Top fantasy baseball starting pitcher waiver pickups for Week 13

As we get deeper and deeper into the 2023 MLB season, it’s time for the rubber to hit the road — for fantasy baseball teams to decide whether they’re in or out this year, and what they might need for the long summer ahead. This is especially true for starting pitching, where a combination of rampant injuries and new rule changes designed to goose offense have just about every owner looking under every available rock for quality innings. That’s why we’re here to help, with four targets likely available in your league showing signs that they’re in for a strong finish.

Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Week 13 starting pitcher targets

Grayson Rodriguez, SP, Baltimore Orioles

Roster percentage: 8.6

Already we’ve seen several instances of top prospects struggling in their first taste of the Majors, being immediately written off and then bouncing back in a big way in year two. Here’s your warning not to let that happen with Rodriguez.

Yes, things didn’t go well for the former first-round pick over his first 10 MLB starts, with a ghastly 7.35 ERA and 1.734 WHIP. But he was the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball for a reason, and he seems to have gotten back to his old self down at Triple-A:

He piled up 11 Ks over six innings of two-run ball on Thursday night, making it consecutive outings with double-digit strikeouts, and his stuff is starting to look more like it did prior to the shoulder injury he suffered last season. He’s found his power fastball again, and that aggression will serve him well when he inevitably gets called back up to the Majors. There may not be a clear path to a rotation spot in Baltimore right now, but it’s only a matter of time before Cole Irvin or Dean Kremer implode, and this O’s team needs Rodriguez’s upside if it wants to make a real run this season.

Garrett Whitlock, SP/RP, Boston Red Sox

Roster percentage: 12.3

Whitlock’s start to 2023 got scuttled by injuries to both his hip and his elbow, but the righty is now finally healthy and getting into a rhythm. He’s put up a stellar 3.13 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 22/4 K/BB ratio across 23 innings in four starts since returning from the IL back on May 27, silencing the Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays over that stretch. His fastball velocity is climbing back up to where it was last year, when he compiled a 3.45 ERA split between the bullpen and rotation. He should continue to post very solid ratios while offering about a strikeout per inning, which these days is a very valuable profile.

Tarik Skubal, SP, Detroit Tigers

Roster percentage: 5.2

Here’s a sight for sore eyes:

Skubal is still a couple of weeks or so away from making his 2023 debut after undergoing elbow surgery last August, but the lefty has looked like he never left in two stellar starts in the Minors. The former top prospect was on his way to a breakout season before he got hurt, with a 3.52 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 117 strikeouts in 117.2 innings, and Comerica Park is one of the best places a pitcher can call home. If you have an IL spot available, go ahead and use it.

Emmet Sheehan, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers

Roster percentage: 1.4

Another week, another top Dodgers pitching prospect called up, as L.A. makes use of its deep farm system to try and manage several injuries to its starting rotation. We’ve already seen Bobby Miller show up and look like a star in the making, and now it’s Sheehan’s turn, as the righty will fill the slot still left open as Julio Urias rehabs his hamstring strain.

A sixth-round pick after an underwhelming career at Boston College, Sheehan had busted out at Double-A this season, with a 1.86 ERA and downright silly 88 strikeouts in 53.1 innings. What he lacks in a premium out pitch, he makes up with in sheer quantity, with a change, slider and curve that are all usable offerings alongside a fastball that sits 95 consistently. It remains to be seen whether he has the command to get it done at the highest level without that kind of eye-popping stuff, but the results so far speak for themselves.