Michael Saunders Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

R.A. Dickey continues to be an extremely hittable pitcher at this stage of his career, coming off of two straight outings allowing at least five earned runs, but he seems to do just enough, consistently enough, to limit damage that the Atlanta Braves are able to keep utilizing him as an innings eater for their young and eventually up and coming squad. This year, Dickey has seen a drastic drop in his already low strikeout rate, down to 10.7% to go along with an 11.4% walk rate. As usual with his knuckleball, Dickey has managed to induce groundballs at a respectable clip (50.9%) and limit hard contact to just 28.6% of the time. With the aforementioned low strikeouts and high walks, it's difficult to imagine Dickey's 5.10 ERA improving with a 5.81 SIERA, and he has allowed a minimum of three runs in each of his last seven starts. When attacking Dickey with opposing batters, a problem arises with a bit of guesswork in figuring out which individual batters to utilize against him, as the nature of a knuckleball makes at bat outcomes relatively unpredictable. This makes the Philadelphia Phillies more of a stack or fade situation in tournaments tonight since there should be plenty of baserunners with a high probability of home runs but difficult to predict where said production will come from. Aaron Altherr (152 wRC+, .404 wOBA, .220 ISO vs RHP), Tommy Joseph (.213 ISO vs RHP since 2016), and scorching-hot Odubel Herrera (382 wRC+, .754 wOBA, .750 ISO vs RHP) are the top hitters we would want to target in tournament stack, while Cesar Hernandez (111 wRC+, .341 vs RHP) and Michael Saunders, who has two home runs in seven at-bats against Dickey, are logical members to round out a Phillies stack as well.

The Phillies are facing Edinson Volquez. Over his last three starts, his walk rate has dropped to a manageable 9.2%, but his strikeout rate has fallen off a cliff too (14.5% with a 7.7 SwStr%). LHBs (.358 wOBA, 36 Hard%) have been more successful than RHBs against him since last season (.337 wOBA, 29.2 Hard%). The Phillies don't have any particularly good hitters against RHP, but Tommy Joseph is the only bat with an ISO above .200 against them since 2016 (102 wRC+, .205 ISO). Aaron Alther continues his hot streak (133 wRC+, 60 Hard%), giving more credit to the theory that his mis-adventures last season were more due to injury than talent. Cesar Hernandez (108 wRC+ vs RHP since 2016) and Michael Saunders (101 wRC+, .194 ISO vs RHP since 2016) can be useful bats as well, though no Philadelphia bat is deemed essential or of significant value with an implied run total of just four. .

While usually looking to cut off bargains at $3K on DK & $2.5K on FD, there aren't many tonight, but there are a few player just above those marks today that are difficult to ignore. Mike Moustakas ($3.2K DK) should be a top 3B play with a 134 wRC+ and .302 ISO vs RHP since the beginning of last season (injury shortened). His opponent, Matt Cain has allowed a .400 wOBA to LHBs since 2015. Taylor Motter (also $3.2K on DK) is facing a LHP (Wei-Yin Chen .345 wOBA vs RHBs since 2015) and has a 311 wRC+ over the last week. Michael Conforto ($2.7K on FD) is leading off against a contact prone RHP (Zach Eflin .388 wOBA vs LHBs) and has a .245 career ISO against RHP. Austin Romine (317 wRC+ last seven days) bumps up a spot to seventh against Miguel Gonzalez and costs just $2.6K on DraftKings, a position players may need to punt tonight. Kevin Pillar (89 wRC+, .135 ISO vs LHP since 2016) leads off against Boston spot starter Brian Johnson and costs just $2.4K on FanDuel, where Manny Pina (281 wRC+ last seven days) might be your punt catcher, batting sixth against Brett Anderson for $2.3K. Seth Smith ($2.6K) is probably going to be incredibly popular leading off against Bronson Arroyo. Michael Saunders (101 wRC+, .191 ISO vs RHP since 2016) bats fifth against Zack Wheeler for $2.3K. Unlike previous days, there's just one near minimum leadoff hitter tonight and that's Jaff Decker ($2.1K DK/$2.3K FD), but he's going up against Yu Darvish.

Jeremy Guthrie is set to make his first Major League start of 2017 tonight against the Philadelphia Phillies and his first since pitching for the Kansas City Royals in 2015. Guthrie is no longer a Big League caliber arm in the rotation, which is backed up by his atrociously low 12.7% strikeout rate and 5.02 SIERA from the aforementioned season. In 2015, Guthrie allowed just slightly above the league average hard contact (30.7%) but surrendered fly balls nearly 40% of the time, meaning he can be susceptible to the long ball in the right matchups. However, the fly ball nature of Guthrie can make him a frustrating pitcher to stack against if the BABIP ends up working in his favor. With plenty of other high team totals on the slate, the preferred route would be to target one or two Phillies bats with some home run upside, like Michael Saunders (.205 ISO vs RHP in 2016) or Tommy Joseph (.226 ISO vs RHP in 2016/17), who also happen to slot into the fifth and sixth spot in the Phillies order this evening.

Josh Tomlin has not been quite as bad as Happ over the last 30 days, but his 4.68 SIERA over that period is far from elite. Tomlin has been living off of inducing soft contact, limiting hitters hard contact to 25% over the last month. Still, his 9% k rate is incredibly low and an unfortunate trend to bring to the mound when facing a potent lineup like the one the Blue Jays will send to the plate today. On the season, Tomlin posted a worse xFIP versus RHB than LHB, finishing the year with an xFIP of 4.23 versus RHBs. His susceptibility to RHBs included a HR/9 of 2.03, mainly due to a 36% flyball rate and a strikeout rate below 17%. The usual trio of Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion, and Jose Bautista will, of course, be in play against a RHP, all possessing wRC+ totals against RHBs of at least 125 this season. Still, these names will be inserted in the majority of lineups today and way to be contrarian on a miniature slate would be to use the Blue Jays batting at the bottom of the lineup. As far as upside is concerned, Michael Saunders and Russel Martin have ISOs of 0.205 and 0.173 versus RHP this year, respectively. Pairing Saunders and Martin with Donaldson and Encarnacion would be a way to differentiate lineups, while still getting a piece of the elite Jays power-bats.

As mentioned in an earlier alert, five Toronto bats have multiple HRs against Chris Tillman with Tulowtizki, Encarnacion, Bautista and Pillar all owning three HRs against him and Saunders two. Josh Donaldson has just one HR, but five doubles in 36 career PAs and a 92.8 mph aEV on 22 batted balls since the beginning of last season (the largest PvB batted ball sample in the WC round). Don't expect Buck Showalter to allow Tillman to hang around too long if he starts to smell trouble though. This is a winner take all game with a Baltimore bullpen that had the third lowest ERA in the majors (3.40) with 5.5 fWAR (fifth). This is Tillman's game to start, but could be the bullpen's game quickly if things go awry. The Blue Jays are the favorite in this game, currently projected for 4.4 runs.

While both Chris Tillman and Marcus Stroman generated hard hit rates right around the league average between 31.5% and 31.7%, Tillman allowed much more contact in the air (1.13 GB/FB), which could cause problems for him tonight, especially with the roof open. Although he did not allow a HR against the Blue Jays in two of his four starts against them this season, he did not pitch very well despite decent traditional results (22.1 IP - 10 R - 9 ER - 9 BB - 16 K - 93 BF). Additionally, four Toronto batters (Encarnacion, Pillar, Tulowitzki, Bautista) all have homered three times against Tillman in their career. While all except Pillar have a 93+ mph aEV on at least nine batted balls since the beginning of 2015 against him, both he and Tulo have hit their HRs in fewer than 25 career PAs in this matchup. Michael Saunders also has two HRs against Tillman in 20 PAs. Tillman has an 11.0 career HR/FB that's usually been around league average, though he's held that this year (10.5 HR/FB), while starting pitchers in general allowed an all-time high 13.3 HR/FB this season.

A first look at Toronto's 5.2 run projection sitting atop the board makes you think this is the offense to have the most exposure to tonight. Indeed Ubaldo Jimenez has been a mess for most of the last few years and Josh Donaldson (153 wRC+, .266 ISO vs RHP since 2015) is a top projected bat tonight with a 248 wRC+ over the last week, while Jose Bautista (141 wRC+, .265 ISO vs RHP since 2015) is a to projected OF one (219 wRC+, 50 Hard% over the last week), but there may also be reasons to consider fading this offense. Ubaldo Jimenez is a pitcher with bad control, but doesn't necessarily allow a ton of hard contact (just 36 HRs last two seasons combined) and he has been pitching better, striking out 16 of his last 50 batters. He also has a 53.8 GB% over the last month. Blue Jay bats that may be more grounded and unable to hit for much power are less potent. While they probably do fairly well in this matchup more often than not, only Michael Saunders (101 wRC+, .192 ISO vs RHP since 2015) has any real, impossible to ignore success against Jimenez (four HRs in 21 PAs). This is a pitcher they've seen often the last few years and the big three have just two combined HRs against him in 116 combined PAs.