Wednesday’s Wide World of Waivers: You Rang, M’Lord?

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It’s Wednesday again, and you know what that means — time for another wander through the waiver wire in search of wondrous winners to welcome onto your fantasy team. Last week’s effort by Tom resulted in a very healthy 75% success rate: two excellent outings from Latos producing two wins, Parra hitting .475 for the week, and Davis notching up another five SBs with decent additional production. Only Kevin Kouzmanoff prevented the clean sweep with a mediocre week. Let’s see if I can go one better this time.

For the benefit of any newcomers, a quick reminder that our qualification for mention below is 50% Yahoo ownership in mixed leagues and 20% Yahoo ownership in for NL/AL only leagues.

Standard Mixed Leagues

Billy Butler, 1B, KC

Butler was one of those rookies who, I’m sure you will remember, was massively hyped on his call-up, with plenty of people predicting 30/100 seasons right off the bat, so to speak. Not unusually, he has so far failed to live up to that hype, showing flashes of power here and there, but without consistency. This last week has shown what he can do when on form, and is a continuation of the form that he’s been showing for the past month, as he has been slugging well over .500 in that time. He is still only 23, so maybe he’s just starting to show the power that many have been expecting to appear for some time.

Elijah Dukes, OF, Was

Somewhat bizarrely, Elijah Dukes is currently owned in more standard Yahoo leagues than Plus leagues – highly unusual! I would expect that to change imminently, as he builds on a very solid week in the middle of an amazing run by the Nationals. Having re-established himself as a near-everyday player, he has made the most of that opportunity, at least so far. With 10 RBIs in his last three starts at time of writing, he is showcasing his talent, and making himself worthy of third-OF status in standard leagues.

NL-Only Leagues

Jason Hammel, SP, Col

The sexy NL-only pick this week is Will Venable, OF for the Padres, who has had a good week, no doubt. But I have serious doubts as to his ability to keep this up, so I’m going to go for a guy who had a much less impressive week, but did enough to warrant NL-only attention. Jason Hammel picked up two wins this week, at the Phillies and at home to the Cubs. He had some help from his offense, and didn’t go particularly deep in either game, but only gave up three ERs each time. His splits this year are extreme, posting a 7.02 ERA at home and a 2.81 ERA away from Coors. With three of his next four starts away (at the Marlins, Nationals and Giants), he is definitely worth owning in NL-only leagues right now. But don’t start him at home against the Dodgers; that would be very risky!

AL-Only Leagues

Trevor Crowe, OF, Cle

It’s slim pickin’s in the AL this week, so I’ve plumped for another highly touted prospect, Trevor Crowe of the Indians. Many people were surprised when he got the call-up from Triple-A ahead of Matt LaPorta, so he’s had to battle to prove he is worth his place on the roster. To date, I think he has done so. Expected to be the fourth OF on call-up, he has actually started every game, hitting for average and contributing decently in Rs, RBIs and SBs. Available in pretty much every league, he definitely warrants a look in the deeper formats.

And so we reach the end of the next WWWW. As usual, it will be Tom’s turn next week to pick four more wonders of the wire to assist you in your title quest, so until then, keep watching those waivers!

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