The second half of the season is firmly underway, and our margin for error shrinks with each passing week. Ratios and totals are what they are at this point. There’s no turning back the clock. Instead, our focus must shift to salvaging categories, shoring up any weak spots, and trying to claw up the standings, one spot at a time. No secret sauce or magic beans — the managers best equipped to remain laser-focused and ignore fantasy football prep separate in August. So let’s get into my favorite adds, top stashes and next week’s two-start pitchers.Please prioritize positional lists over the featured player write-ups. I’m trying to avoid covering the same players more than once, and I don’t want any extra focus to be misconstrued as personal preference. Away we go!Top waiver-wire hitter optionsCatcher: Joe Mack, MIALike clockwork, another week of MLB means yet another viable catcher entering the fantasy fray. Give it up for Mack, a 23-year-old power-hitting backstop drafted right out of high school. Mack blipped on my preseason draft-and-hold radar, but I must admit being wrong. He’s far exceeded my expectations — I didn’t expect his initial impact until 2027. I honestly thought he’d be blocked all season by Agustín Ramírez, one of my biggest whiffs this season. I guess that’s why pencils have erasers. The most important thing is to stay vigilant and correct course, rather than chase failing assets.Known for a power-first approach at the dish, my personal concern for Mack’s track record of elevated strikeout rates didn’t deter the Marlins from promoting him aggressively. In the future, I’ll make sure to dig a little further into minor-league disciplinary stats — his low MiLB chase rate’s never been commensurate with the resulting strikeouts. Anyway, Mack usurped the starting catcher role upon arrival in Miami, maintaining the same 26 HR per 600 PA pace achieved over his last two seasons of MiLB ball. I love these in-season adjustments he’s made without reaching outside the zone, which are giving me faith in a strong rest-of-season run.First base: Tim Tawa, AZI just spent entirely too much time with my Claudebot trying to figure out how to spell Tim Allen's famous grunt from "Home Improvement." Best we could do was "Auuugh, auuugh." No guarantees, but hopefully that earned a chuckle introducing Arizona's Tim "The Toolman" Tawa. The Diamondbacks' 27-year-old 1B/OF earned another shot at playing time in the bigs with the demotion of Pavin Smith — which I believe is now fairly cemented after Lourdes Gurriel's recent trip to the IL. Tawa's been nothing short of excellent during this recent stint (.286 BA/ 5 R/ 10 RBI/ 3 HR/ 2 SB), posting five-category contributions for an Arizona lineup playing its best offense of the season.Across two MiLB levels in 2024, Tawa connected for 31 long balls to go with 14 steals — a mini-breakout in his magical age-27 season shouldn't shock us, especially given the strong underpinning metrics during this current run — 45.2% Hard-Hit, 12.9% Barrel, 16.1% Air-Pull, .419 xwOBAcon.Second base: Vaughn Grissom, LAAI'm proud to say I possessed the foresight to roster Grissom as a late-round pick on every draft-and-hold team this year (Yay!). However, I'm also not sure he's been in my active lineup for a single one of his productive weeks (Boo!). Grissom followed up a 10-day starting streak with an IL stint in early June that found him once more on the outside looking in. Then, after sitting more games than not for two weeks, Los Angeles DFA'd part-time utility man Donovan Walton, and Grissom's started 90% of games for the Angels since. He also happens to be playing out of his mind right now, drastically cutting strikeouts as an every-day fixture in the Angles' lineup. No, I obviously don't think the .371 BA will stick throughout the summer, though it's certainly worth noting his production during this run has been far a from a fluke (.364 xBA, 46.7% Hard-Hit, 10.0% Barrel, 16.7% Air-Pull, .462 xwOBAcon).Shortstop: Jim Jarvis, ATLMarvel fans may already know adding the Braves' shortstop is Just A Rather Very Intelligent System for waiver-wire acquisition. For the rest of us that the nerdy reference evaded, Jarvis recently won Atlanta's starting SS job, and manager Walt Weiss won't stop raving about the 25-year-old speedster. Jarvis stole 32 bases in just 76 games this season in Triple A, so don't fret that current goose egg in the MLB SB column; it's coming. If anything, we're benefitting from the lack of steals, or he'd be rostered in more than 1% of leagues. Crazy, right? I know.