Mikie Mahtook Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Yovani Gallardo pitched into the eighth inning with three runs and seven strikeouts against the White Sox last time out, but still has a nine ERA over 20 innings this year with four HRs. In 150 innings since last season, batters from either side of the plate are above a .340 wOBA and xwOBA against him. The Detroit lineup does not look encouraging, but there are only five teams above them on tonight's board at a respectable four and a half implied runs. Nick Castellanos (112 wRC+, .211 ISO) is, by far, the best hitter in the lineup against RHP over the last calendar year, but some near competent bats cost much less in John Hicks (97 wRC+, .154 ISO), Niko Goodrum (87 wRC+, .201 ISO) and Mikie Mahtook (101 wRC+, .151 ISO) for the minimum price on FanDuel ($3.2K on DK) in the leadoff spot.

A Jordon Zimmermann/James Shields matchup would appear to be a DFS dream on the offensive side except when you realize that the offenses are the Tigers and White Sox in 2018. To make matters worse, temperatures are expected to be near freezing with the potential for light snow and winds blowing in from right at around 10 mph. Also, Nick Delmonico and Welington Castillo are NOT in the lineup. While both allowed four runs in their initial starts of the season, Shields allowed one HR without striking out any of the 25 Royals he faced, while Zimmermann surprised by striking out eight of 24 Pirates. Each walked just one. Both of these offenses have healthy run projections above four. The worst of the splits, LHBs torched Shields last year for a .388 wOBA, While RHBs had just a .309 wOBA, the xwOBA was 23 points higher. Batters from either side had a wOBA and xwOBA above .350 against Zimmermann last season. Neither pitcher had a ground ball rate above 41.3% or hard hit rate below 32% against batters from either side of the plate. Top bats against RHP since last season all belong to the White Sox: Yoan Moncada (123 wRC+, .220 ISO, 44.3 Hard%), Avisail Garcia (121 wRC+, .179 ISO), and Jose Abreu (128 wRC+, .242 ISO). Matt Davidson has just an 84 wRC+, but with a game best .254 ISO and 40.8 Hard%. For the Tigers, both Miguel Cabrera (81 wRC+, .151 ISO) and Victor Martinez (88 wRC+, .132 ISO) have struggled, but both have a hard hit rate above 40% against righties since last season. Keep in mind, everyone in Detroit seems to run higher hard hit rates. Jeimer Candelario (.138 ISO) and Mikie Mahtook (.155 ISO) share a team high 103 wRC+ vs RHP. Considering the weather and scope of the offenses, players could consider a fade, especially with Zimmermann's unexpected opening start competence, but weather is expected to play a factor in most spots this afternoon.

Outside of a one-start anomaly his last time out against the New York Mets, allowing just one earned run in eight innings of work, Martin Perez has mostly been unable to keep up his magic act that has continuously frustrated daily fantasy players for the last couple of years. If unaware of this madness, Perez typically has had the uncanny ability to work himself out of jams and limit the overall damage to somewhat respectable totals in most of his outings. However, he began showing cracks in this aforementioned armor lately, allowing seven or more earned runs in back-to-back starts against the Baltimore Orioles and Minnesota Twins prior to his most recent rebound performance. So much of what makes Perez "successful" is his solid pitching profile to left-handed batters, evidenced by a 22.5% strikeout rate, 56.6% groundball rate, and 25.0% hard hit rate, all of which are above-average numbers. This is something that he will have a nearly impossible time relying upon Monday night as the Detroit Tigers have just one lefty in their lineup with Miguel Cabrera (another righty) receiving the night off. On the other hand, his skills take a drastic downturn against right-handed batters, posting just a 12.5% strikeout rate in nearly 100 innings this season while surrendering hard contact 37.8% of the time, leading to a lofty .373 wOBA and 1.47 HR/9 allowed to righties. This all sets up perfectly well for this Tigers lineup, as six of their eight right-handed bats possess a hard hit rate of 43.1% or higher against left-handed pitching, with John Hicks (144 wRC+, .387 wOBA, .371 ISO) leading the way at 48.0% and batting fifth. On top of Hicks, virtually any righty cracking the Detroit lineup is more than playable on this slate with Justin Upton (182 wRC+, .443 wOBA, .306 ISO vs LHP), James McCann (174 wRC+, .431 wOBA, .324 ISO vs LHP), and Nick Castellanos (148 wRC+, .393 wOBA, .353 ISO vs LHP) leading the way, closely followed by Ian Kinsler (.235 ISO LHP) and Mikie Mahtook (.207 ISO vs LHP), who have had just slightly less success versus southpaws than their colleagues this season.

After a hot start to the 2017 campaign, Wade Miley has officially come back down to earth quickly over the last couple of months, allowing at least four runs in nine of his last 11 starts and pitching into the sixth inning on just three occasions. Tonight, Miley is set to face off with a Detroit Tigers squad that has the ability, even a preference, to get extremely right-handed in the right matchups, evidenced by Jim Adduci being the only left-hander in the Detroit lineup this evening. Miley's strikeout rate to right-handed batters is down to 18.6%, a substantial decrease from his early season totals, while his walk rate has ballooned to 12.0% over that same time period. Miley's 49.1% groundball rate against righties is slightly above-average but is still not enough to deter us from Tigers hitters considering he is also allowing a 23.5% line drive rate and surrendering hard contact 34.6% of the time. With that said, the Tigers remain likely to be one of the most popular offenses on Saturday's slate, though Coors Field will likely deflect some of that expected ownership away. Considering the significant ownership the Tigers top bats are expected to attract, it definitely isn't a horrible idea to try to get creative with Detroit stacks, especially in large field tournaments given their overall strong numbers against left-handed pitching, ranking 1st in wRC+ (125), 1st in wOBA (.360), and 1st in ISO (.221) this season. Based solely on statistics, Justin Upton (187 wRC+, .451 wOBA, .291 ISO vs LHP), James McCann (187 wRC+, .450 wOBA, .343 ISO vs LHP), Nick Castellanos (152 wRC+, .399 wOBA, .375 ISO vs LHP), and Ian Kinsler (115 wRC+, .345 wOBA, .247 ISO vs LHP) all stand out as the premier plays from this Tigers lineup, though McCann's spot in the batting order should reserve him to tournament exposure only. Falling into the tier as secondary hitting options are Mikie Mahtook (.221 ISO vs LHP), and Miguel Cabrera (127 wRC+, .363 wOBA), who is a borderline elite play based on his career numbers alone but has struggled to hit for power against southpaws this year for whatever reason.

While the recently departed J.D. Martinez is a major part of the Detroit assault on LHP this year (124 wRC+ leads baseball, 18.2 HR/FB, 25.7 Hard-Soft%), he's not responsible for all of the damage. Nick Castellanos (165 wRC+, .405 ISO), Ian Kinsler (120 wRC+, .177 ISO), Justin Upton (142 wRC+, .169 ISO), James McCann (173 wRC+, .412 ISO) and Mikie Mahtook (103 wRC+, .225 ISO) have all been quality bats against southpaws as well, even if Miguel Cabrera hasn't brought the power so far (147 wRC+, .113 ISO). PlateIQ says that the confirmed Detroit lineup has a .350 wOBA and .208 ISO vs LHP this season. Further compounding the issue is that Danny Duffy has allowed RHBs a .327 wOBA and 35.7 Hard% with 32 of his 34 HRs allowed, which make him difficult to roster despite the second highest SwStr rate on the board this season (11.7%). Every batter in the lineup has some history with Duffy since the start of the Statcast era (2015) with only the bottom two in the order below a 90 mph aEV. Detroit is currently sitting fourth with a 4.56 implied run line with a RH stack of the top of the order making a high upside GPP play, including McCann and Mahtook for salary relief.

Four of the Tigers' first five batters have ISOs of .196 or better according to PlateIQ. It's a tough order to get through, particularly for pitchers that don't log a lot of strikeouts, as that's the primary weakness of Detroit's sluggers - three of those four hitters have K-rates of at least 26.0%. Matt Cain has a 13.3% K% against RHB, 12.6% against LHB and he's posted an abysmal 4.7% SwStr% this year. As a result, he has a slate-high 88.9% Contact%, which means the meat of the Tigers' order will be very dangerous this afternoon. When these guys make contact, it's hard. Alex Avila leads the way with a monster 62.0% Hard% against RHP this season, J.D. Martinez is right up there with a 51.0% Hard%, and Justin Upton (42.9%) and Miguel Cabrera (45.9%) have some excellent rates as well. Then there's Ian Kinsler (36.8%), Nick Castellanos (48.3%), Mikie Mahtook (39.6%), and Victor Martinez (43.9%). Although Cain doesn't give up a ton of hard contact - 32.1% against RHB (17.3% Soft%), 33.6% against LHB (15.3% Soft%) - with his pitches expected to find Detroit's bats so often, their high total makes a lot of sense. Plus, Cain has posted a .368 wOBA vs. LHB and .358 vs. RHB in 2017 and has a 5.46 SIERA - the Tigers are shaping up as a solid stack.