Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Braxton Garrett, Other Pitchers to Add Now

Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Braxton Garrett gets chance as injuries open rotation spot, pitchers to add now

Emerging starters and rebound candidates highlight today's top waiver adds

By Chris Towers

May 14, 2026 at 9:55 am ET • 10 min read

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When the rotation spot opened up for the Marlins , I thought it would be Braxton Garrett who got the call. Turns out I was just early, because Robby Snelling suffered a sprained UCL during his MLB debut last week and is going on the IL.

It's a big blow for the young pitcher, and it's the kind of injury that could very well end up costing him significant time – an MRI revealed the sprain, which is technically a partial tear of the ligament. It might end up requiring surgery, though no decision has been made regarding that one way or the other. But either way, the Marlins have a hole in the rotation yet again, and it will be Garrett who gets the call, likely for Thursday's game against the Twins .

And while Garrett isn't as exciting as Snelling, I do think he is someone Fantasy players need to take seriously. Garrett has a track record of success in the majors as recently as 2023, when he had a 3.66 ERA in 159.2 innings before an elbow injury of his required Tommy John surgery in 2024. He has made six starts at Triple-A this season with a 2.30 ERA, and while his usually sterling control hasn't been quite there yet, Garrett has seen an uptick in his fastball velocity and a jump in his swinging strike rate as well. He's doing that against minor-league hitters, of course, but with Garrett's track record in the majors and the uptick in his velocity, I do think he could matter for Fantasy and should be a lot more widely rostered than 13%. And he's definitely going to get the chance now.

With Max Fried and Robby Snelling the latest pitchers to go down with injuries, let's focus on a few more pitchers to target on waivers before looking at a couple of hitters who had big games Wednesday:

Bryce Miller , SP, Mariners (65%) – Miller wasn't dominant in his return to the rotation Wednesday, but it was still a pretty promising start. As expected based on his minor-league rehab assignment, Miller's velocity was way up, as he averaged 97.6 mph with his four-seamer – up 2.8 mph from 2025, but also up 1.5 mph from his highest single start prior. He still didn't miss a ton of bats with it (three on 24 swings), but the physical characteristics of the pitch still looked great, so I still think there is potential here. All in all, he generated eight swinging strikes on 81 pitches and just three strikeouts over 5.1 innings of work, but he also generated a bunch of weak contact and gave up just one walk and two runs, so all told, it was pretty good. We want to see more bat-missing in future starts, but right now, I'll take this start as a sign to add Miller where I can and see how it plays out.

Ryne Nelson , SP, Diamondbacks (56%) – Hey, maybe everyone gave up on Nelson too early! Nelson put together his third strong start in a row Wednesday against the Rangers , striking out six, walking none, and giving up three runs on four hits. This three-start stretch lines up almost perfectly with when Nelson started throwing his new sinker and cutter, new looks to supplement his elite four-seamer, and both seem to be helping – the sinker as a complement against righties and the cutter vs. lefties, perhaps to help counter his lack of a changeup. Nelson's 5.52 ERA is still pretty ugly, but that's mostly because of two especially ugly starts at the end of April, where he was tagged for 14 runs in 5.1 innings (which includes a start in Mexico City, at an even higher elevation than Coors Field). Outside of those two starts, Nelson has a 3.03 ERA, and that's a lot closer to the 3.39 mark he managed last season. He's a must-roster pitcher in points leagues with his RP eligibility, but I think Nelson is pretty useful in Roto, too. Especially with a matchup against the Rockies in Arizona next week.

Grayson Rodriguez , SP, Angels (56%) – Look, it's a long shot, I get it. And the landing spot against the Dodgers for his likely first start of the season Sunday, is a rough one. But I'm still intrigued by Rodriguez. He got up to 94 pitches in his most recent minor-league rehab start and has struck out 18 batters to just two walks over 9.2 innings across his two warm-ups. We don't have Statcast data for Rodriguez, so we're kind of flying blind heading into his first MLB start since July 31, 2024, but I'm at least hopeful he still has some upside, if not necessarily optimistic at this point.

Justin Crawford , OF, Phillies (51%) – Crawford is another player I think folks might have given up on too soon, though this one is also understandable. Crawford's limitations are well known, but he was supposed to make up for his lack of power with a strong batting average and a bunch of steals. Well, the batting average is up to .273, so we could use a little more work there, but he has started to do some other stuff lately. He has two steals in 11 games in May so far, matching his total entering the month, and he had a pretty impressive homer Wednesday to dead center at Fenway, a reminder that this guy does have some pop if he elevates the ball. The increased willingness to run is more important for his Fantasy outlook, but it's nice to see Crawford hitting .290/.371/.548 since the start of the month after looking pretty lifeless prior.

TJ Rumfield , 1B, Rockies () – Rumfield might be a find for the Rockies. He put together his third three-hit game in the past two weeks Wednesday, going 3 for 4 with a homer, a double, and two runs scored. Funny enough, his last three homers have also come during those three-hit games, and he's now hitting .317/.364/.561 in the month of May with the three homers and just an 18.2% strikeout rate. Rumfield doesn't have prototypical from the first base position, but he makes a lot of contact and hits the ball in the air to the pull side consistently enough to maximize what he does have. At the very least, he's an interesting hot-hand play and someone to get in the lineup when the Rockies are at home.

Wednesday's standouts

Kyle Bradish , Orioles vs. NYY: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 7 K – It wasn't perfect, but it was a whole lot better than what has come before. I wanted to type "especially against a very tough Yankees lineup," but this was decidedly a getaway game B-lineup for the Yankees, so there's a grain of salt to be had here. But Bradish hadn't looked good, no matter the opponent, for much of the season, so we're taking the wins where we can get them. He still didn't have the whole arsenal working, though that might have been because of a left-heavy lineup that forced Bradish into leaning on his curveball and four-seamer more than usual, both of which were great. I still have a lot of hope for Bradish, and it was nice to see him pay some of that hope off for at least one start.

Parker Messick , Guardians vs. LAA: 6.2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K – It's time to start asking how high Messick needs to be ranked. I got him up to 30th in my most recent update at SP this week, but even that doesn't feel high enough for a guy with a 2.51 ERA in his first 16 MLB starts. I don't think he's quite that good, but I do buy Messick as a K-per-inning, low-3.00s ERA type of pitcher, and that's good enough, especially with no real concerns about innings limitations the rest of the way.

Framber Valdez , Tigers @NYM: 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – It's nice to see a good start from Valdez after a terrible one his last time out. Despite the 4.32 ERA and 1.36 WHIP, Valdez has mostly pitched well this season – he has only allowed more than two runs twice in nine starts, it's just that he gave up 15 runs across those two starts to jack up his ratios. Those starts still count, and I sympathize with you for the harm he's done to your teams with them, but I still don't really see much reason to think he won't remain a must-start pitcher moving forward. He's just always kind of a headache along the way.

Michael King , Padres @MIL: 5.2 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K – It wasn't perfect, especially early on, but King's return from his injury-plagued 2025 has gone about as well as you could have asked overall. He's missing bats about as often as ever, and while the walk rate was high early, he's averaging two walks per start over the past four, a big improvement. You could make the argument that he's a sell-high candidate for injury-risk reasons, but I generally believe King will be a must-start pitcher as long as he's upright.

Nick Lodolo , Reds vs. WAS: 4 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 6 K – If you're starting to worry, I get it – when Lodolo came back from a blister in 2024, he was a shell of himself, and now he has struggled in his first two games back from a blister. That time, it was mostly because he lost the feel for his curveball, but he got five whiffs with it in this start, so I don't think that's the concern here. He's probably just rusty, and I would be trying to buy low here.

Sonny Gray , Red Sox vs. PHI: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K – Gray needed to show that he can still miss bats, so this was a good start, as he generated whiffs on 11 of his 78 pitches. I still don't love his more sinker and cutter-heavy approach this season for missing bats, as nearly 60% of his pitches this season have been a fastball of some kind. We've seen declining skills indicators for Gray in recent years, so hopefully Wednesday's start was a sign of more strikeouts to come – it was his first start in six with more than five strikeouts. I'd be looking at his 3.18 ERA and trying like mad to sell Gray, because I just don't have a lot of faith in him at this point.

Noah Schultz , White Sox vs. KC: 4.1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 5 BB, 3 K – Schultz is a big lefty with big stuff, but he's very clearly not a finished product yet. His control is bad, but I think it's as much about his ability to miss bats as an inability to throw strikes – he generated just six swings on pitches out of the strike zone Wednesday, in keeping with his unusually low chase rate for a pitcher with his kind of stuff. For a guy who throws around 45% of his pitches out of the strike zone (or less, as he did Wednesday), that's almost impossible to overcome. I still have some hope for Schultz in the long run, but he hasn't shown enough to be viewed as a must-roster player right now.

Griffin Jax , Rays @TOR: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 1 K – Jax is still more "interesting" than "worth adding" right now. He's showing the ability to go deeper with each start, and the stuff has actually held up relatively well in his transition back to the rotation. But in 14 innings since the move was made, he has just eight strikeouts to seven walks. He's a scout-team arm right now.

Andrew Painter , Phillies @BOS: 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K – I kind of feel the same about Painter as Jax, despite a big gap in how rostered they are. Painter is still clearly learning on the job, but he took an interesting step Wednesday by lowering his fastball usage to the lowest it has been all season. The four-seamer, especially has been his biggest problem so far, as he neither misses bats nor limits hard contact with it, so trying to use it as little as possible makes perfect sense. I still need to see more from him before I buy back in, but this was an interesting first step.

JR Ritchie , Braves vs. CHC: 4.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – I think the biggest issue with Ritchie right now isn't actually his control, despite the high walk rate to date. The biggest problem is he just doesn't have any bat-missing ability right now and isn't generating any chases. When batters swing, they make contact, and they generally only swing at pitches in the strike zone. Bad combo for a pitcher! I'm not giving up on Ritchie yet, but he hasn't shown enough to be worth rostering in most competitive Fantasy leagues yet.

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_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/fantasy-baseball-waiver-wire-braxton-garrett-gets-chance/)._