Well, the first official non-waiver trade deadline has come and gone. It was certainly a fluster of moves made right up to the 4 pm EST deadline on Tuesday. Whether your real team is in the playoff race or not, hopefully, they made moves that you are content with. Personally, I think the biggest move was the move not made and that was no one trading for Bryce Harper. I will talk about this later.

Now that all these moves have been made, the second half of fantasy is sure going to be an exciting one. Obviously, you have no control over what goes on in the real majors, but you do have control over what you want to do with your fantasy team. Hopefully these guys I talk about this week can kind of be like your trade deadline editions that make you a playoff potential contender.

2018 Fantasy Baseball Week 19 Waiver Wire

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Hitters

Kole Calhoun, OF, Los Angeles Angels (48% owned in Yahoo)

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I have always liked Kole Calhoun, but he seems to have a roller coaster type of career that really pursues him inconsistent fantasy relevance. All season Calhoun seems to even get his baseball average above the Mendoza line. His numbers define him as one of the top ten players in the league to have such a decline from 2017 to 2018.

Calhoun is finally back! No more platooning done by the Los Angeles Angels, his bat is in the lineup on a reliable basis that he makes an intriguing pickup for the end of the season. Calhoun has a short stint on the DL this year and his post-DL performance is way better than it was before. He is still hitting balls harder, but finding holes to boot. Calhoun’s OPS for the month of July is a ridiculous 1.083.

Entering Thursday, Calhoun has a seven-game hitting streak going and has been in the lineup on a regular basis since July 20th. His batting average rose 50 points in the month of July to go along with adding 10 home runs and 25 RBI for the month. If he is still available in your league, I definitely see him being used as a great bench outfielder that you can platoon in your lineup.

Nick Ahmed, SS, Arizona Diamondbacks (12% owned in Yahoo)

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Yahoo ranked Nick Ahmed outside the top 500 players entering 2018; he is far from it now.

In the past two weeks, he is batting .325 with an OBP of .364. During this span, on a team that is desperate for scoring runs right now, Ahmed scored six runs, hit two home runs and has 15 RBI. The number that jumps out to me is the number of runs he is batting in. To average almost one a day in a two week period is like what a four-hole hitter on a very successful offensive team would be doing.

Some owners, like Correa owners such as myself, could use Ahmed as a nice replacement. He brings some pop that ranks him on the higher end of the home run list for shortstop (currently 14) and has a total of 53 RBI this season. He does bat towards the lower end of the Diamondbacks lineup, but makes an intriguing pickup at this point of the season.

Pitching

Tanner Roark, SP, Washington Nationals (43% owned in Yahoo)

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With the potential of landing one of the biggest trade deadline moves ever (Bryce Harper), the Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo issued a statement on Tuesday a few hours before the deadline was over. He stated, “Bryce is not going anywhere. I believe in this team.” With this being said, other players like Tanner Roark have to step up as well.

Roark has answered the call the last 14 days. During this time, he has pitched a total of 15 innings, collected two wins and two quality starts. His ERA has been 0.60, WHIP an outstanding 0.53, and he has collected 18 strikeouts. Overall it has been a rough year for Roark, but ride it while he is hot. His next scheduled start is against the Reds at home on Sunday.

I have a personal pick up story of Roark that I have to share. After his first tremendous start, I lost one of my closers via a real trade so I picked up Roark. Five minutes later I get a message from another guy in my league. This is the league talker….usually always has something to say. He says and I quote “OMG, literally just logged in to pick up Roark! You should be named the Weasel!” His team name is the Mt. Weasel. My response to him was “Sorry…not sorry.” Hahahaha.

Matthew Boyd, SP, Detroit Tigers (11% owned in Yahoo)

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It seems to me that I have been talking about the Tigers pitching staff quite a bit this year. It is probably the only thing that is successful in their organization right now. The team isn’t winning on a regular basis, but their pitching, especially Matthew Boyd, has been showing signs of greatness at times in his last three starts.

Boyd has pitched against the Red Sox, Royals, and Reds consecutively. He has gone at least five innings or more, had six or more strikeouts, and has given up two earned runs or less during these three starts in a row. These are some nice numbers off of a guy that is on most of your waiver wires. The southpaw will look to continue his dominant pitching against the Angels on Monday.

Deep Dives

These are players who are better suited to be owned in 14-plus team leagues or deeper roster leagues.

Tim Beckham, 2B/3B/SS, Baltimore Orioles (11% owned in Yahoo)

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So what do you think Tim Beckham was doing under his breath when they announced Manny Machado was traded?! You guessed it, probably cheering inside.

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Beckham has now taken over as the everyday shortstop of the Baltimore Orioles. Even though the Orioles lineup is very weak, I like Beckham’s upside in deeper leagues especially batting leadoff. He is going to get his chances because there are not too many options in Baltimore right now.

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