Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers to Stream for Week 24

Robert Stephenson, Cincinnati Reds

Starts: September 12th at St. Louis Cardinals, September 17th vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
ESPN ownership: 16 percent

Cincinnati Reds righty Robert Stephenson appears to have hit another gear over his last four starts, twirling 34 2/3 innings with a pristine 2.19 ERA and a tantalizing 28.7% strikeout rate. Stephenson seems poised to join the likes of Mike Clevinger and Luke Weaver as a surging young starter who could very well swing some fantasy leagues, though his 14.8% walk rate and 1.0 grounders-per-fly rate paint him as a somewhat more volatile asset than that pair, hence the tentative ownership trends.

Even so, Stephenson might very well have the highest upside of any potential two-start pitcher available on waivers this week, especially considering, if the starts fall as expected, he has a chance to square off against a Pirates team that's duking it out with the lowly Padres for the worst ISO since the All-Star break.

The one start we know Stephenson will make is against the Cardinals, an above-average offense in the second half by production metrics, but one that does seem greater than the sum of its parts, grading below average in terms of line drives and team ISO over that span.

Pitchers who struggle simultaneously with command and home runs will naturally carry a bottomless floor, but streamers with little to lose shouldn't find anything in these matchups to deter them from rolling the dice on a promising young arm.