Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Chase Burns shows signs of future ace material, and more

For every player, there's a relatively wide range of possible outcomes that could come to fruition at any given time. The margins will be different for every player based on their talent level, of course, but even proven great players will have bad games – Tarik Skubal just gave up four runs on Tuesday, after all. 

But that's especially true for players making their MLB debut. No matter how hyped the prospect is, we don't truly know what their actual talent level is until they've been tested against big-leaguers. Some guys are ready to be difference makers right away and will show it from day one, and some guys are totally overmatched, and that can be clear just as quickly.

So it's kind of funny that Chase Burns' debut saw him land right in the middle of what we should have expected from him. He struck out the side in his first inning and racked up eight strikeouts overall, showcasing the wicked stuff that made him the No. 2 overall pick in last year's draft and the top pitching prospect in baseball this season. And he gave up some loud contact to a very good lineup and finished with three earned runs allowed over his five innings of work. Yep, that all sounds about right.

But the positives clearly outweighed the negatives here, even if Burns wasn't immediately and totally dominant. He sat at 98.1 mph with his four-seamer, which generated a solid six whiffs on 23 swings, and that probably wasn't just an adrenaline rush like we see in some debuts, because he averaged 97.8 in Triple-A. And his 70-grade slider looked like one, generating six whiffs on 15 swings and a 60% chase rate. 

It wasn't perfect, obviously. Burns gave up seven hard-hit balls – four over 100 mph, including a 108 mph shot to Ben Rice that went 427 feet. Even 70-grade sliders are going to get crushed by major-league hitters if you leave them belt-high on the inside half of the plate, as it turns out. Lesson learned, and Burns probably won't sit in the zone quite as often as this moving forward, though he does have the stuff to make it work. 

All told, Burns looked every bit like a potential future ace, if not necessarily one you can trust every single time out there right now. The talent is obvious, and I don't think it'll take long until he is someone you can trust every time out there. He should be rostered in absolutely every Fantasy league, and his best-case scenario probably looks a lot like his teammate Hunter Greene thanks to his high-velo heater and slider – and Burns might have an even deeper arsenal than Greene, as he threw 10 changeups and even flashed a curveball in this one. 

We saw a pretty middle-of-the-road outcome from Burns in his first start, but I'm willing to bet we're going to see much better from him moving forward.

Here's what else you need to know about from Tuesday's action around MLB: 

Wednesday's top waiver-wire targets

Christian Moore, 2B, Angels (28%) – It's been a tough first couple of weeks in the majors for Moore, but he finally showed some upside Tuesday, hitting a couple of clutch homers to lift the Angels over the Red Sox. He still struck out twice and is up to a 35% strikeout rate, so Moore has mostly looked overmatched so far. But he's also a top prospect with no playing time issues and clear skills, so if you've got a roster spot to play with, Moore is an interesting stash just in case this is the start of him figuring things out. 

Michael Toglia, 1B, Rockies (30%) – Never wrong; just early. Toglia was a big breakout pick of mine coming into the season, and I guess all it took was a demotion to Triple-A to make it look like a prescient call. I'm being mildly facetious here, but Toglia is now hitting .303/.343/.667 with six extra-base hits in eight games since returning from Triple-A after a 3-for-5 showing Tuesday against the Dodgers. The strikeout rate is still high and likely always will be, but at least Toglia is punishing the ball now like he did last season, when he put up a 30-plus homer pace from June 1 on. If you can stomach the batting average, Toglia is going to be a pretty useful contributor moving forward, I'd bet. 

Caleb Durbin, 3B, Brewers (19%) – Durbin had just four extra-base hits in his first 96 trips to the plate, and it looked like he was confirming concerns that he just didn't have enough bat speed or pop to hit major-league pitching. Well, he hit his fourth homer of the season Tuesday, and his third in 31 games since that earlier stretch. He is hitting .287 with an OPS close to .800 and five steals in that span, while increasing his average swing speed, as BrewerFanatic.com's Matthew Trueblood noted earlier in the day. Durbin's spot in the lineup is holding him back a bit, but he's showing the kind of skills that got some excited about him this offseason. A name to look for in categories leagues. 

Ryne Nelson, SP, Diamondbacks (30%) – Nelson continues to pitch well, as he limited the White Sox to just one run over five innings Tuesday, which lowers his ERA to 2.62 since he joined the rotation on May 20. Tuesday's seven strikeouts were an outlier, as he has just 24 in 34.1 innings in that span, and his fastball-heavy approach makes chasing fastballs tough – he found them today by generating all nine of his whiffs with that fastball. I don't have a lot of faith in Nelson keeping this up, but Nelson did have a 3.23 ERA with 67 strikeouts and a 1.03 ERA in his final 64 innings after the All-Star break last season, so I can't write it off entirely. Especially with what looks like a two-start week coming next week.