOBA of his career, and this might just be the best version of him we've ever seen.

Gerrit Cole , Yankees @CLE: 4 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – Where are the whiffs? Cole generated just four swinging strikes on 83 pitches in this one, the third time in four starts since coming back where he has had five or fewer whiffs – the last time he had three starts in a season with five or fewer whiffs was in 2016, so yeah, this is an outlier. The stuff still looks pretty good, and Cole was sitting 97.6 mph with his four-seamer, up 1.1 mph from where he's been previously, but his command was badly off in this one. It could just be as simple as needing to settle in, and to Cole's credit, the results have still been excellent overall despite the lack of strikeouts. But that probably won't prove sustainable, so what we have to figure out is whether the swing and miss will return before the regression hits. I tend to believe Cole will improve from this point on, but it's certainly not a guarantee at this point.

Max Meyer , Marlins vs. ARI: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K – As a bit of a Meyer skeptic, I was worried his five-run outing to close out May might have been the start of him losing grip of the rope. Instead, he has responded by allowing just three runs in 12.1 innings over his next two starts with 12 strikeouts and four walks. The key is that slider/sweeper combo, and he threw them a combined 60 times out of 95 pitches total, generating 10 swinging strikes. When he has those two pitches working like that, Meyer is hard to beat, and he's been hard to beat a lot more often than not this season. My skepticism is definitely starting to fade.

Trevor Rogers , Orioles vs. SEA: 5.2 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – The past two starts represent real improvement for Rogers, and that's not nothing. But if you're looking for signs of him rediscovering last year's form, that isn't here either – he has fallen an out short of a quality start in both while striking out just six over 11.1 innings of work. Rogers hasn't had more than three strikeouts in any of his past seven starts, a stretch dating back to late April, so I don't see much reason to be excited just yet.

Taj Bradley , Twins @DET: 4.1 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 3 K –  Bradley got zero whiffs on his splitter and curveball in this one, and there's just no way for him to succeed if that's the case. His fastball just isn't good enough to survive not having his secondary pitches working, and he gave up eight hard-hit balls with a 100.2 average exit velocity against the four-seamer in this one. Bradley has a 7.00 ERA and 1.67 WHIP since coming off the IL, and you have to wonder at this point if the pec injury that landed him on the IL didn't also wreck his breakout. Or maybe Bradley is just an inherently volatile pitcher who was never going to sustain his fast start? I'm open to either explanation, but the latter was always my assumption for how this would end, so I can't say I'm surprised right now.

Walbert Urena , Angels vs. HOU: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 5 BB, 7 K – Urena remains pretty interesting, I'm just not sure if he's ever going to graduate beyond "interesting." I've noted it before, but he kind of has the Jose Soriano start kit here, with excellent velocity and a couple of viable breaking balls. Unfortunately, he's also being held back by the same thing that has generally held Soriano back: Poor control. He can miss bats and generate weak contact, often on the ground, but a 5.4 BB/9 is just untenable. He's looking at a two-start week next week, but with matc

_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/fantasy-baseball-waiver-wire-braden-montgomerys-prospect-upside/)._