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Let's talk about Bowden Francis, who might be turning into one of the ultimate examples of "There's no such thing as a pitching prospect' in recent years. Typically, that saying is used to explain the folly of betting on young pitchers – there's just so much that can go wrong along the way for a young pitcher that you're typically better off betting against any given pitching prospect actually hitting.

But it works both ways. 

And the best example I can think of in the 13 years I've been writing about Fantasy baseball – and please note, I'm about to make a comparison that is not to be taken literally – is probably Jacob deGrom. He came up as a 26-year-old who was never ranked as a preseason top-100 prospect, and when he made his debut back in 2014, it came alongside a much more heralded pitching prospect, Rafael Montero. Montero eventually had to settle for a bullpen role, while deGrom, rather famously, became one of the best pitchers of his generation.

Francis, to be clear yet again (I hate to be misunderstood), is not Jacob deGrom. But he's on a heck of a run right now. After shutting the Red Sox down over seven innings of work with just one hit allowed, he has now allowed just six hits with two earned runs over his past four outings, with 32 strikeouts in 29 innings. To put some context on that, Francis is just the fifth pitcher over the past 35 years to have four consecutive starts with a Game Score of at least 78, joining Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Johan Santana, and Clayton Kershaw. 

Any stretch like this is, to some extent, a fluke. Francis isn't going to end up alongside Johnson and Martinez (and eventually, Kershaw) in the Hall of Fame, and he's probably not going to match Santana's two Cy Youngs. But Francis is also seemingly a much-improved pitcher thanks to the addition of a splitter to his arsenal this season, a pitch he has thrown at least 26% of the time in three straight starts now. It isn't a great swing-and-miss pitch, but it has generated a ton of mostly harmless contact, which is a big deal for a guy who usually ran pretty solid strikeout and walk rates in the minors but tended to get killed by the long ball. 

Armed with a splitter sporting an average launch angle of -2 degrees, maybe Francis has found a way to fix his biggest flaw, and in doing so, has gone from looking like organizational filler to maybe something more. It's just four starts, but the way Francis is rolling right now, I do think we have to view him as a must-add player in Fantasy leagues where he's still available – about 28% of them in CBS leagues at this point.

He's not Jacob deGrom, but the Blue Jays may have found a diamond in the rough of their own. 

Friday's waiver targets

Lawrence Butler, OF, Diamondbacks (61%) – It's funny, the other day on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast, I made an innocuous, at-the-time, true point about Butler: Outside of his ridiculous July, he had just three homers on the season. And just like that, that number has climbed to nine, as he has homered six times in his past six games, including three times Thursday. There has clearly always been talent here, even going back to his minor-league days, and Butler's underlying quality-of-contact skills really back that up now that he's in the majors: He has a 72nd percentile barrel rate and is in the 84th percentile in both average exit velocity and expected slugging percentage. Consistency has been an issue for Butler, as has his struggles against lefties, but there's no denying, that when he gets hot, he tends to get scorching hot. And he's scorching hot right now. 

J.J. Bleday, OF, Athletics (54%) – And Butler's teammate didn't want to get left out of the action. How's this for a fun stat: The A's became the first team in MLB history Thursday to have a player go off for three homers and a player have five hits in the same game and still lose. Bleday's 5-for-5 showing came with two doubles and a homer of his own, and now pushes him to a .295/.380/.557 mark for the month of August. He has had his own platoon concerns, but Bleday has actually been awesome against lefties this season, sporting an .836 OPS with six of his 19 homers against them, so playing time shouldn't be any kind of issue moving forward. I don't believe either Bleday or Butler are superstars, but both look like solid starting options these days. 

Ryne Nelson, SP, Diamondbacks (60%) – If the Diamondbacks had their way, Nelson would be in the bullpen. But Jordan Montgomery wouldn't cooperate, and Nelson gets to continue his second-half breakout. This was his fourth quality start in a row, fifth in his past six starts, and seventh in his past 10; the latter stretch coincides with when Nelson began throwing his four-seamer around 60% of the time and focused on keeping it up in the zone, a change that has led to more strikeouts (63 in 63.1 innings) and significantly better overall results, including a 2.84 ERA, backed up by a 2.70 FIP. This kind of approach has tended to have diminishing returns for a lot of pitchers, and I'm not sure Nelson's fastball is actually good enough to make him one of the exceptions in the long run. But for now, he looks plenty useful for Fantasy purposes. 

Connor Norby, 2B, Marlins (37%) – It's hard for Norby's first run with the Marlins to have gone much better than it has so far. He's already forced his way into the leadoff spot for Miami and is now hitting .350/.422/.650 with two homers and two steals in 10 games with the Marlins after he went 2 for 4 with three runs Thursday. Sure, it helps that he got to play four of his first 10 games at Coors Field, but Norby has hit safely in all 10 games since joining Miami, and both of his homers came away from Coors, so I don't know if that explains it. He wasn't a huge prospect, but Norby consistently produced in the minors, and now he's doing it in Miami. You've got a spot for him as a MI or CI, and even in H2H points leagues, he might be worth using the rest of the way. 

Caden Dana, SP, Angels (1%) – The Angels are calling up Dana, arguably their top pitching prospect, and I'm going to be honest … I don't really get it. Yes, Dana is having a breakout season, sporting a 2.52 ERA as a 20-year-old in Double-A, and looks like he might have made the leap to becoming the kind of pitcher we might need to get excited about. But right now? Dana has already thrown 135.2 innings this season, 67.1 more than he threw last season (he threw just 8.1 the prior season). Are they really going to have their suddenly prized, 20-year-old top pitching prospect pitch deep into September when he's never done it before? I'm pretty skeptical, and could see this being just a "Atta boy" kind of move after Dana's great season. But, if they do give him a chance, there certainly seems to be enough upside here to make Dana worth a look in deeper leagues. Dana will make his debut Sunday against the Mariners, a pretty soft landing.