Reid Detmers

If you're scared of buying into Reid Detmers after all these years, I get it. We've been on this ride before. I've called him a breakout more times than I can count, and I'm old enough to remember him being sent down to the minors like five weeks after throwing a no-hitter. His career has been defined by false promises and false starts, and skepticism is an extremely reasonable reaction to even very impressive stretches.

But man, he's been really impressive lately. Four starts ago, he struck out 14 hitters over eight one-run innings, and he was nearly that good again Wednesday against the Astros , as he allowed just one run on one hit (a solo homer) and struck out nine over seven innings of work. Over those past four starts, he's at a 1.73 ERA with 36 strikeouts to just five walks in 26 innings. This might be the best stretch of his career.

His ERA for the season is still sitting at 4.00, but there are still positive signs even there. Because once you peek under the hood, you see a 2.87 FIP, 3.44 xFIP, 2.92 xERA and, well, every peripheral suggests this is absolutely the best version of Detmers we've ever seen.

Now, it is true that Detmers has consistently underperformed his peripherals throughout his career, and that should be accounted for in any discussion of what to expect from him moving forward. For his career, he's sitting on a 4.69 ERA, compared to a 4.04 xERA and 3.94 FIP. He's often struggled with runners on base and has never really had a good defense backing him up with the Angels , and it's reasonable to expect those issues to remain for him. But even if you give him his usual 0.75-ish runs above his peripherals, we'd take a 3.60 or so ERA from Detmers if it comes with nearly 11 K/9 and regular six-inning outings, wouldn't we?

I certainly would. I'm trying to strike the right balance here between a fair skepticism of Detmers and an acknowledgment of the growth he's showing this season. It's the best he's ever looked overall, with all four of his primary pitches looking like solid pitches in terms of both whiff rates and quality of contact allowed. Beyond improved command, I'm not sure I have a great explanation for exactly why Detmers has seemingly leveled up, which does make it even harder to buy into the small-sample-size success we're seeing.

But here's the thing: You don't have to buy all the way in. Give him the mid-to-high-3.00s ERA rather than the sub-3.00s one his peripherals suggest, and we're still talking about a pitcher who is obviously under-rostered at 75%. If he's available in your league, you probably have a worse pitcher on your bench right now. There are 82 starting pitchers currently rostered in more leagues than Detmers right now, including the likes of Eduardo Rodriguez , Foster Griffin , and Nick Martinez , any of whom I would easily drop for Detmers. And even I'd probably prefer Detmers over the likes of Landen Roupp , Shane Baz , Robbie Ray , and Jack Leiter , too.

Even without buying fully into what we're seeing from Detmers right now, he looks like a top-60 starting pitcher. That's not the ceiling if the breakout is real – you could see a top-30 SP here if all goes right – but it's still someone who needs to be rostered in all Fantasy leagues right now, just in case.

Now, here's what else you need to know about from Wednesday's action around MLB :

Thursday's top waiver-wire targets

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

Bryce Eldridge , 1B, Giants (58%) – There's no excuse not to add Eldridge at this point. He gained first base eligibility a few days ago, so if you were holding out because you couldn't fit him in at DH, that excuse is gone. He's been hitting all along, and the Giants have stopped sitting him regularly, so what's the holdup? We're talking about one of the top hitting prospects in baseball who has a .298/.385/.521 line through his first 109 plate appearances of the season, with the underlying numbers to back it up. Yeah, his home park will hold his power production back a bit, but hey, he homered Wednesday (against a lefty!) and is on a 20-plus homer pace in spite of that. At this point, just add Eldridge in case he's as good as he looks right now.

Jac Caglianone , OF, Royals (65%) – I'm also at the point where I think Caglianone should just be rostered pretty much everywhere. I've written about Caglianone and Eldridge a lot the past few days, because they're both immensely talented young players who might be figuring it out. Caglianone followed up his two-homer game Tuesday with four more hits Wednesday, and he's now 14 for 26 in the month of June with three homers and six walks (to five strikeouts). The strikeout rate will likely always be an issue, but he hits the ball hard and has increased his average launch angle in every month of the season, helping him tap into his prodigious raw power. We don't have a long track record of Caglianone succeeding in the majors, but at this point, I'm willing to bet on the upside now that he's starting to show signs of figuring it out.

Royce Lewis , 3B, Twins (38%) – It's a very small sample size, but Lewis has looked solid since returning to the majors, is playing pretty much every day, and added first base eligibility while hitting his first homer since his promotion Wednesday. He was phenomenal on his sojourn to Triple-A and still seemingly has plenty of upside, so in deeper leagues, I'm willing to take a flier on Lewis, especially since he's now dual eligible (and could see more playing time at second base to gain a third position you can use him at before long).

Francisco Alvarez , C, Mets (37%) – Alvarez has hit safely in both games since coming off the IL, and he homered Wednesday, a good sign coming off knee surgery. He wasn't quite having the breakout season we hoped for before the injury, but a peak under the hood shows plenty to be excited about – he is striking out a career-low 22.1% of the time while sporting a .396 expected wOBA, right in line with last season. Upping the contact rate without losing quality of contact is tough to do, and if Alvarez can sustain it, he's going to have the best season of his career. I'm not sure he's quite worthy of being a top-12 option yet, but he isn't far off.

Wednesday's standouts

George Kirby , Mariners @BAL: 6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 10 K – Kirby needs to do one of two things moving forward: He needs to get back to having an elite (rather than merely very good) walk rate, or he needs to up his strikeout rate. He did one of those things Wednesday, generating 10 strikeouts, three more than any other start this season. This start was also better than the box score might make you think, as he had five shutout innings before running into some trouble in the sixth. Kirby doesn't look nearly as sharp as he has in the past, and I don't think he deserves to be considered one of the 20 best pitchers in Fantasy anymore. But I still think that upside is there, and I'm mostly just keeping him in my lineup and hoping he gets back on track soon.

Drew Rasmussen , Rays vs. BOS: 7 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 13 K – One thing I wish I had accounted for more in my preseason prep was the possibility of Rasmussen taking a big step forward with the Rays back at Tropicana Field. On the road, he has a 27% strikeout rate, which is very strong, but it's up to 32% at home, an elite mark. Rasmussen is throwing a bit harder across the board while mixing in more secondary pitches and fewer fastballs this season, and he's doing it without sacrificing control. And the Rays are giving him more rope, too, as Wednesday was his seventh start with 90 or more pitches; he had just two such starts all of last season. It sure looks like Rasmussen has just leveled up across the board and should be viewed as a top-25 SP in all formats right now.

Michael King , Padres vs. CIN: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 3 K – The results were okay, but the process is starting to look a bit shaky for King. His strikeout rate has completely collapsed over the past four starts, as he has just 13 strikeouts in 22.1 innings in that span, and it has tanked his overall strikeout rate. Suddenly, his 3.46 ERA comes with a 4.30 FIP, as King is combining the worst strikeout rate of his career with the highest walk rate of his career, a bad combo. I'm not giving up on him or anything, especially since his struggles still represent a fairly small sample size. But it's not like we have a terribly long track record of King being both effective and healthy, and it's possible he has just taken a step back as a 31-year-old. I don't totally hate the idea of trying to sell high on King with his ERA still looking very solid.

Shota Imanaga , Cubs @COL: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – It was nice to see Imanaga bounce back, though it probably came on your bench since he was pitching in Coors Field. Coors Field is such an unusual environment for pitchers that there usually isn't much value in trying to analyze or extrapolate anything from starts there. So we'll note that he stopped his skid in the most unlikely of places and hope he carries it over into his next start.

Parker Messick , Guardians vs. NYY: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – Messick is starting to look a bit shaky. He hasn't had a quality start in nearly a month, and he has had just four strikeouts in each of his past three starts – he topped that in all but one of his first 11 starts. The explanation for Wednesday's start is fairly straightforward, as Messick just didn't have the feel for his changeup, which failed to account for a whiff and had just a 4% called-plus-swinging strike rate, an abysmal mark for what is usually his best pitch. The changeup hasn't really been an issue before this start, so I'm not going to panic about this one, but it'd be nice to see Messick remind us how good he can be the next time out to assuage any concerns you might have.

Davis Martin , White Sox vs. ATL: 6 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K – Martin's been a bit up and down lately, and given his nonexistent track record of success prior to this season, that's a concern. But he was excellent against a very tough matchup Wednesday, which was a good sign. I still don't quite understand how Martin is finding so much success this season, and his history makes me very skeptical that he'll be able to sustain it. But I don't want to just overreact to every good and subsequent bad start, so right now, I'm content to just keep Martin around No. 50 in my SP rankings and in my starting lineups while we continue to gather more information.

Jared Jones , Pirates vs. LAD: 4 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – The Pirates probably can't keep having Jones and Carmen Mlodzinski piggy-backing in every start, but I don't think we're going to see a change in the immediate future. They have to find ways to limit Jones' innings coming back from Tommy John surgery, especially on a team that does expect to have something to play for come September. What that means is that you probably can't plan on consistently starting Jones for a while, though I do want to keep him stashed on my bench for when they inevitably unleash him. His upside remains high, even if his immediate utility is pretty limited.

Robbie Ray, Giants vs. WAS: 5.2 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 3 K – I'm not giving up on Ray forever, but I certainly don't think he looks like a must-roster pitcher right now. He needs to find the feel for his breaking balls, and that didn't happen Wednesday, as his slider and curveball both generated just a single whiff. His whiff rates on both pitches are down this season, while the quality of contact allowed on both has gotten significantly worse. I think it's mostly just an execution thing – he's leaving too many sliders and curveballs in the zone – but it's an issue that has been going on since the second half of last season, when he had a 5.54 ERA and 1.45 WHIP. Given that, I think it's fine to drop Ray for someone who will be more immediately useful.

Ryne Nelson , Diamondbacks

_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/fantasy-baseball-waiver-wire-reid-detmers-surge-looks-real/)._