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We’re officially more than two months into the 2023 fantasy baseball season, and injuries and surprise disappointments have turned plenty of top draft picks into drags on your fantasy baseball roster. Everyone loves swinging a big trade to plug holes, but sometimes you just need a player who will give you a solid week of production — which is where our weekly pitcher streaming recommendations come in. Here are three guys we recommend targeting on the waiver wire this week.
Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Week 13
Pitchers to stream
Reese Olson, SP, Detroit Tigers — Olson struggled last time out, but in his defense, the Atlanta Braves are doing that to just about everyone of late. The Tigers rookie had looked very good over his first two starts in the Majors, with three runs allowed over 10 innings, and his slider — .143 batting average against, 28.9% whiff rate — looks like a legit out pitch. The schedule is a lot kinder to Olson this week, as he gets home starts against the Vinnie Pasquantino-less Kansas City Royals (fifth-lowest wRC+ in baseball since the start of June) and the Milwaukee Brewers (fourth-lowest wRC+ in baseball agains righties).
Yusei Kikuchi, SP, Toronto Blue Jays — Kikuchi has shown that he’s got a very low floor against baseball’s better offenses (five+ runs allowed to the Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox) but can be a perfectly serviceable arm in the right matchup (two or fewer runs allowed against literally everyone else), and luckily this week he gets the latter. The Jays lefty will get two starts, one against the Miami Marlins pedestrian lineup and the other against the Oakland A’s — who have been easily baseball’s worst offense against left-handed pitching since the calendar flipped to June.
Aaron Civale, SP, Cleveland Guardians — Civale had a rough go of it last time out in San Diego, but the Padres’ star-studded lineup has been chewing up just about every pitcher of late. The righty is still showing increased velocity since he came back from the IL earlier this month, and the schedule this week is very friendly: home dates with the A’s and Brewers, both of whose struggles we’ve already covered. The righty is in the top 25 percent of the league in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate, and he should turn in at least five or six solid innings with a great chance at one or more wins.