Waiver Wire Help Coming Out Of The All Star Break: Three Middle Infielders Quietly Putting Up Helpful Numbers

We are at the mythical halfway point of the season (despite having only 65-70 games remaining). We know who is performing and who isn’t (see my top 30 list from last week to get an update on middle infielders’ play so far). 

We’ve also reached the height of injury season. And while middle infield seems to have been hit less hard than other positions when it comes to current IL stays, if you’re rostering someone like Jeremy Pena, Brandon Lowe, or Ezequiel Tovar, you’re likely in need of some middle infield waiver wire help.

By this point in the season, the waiver wire has been foraged repeatedly, so to find help, we’ll need to look deep. Below are three deeper league options that may be able to help, even where you have needs in shallower leagues.

I am using NFBC for position eligibility, so it’s possible that other players may be eligible at 2B or SS on other sites. All stats are as of the end of the day on Sunday, 7/13/25.

Ernie Clement, 1B/2B/3B/SS, TOR

No one would fault you if you haven’t been paying attention to what Ernie Clement has been doing recently – or ever, for that matter. Clement isn’t exactly known to be an impact player, but he seems to have found a semi-permanent home in the Blue Jays lineup. 

What he offers:

While he mostly fills a spot somewhere between the 6-hole and 9-hole in the batting order, he has also hit in the 1, 2, and 3 spots on occasion. Most importantly, though, he’s playing – a lot.

And while he plays, he is providing two undervalued stats that are essential in roto leagues – and can certainly be helpful in points leagues. Pop quiz: Of the 5 main offensive stats (AVG, R, RBI, HR, SB), do you know the single stat that most correlates to winning teams in both the MLB and in fantasy leagues?

Runs.

We just don’t think enough about them, but there is plenty of research to support that the more Rs a team scores, the better their chance of having more wins. It’s almost too simple, right? But how often are we looking for HRs or SBs and not really intentionally concerned about Rs?

Ernie Clement is scoring Rs. In May, he scored 15. In June, he scored 20. In just 342 PAs, he has 44 Rs, which is a pace (80+ for the season) that absolutely provides value in any league. Clement has also found ways to hit for AVG. I have questions about how legit his .288 AVG is, considering his xBA is only .265 and his HH numbers are, well, bad (25.5% HH%, 1.7% Barrel%, 86.8 mph EV). But as long as he’s getting everyday PAs and this Toronto lineup (which is, all of a sudden, a monster of a lineup) continues to produce, I’m willing to see what he can do.

What he doesn’t offer:

Much of anything else. He can provide a few SBs here and there, and every once in a blue moon, he’ll somehow get a ball over the fence.

Long story short:

In deeper leagues, a player who is helping in AVG (assuming he is able to keep that up, which, again, is kind of doubtful) and runs is a player who can sneakily help you put yourself in position to bolster other stats. A lot of today’s HR hitters are HR first, everything else second – if at all, meaning they may not actually provide any help to anything but HRs (and maybe RBIs?). Many SB specialists are not even good hitters. So, having an Ernie Clement in your lineup to help take care of those foundational stats while you find other one-dimensional players to help in HRs and SBs can be a winning formula.

Colt Keith, 1B/2B, DET

Colt Keith entered the season with only moderate expectations from most fantasy players, but some in the “industry” were certainly giving him some helium. The Razzball preseason projections were somewhat middle of the road relative to other projection systems (.256 AVG, 15 HR, 55 R & RBI, and 5 SB), but there were a number of prominent analysts and podcasters who sang Keith’s praises. The news coming out of Tigers’ camp that Keith would be playing 1B this year certainly gave some reason to hope the mini-hype some were giving him was with good reason.

Things certainly didn’t look great after the first month, though – at the end of April, Keith was hitting a robust .181 with 1 HR, 10 R, 5 RBI, and 0 SB. Yikes. In May and June, things certainly – but somewhat quietly – began to change for the better, so let’s take a look at what he offers.

What he offers:

At this moment, Keith finds himself with a surface stat line of a .264 AVG, 8 HR, 43 R, 30 RBI, and 0 SB. Of those numbers, the mass has come over the last 60 games. In July alone, Keith is hitting .359 with 2 HR, 8 R, 5 RBI, and 0 SB. He has basically tied or even bested his March/April stats in just 11 games. Nice.

If we look under the hood, there is actually some exciting information we’ll find. His HH% is at 45.8%, up nearly 11% from 2024. He has nearly doubled his 2024 Barrel% (currently 10.4%) and improved his EV by 2.1 mph. He is attacking the ball, resulting in an xwOBA of .370, 59 points higher than his xwOBA of 2024 and 69 points higher than his actual wOBA of that year. Check out his Statcast page, and enjoy all of the red you see – there’s something here.

With the harder hitting, we might expect more Ks, but Keith’s K-rate is a completely acceptable 20.3% (up only .5% from last season) while his BB% is nearly doubled. Alongside his improvements, his BABIP isn’t bloated (just 5 points higher than last year’s) as we often find with hitters who are on good streaks – his xBA is .266, right in line with his .264 AVG. His Contact% is right around 80% and Z-Contact% is nearly 90%, both slightly better than last year. These improvements across the board make his gains look legit. It’s also worth mentioning that he regularly bats in the 1-hole for a Detroit lineup that has the best record in the majors. Not too shabby.

So, it looks like he offers some sneaky power and a reasonably good shot at Rs and RBIs, especially Rs.

What he doesn’t offer:

Although Keith does have decent speed (28 ft/s), he doesn’t seem interested in using it. He has not attempted a single SB this year – it seems that even 5 SB may have been too high of a projection. Oops.

Long story short:

I like him as a MI, but I don’t love him as a 1B or CI. At MI in a 15+ team league, I’ll happily take 15 HR, 75 R, and 60 RBI. I think those numbers are fully in play for Keith. And if you’re desperate in a more shallow league, I think he can provide enough to keep you afloat until your starters are healthy.

Lenyn Sosa, 1B/2B/3B, CWS

Paying attention to the Chicago White Sox may not normally be a profitable way to play fantasy, but there actually are some helpful stats to be found in that lineup. If you are paying enough attention to that team to know that Lenyn Sosa is playing nearly every day, hits in the middle three of the lineup more often than not, and has collected a stat line of a .267 AVG, 9 HR, 27 R, 31 RBI, and 2 SB in 298 PAs, I’m impressed in your ability to watch a car wreck in slow motion.

But is Sosa someone who might help us for the rest of the season? A close look at his underlying stats says, “Yes” – though watch out for the guaranteed streakiness.

What he offers:

Sosa offers surprising HH skills: 42.7% HH-rate, 90.7 EV, 111.2 maxEV, and 8.7% Barrel%. While carrying numbers that show he can hit the ball with authority, his K% is a completely reasonable 23.8%, his Contact% is nearly 80%, and his Z-Contact% is 88.5%. There is some hitting ability here, and the fact that he hits the ball with a LA of 19.3° suggests that he understands how to get the ball out of the park. His LA Sweet-Spot% is in the 90th percentile – his swing is actually kind of built to get some loft and potential HRs.

What he doesn’t offer:

Don’t let his reasonable K-rate trick you into thinking he has strong plate discipline. He swings outside the strike zone a massive 45.5% of the time. Whoa. His CSW% reflects those poor swing decisions: 30.7%. Not great. He seems to be good at making contact despite his free-swinging nature, but we know what to expect: slumps. Plate discipline like that will run into serious dry spells that will drive fantasy managers crazy, especially if you try to roster him in a weekly H2H league.

In terms of speed, steals are mostly an afterthought for him. He’s slow (26.7 ft/s), and he only attempts to steal at a 0.6% rate. He might get you a steal or two, but that is certainly not his goal.

Long story short:

The White Sox are really, really bad, so it stands to reason that they will play their young players (Sosa, at age 25, still qualifies). At a salary of only $770,000, Sosa is probably even more enticing to play because his arbitration years are unlikely to really hurt the payroll of a consistently miserly franchise. That means playing time, which is a start for any player we’re considering in fantasy. If he can work some hot streaks in with his virtually unavoidable slumps, he can be helpful in a deep Roto league, maybe even a points league, since his K-rate isn’t terrible. I certainly would be more hesitant to put him in a H2H league, though. And like the other two I’ve written about in this article, he can be a stopgap in a more shallow league where you’ve lost your starter – but he would definitely be my last option of the three.

That’s it for this week. Next week, I’ll be writing about a few players that a number of my readers think I’ve overlooked. I hear you – so I will be taking a closer look at some guys I haven’t talked about much so far this season. Until then. – ADHamley