Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Hitter matchups to exploit and stream in Week 2, based on advanced stats

Welcome to my first weekly in-season fantasy baseball article covering advanced stats and upcoming matchups for hitters, including potential waiver wire pickups. When considering upcoming lineup decisions, we’ll want to consider hitter skills, opposing pitcher matchups and the hitting environment. One way to quantify opposing pitcher matchups involves examining several advanced stats.

When combining several advanced stats from the 2025 season, we weighted different metrics to create an adjusted score . Keep in mind that we’re still in the trial phase because we might be able to simplify to K-BB% or another advanced metric to identify tough or favorable upcoming matchups down the line. The lower the adjusted score indicates the hitting matchup should be more favorable against those team pitchers.

The five worst team pitchers were the Rockies, Nationals, Angels, White Sox and Cardinals in 2025, as seen below: Worst team pitchers from 2025. (Photo by Corbin Young/Yahoo Sports) On the flip side, the toughest opposing pitchers to face were on the Astros, Padres, Rays, Brewers and Dodgers. Most of those teams had strong advanced metrics (a medium to darker red — see chart below), besides the Phillies and their batting average on balls in play (BABIP) in 2025.

The Astros face the Red Sox (3) and Athletics (3) this week. The Padres match up against the Giants (3) and Red Sox (3). Tampa Bay continues its road tour to play three at the Brewers and three against the Twins.