Top fantasy baseball starting pitcher waiver pickups for Week 12

As we get deeper and deeper into the 2023 MLB season, “it’s still early!” is becoming a less and less convincing crutch for fantasy managers wondering whether to stick with a draft pick or start scouring the waiver wire. This is especially true for starting pitchers, where injuries have laid waste to seemingly scores of top arms — most recently Chris Sale. That’s why we’re here to help, with four targets likely available in your league showing signs that they’re in for a big year.

Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Week 12 starting pitcher targets

Andrew Abbott, SP, Cincinnati Reds

Roster percentage: 16.5%

If Abbott happens to still be available in your league, be sure to rectify that immediately. Eye-popping numbers in the Minors this year (3.05 ERA across seven outings, with a 12.7 K/9 and just 14 walks over 38.1 innings) got MLB Pipeline’s No. 95 overall prospect to the Majors with a quickness, and the lefty has looked the part in his first two starts against the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals.

Abbott won’t light up any radar guns, sitting around 92-94 mph with his fastball, but he’s commanded the pitch very well for almost a full year now — and when your breakers are as good as his are, you don’t need your heater to do too much. The lefty boasts both a curveball and a sweeping, frisbee slider, both of which have missed bats and induced weak contact at every level, while his changeup (with a 38.1% whiff rate) profiles as at least an average offering that he can use to combat righties.

Kutter Crawford, SP/RP, Boston Red Sox

Roster percentage: 0.8%

The Boston Red Sox have decided to stick with Crawford in Chris Sale’s recently vacated rotation spot, at least for the time being, and the righty may well take it and run. He hasn’t been fully stretched out yet, but that should come in time, and he’s put up a 3.68 ERA with a strikeout per inning so far this season. He’s got elite command of his mid-90s fastball, consistently spotting it up in the zone, while his splitter and curve help him neutralize lefties. It’s a strong arsenal, and it’s helped him post an average exit velocity in the 92nd percentile.

Randy Vasquez, SP, New York Yankees

Roster percentage: 1.3%

Vasquez burst onto the prospect scene with eye-popping numbers across three levels back in 2021, and while his performance hasn’t been quite the same since, a rash of injuries in New York’s rotation has given Vasquez an opportunity to break into the big leagues — and he appears set to take full advantage. The righty fired 5.2 innings of two-hit ball against the Chicago White Sox this week, spotting both his four-seamer and sinker well to set up his trademark hellish slider:

With Carlos Rodon and now Nestor Cortes on the IL — not to mention Luis Severino’s diminished velocity and constant injury risk — the Yankees figure to need Vasquez quite a bit in the near future.

Reese Olson, SP, Detroit Tigers

Roster percentage: 1.1%

Detroit’s young righty debuted last week and acquitted himself quite well, delivering five innings of two-hit, two-run ball with six strikeouts at the Chicago White Sox. He followed that up with five more scoreless frames against the Philadelphia Phillies, and through his first two games his slider looks like a legit Major League out pitch: He’s throwing it 33% of the time, and it’s carrying a .063 batting average and 33.3% whiff rate.

His sinker and four-seamer seem to be average at best, but you don’t need an overwhelming fastball if you have an elite slider like he does, so any kind of small improvements there should be enough to warrant him being owned in plenty of fantasy leagues.