Fantasy baseball takeaways: Messick breakout, waiver targets, pitching trends - CBS Sports

# Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Parker Messick emerging as must-add arm after dominant stretch

## Finding emerging arms worth targeting as upside becomes key early-season strategy

Apr 17, 2026 at 10:07 am ET • 7 min read

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As much as anything else at this time of the season, you want to try to avoid falling victim to confirmation bias. If I'm going to preach caution on hot starts from players I was skeptical about, like James Wood and Oneil Cruz, I probably shouldn't turn around and declare every player I liked a superstar based on three good weeks.

So, I'm not here to declare Parker Messick is going to win the American League Cy Young. He'll probably only finish, like, sixth, or something.

In all seriousness, it's pretty clear Messick was just being overlooked when he finished the spring with a 310.0 ADP in NFBC drafts. That was clear even before he flirted with a no-hitter Thursday against the Orioles- heck, it was clear when his ADP only rose to 277.3 in the final week or so of drafts after it was clear he was going to be in the rotation when the Guardians sent Logan Allen down to Triple-A.

Why was he so overlooked? Part of it was a lack of prospect pedigree – Messick didn't enter 2025 as a top-100 prospect on any of the big lists. And part of it is because he just doesn't have The Look – he's not short, exactly, but he's stocky, and he doesn't check a lot of the stuff boxes. His fastball is right around 93 mph, and he doesn't have the huge spin rates or wipeout movement that generates highlight videos.

But Messick is just, for lack of a better word, a pitcher. His velocity plays up because he com