Brandon Crawford

The theme for this week's waiver wire report is "not sexy." If you're looking for a pole and some Def Leppard music, move along. There will be no pouring of sugar this week. Splenda maybe, but not sugar.Unfortunately, not every week has stud prospects and hot waiver wire adds. There are only so many Walker Buehlers and Mike Sorokas to go around. It would be nice if those type of players were available every week, but that would be unrealistic and turn us into spoiled brats. Even without the high profile names, this…

It can often be difficult to place into context how well (or how poorly) certain players have performed recently. A glance at ESPN’s Player Rater, which attempts to quantify a player’s overall fantasy value by analyzing their performance in each facet of the game, can focus targets for fantasy owners looking for help on the waiver wire. Of course, when dealing with small sample sizes, a player’s results can be fluky, but placement at or near the top of these lists could be indicative of a substantive change to a player’s…