Fantasy baseball waiver wire: Ride hot hand to championship

Forget long-term projections, draft-day pedigree or warm fuzzy feelings about your star players.When you reach the final stretch of the fantasy baseball season, the rulebook changes entirely. MLB managers don’t hesitate to ride the hot hand late in September, and as a fantasy manager pushing for a championship, you shouldn’t either.

The finish line is in sight.At this stage, brand names mean nothing.

Only raw, immediate stats matter.Ride the wave until it breaks. Look no further than Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes.

Entering the weekend, Lukes is riding a scorching 13-game hit streak, making it the longest active hitting streak in MLB.Over this stretch, he is batting .360 with seven runs and five RBIs.

Sure, those counting stats aren’t mind-bogglingly high, but when you are grinding out the final days of a tight matchup, every fraction of a point in batting average counts.Plucking a red-hot bat like Lukes off the waiver wire could be the exact margin of victory you need to swing a tight category. The same opportunistic logic applies to speed.

San Francisco’s offense, as a whole, has struggled mightily this season, but you aren’t roster-building for the entire Giants lineup, are you? You’re looking for individual sparks.Outfielder Jonah Cox has been providing exactly that, piecing together a seven-game hit streak during which he is slashing .345 with a .387 on-base percentage and four stolen bases.

Stolen bases are notoriously the most movable category in fantasy baseball during the season’s final week.Adding just one or two steals can flip a category matchup instantly, and taking advantage of a speedster who is actively getting on base is a textbook winning tactic. If you are hurting for offense behind the plate, turn your attention to Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno.

Catcher is notoriously a wasteland late in the year, but Moreno has caught fire, riding a six-game hit streak of his own.Over that brief span, he is crushing the ball to...