Edinson Volquez SP (SD) - You should know the drill by now. Volquez at home? Start. Volquez on the road? Sit. Volquez should be avoided today in most fantasy formats as he is away from spacious Petco Park. Volquez has a 3.09 ERA at home and a 5.60 ERA on the road. In particular, Volquez gives up a lot more homers on the road. His HR/FB% at home is 4.9%, and his HR/FB% on the road is a whopping 16.9%. It's too risky to start Volquez almost anywhere on the road, especially at Chase Field where the ball carries well.
Mark Ellis 2B (LAD) - When I was looking for a MI to help me in runs scored a few weeks ago, fellow analyst Drew Dinkmeyer pointed Ellis out to me. Surprisingly, Ellis is only owned in half of NFBC leagues (15 team, mixed roto leagues). Drew was certainly right that Ellis is a good cheap source of runs. Ellis is the Dodgers regular number 2 hitter. While he isn't overly talented, Ellis isn't a complete bum either. He's been walking a lot this year (10.4 BB%) and makes enough contact (15 K%) to at least hold a BA over .250. The end result is an okay .351 OBP which certainly plays directly in front of Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez and Andre Ethier. In deep leagues, you could certainly do a lot worse than Ellis at MI, particularly if you are in need of runs.
Brandon Phillips 2B (CIN) - I seem to never end up with Phillips on draft day, but following a 3-hit performance yesterday Phillips' triple slash of .294/.332/.448 probably justifies where he was selected in most leagues. I do some reasons to be concerned about Phillips for the rest of this year and heading into next year, though. He has become far less patient at the plate, seeing his walk rate (usually consistently between 6.4-6.8%) drop to 4.9%. This is the result of some over-aggressiveness on Phillips' part: career worst 40.3% chase rate. In my opinion, Phillips, who is 31, may be losing some bat speed and is trying to make up for it by being more aggressive at the plate, which has allowed his contact rate to stay the same. However, when a hitter does this often his power suffers. This has not happened with Phillips yet, but I think that result may be coming. His ISO has been flat the last few years (.155/.157/.155) and naturally so has his HR/FB% (10/9.7/11). I think those numbers begin to fall if Phillips keeps chasing pitches and putting those pitches in play (career high 70.3% contact rate on chased pitches).
Brett Jackson OF (CHC) - Jackson hit his third homer since being called up, but he continues to show why he is unplayable except in the deepest of leagues. Before getting called up, Jackson was striking out a ton in AAA (33.8%). Not surprisingly, that number has gotten worse during Jackson's first go around at the Major League level (45.6%). As a result, Jackson's .197 BA may actually not get much better, and the decreased contact rate gives Jackson few chances to flash his above average power. To put in perspective just how bad Jackson's K% is, even his minor league K% of 33.8% would be the worst in the Majors among qualified batters, just behind strikeout Adam Dunn's 33.6 mark. Jackson's current Major league mark is 12 points worse than Dunn's, and only 4 qualified batters are even with 15 points of Jackson's current K%. All are notorious strikeout hitters: Dunn, Pedro Alvarez, Chris Davis, Carlos Pena.
RA Dickey SP (NYM) - It wasn't Dickey's most dominant outing of the year as he recorded just 2 strikeouts, but he took advantage of a weak hitting Astros lineup and allowed just 1 ER over 7 IP off of only 5 hits and a walk. Dickey's success this year is not a result of luck as his ERA of 2.82 is only beating his FIP by 28 points; for his career Dickey's ERA beats his FIP by 19 points so this is to be expected. For the third straight year, Dickey has shown outstanding control for a knuckleballer, posting walk rates well below the league average: 5.9%/6.2/5.8. Where Dickey went from good to great however was his K rate; it took an unprecedented jump. Take a look at Dickey's K% the last 4 years: 14.3/14.6/15.3/26.2. That is quite remarkable, and the coinciding jump in swinging strike rate (from 7.8% to 12.1%) supports the K rate jump and indicates that Dickey's knuckleball must be doing a little extra dancing this year. When you consider the K rate spike and that Dickey has now posted a sub-3 ERA over his last 565 innings, he must be considered a legitimate top 15 starting pitcher the rest of this year and headed into next year.
