Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Looking for leadoff options – CBSSports.com

A good leadoff hitter is hard to find. This is true in actually baseball team-building, to be sure, but also in Fantasy baseball. Leadoff hitters typically won’t help you out much with RBI, but if you’re at the top of the order of a great offense and can get on base consistently, runs will flow in.

When you think great offenses in 2016, your mind should go pretty much right to the American League East, where there are two leadoff hitters in particular who are probably being overlooked in Fantasy right now. They’re playing in Baltimore and Toronto.

Blue Jays outfielder
Michael Saunders
has started in the leadoff spot in five straight games, and is off to a terrific start as a reclamation project. Injuries have largely derailed Saunders’ career, but he was a 20-20 threat at his peak, good for 40 to 50 walks per season. He always struggled to hit for average, which kept his on-base percentage down, but he is sitting at .321 and .390 in those two categories to open the season, and has scored 10 runs in 14 games with Toronto.

He won’t keep hitting above .300 — that .410 BABIP isn’t going to last — but Saunders is walking in 10.2 percent of his plate appearances, and could remain a solid on-base threat even if his average drops to the .270 range. With the Blue Jays’ big bats backing him up, that should lead to plenty of run-scoring opportunities, making him a solid pick up who is owned in just 23 percent of CBSSports.com leagues.

The other AL East leadoff man is
Joey Rickard
, a Rule 5 draft pick who is looking like a real find for the Orioles. Rickard has been red-hot to open the season, hitting .350 in the first 14 games of his career, and has been entrenched at the top of the lineup since the third game of the season. That hasn’t led to huge run totals yet, but that should change once
Adam Jones
starts to heat up.

Rickard is also getting some luck on batted balls, which is keeping his batting average high, but there are reasons to believe in his secondary skills. Rickard is never going to hit for much power, but he did average 31 stolen bases per-150 games in the minors, a part of his game that hasn’t translated yet. He also isn’t walking much, another skill that he showed off consistently in the minors; Rickard walked in 12.7 percent of his trips to the plate in the minors, with a strikeout rate of just 16.3 percent.

Rickard has been a revelation for the Orioles to open the season, and there is reason to believe he has more in store. He could be a really solid leadoff option, and might be a regular in your starting lineup in Fantasy before long.

Kevin Gausman
, SP, Orioles (53 percent owned)

We were hoping to get the Kevin Gausman breakout season last season, but he actually took a step back as he struggled with homers and general inconsistency en route to a 4.25 ERA in 112 1/3 innings. We’ve had to wait a few weeks to see if the breakout might come in 2016, but we’ll start to get our answers in Fantasy Week 4 (April 25-May 2), as Gausman could make his return from a shoulder injury Monday against the
Tampa Bay Rays
. If that is where he makes his return, it should be a nice soft landing for Gausman, as the Rays rank just 22nd in baseball in wOBA vs. RHP. Gausman has looked a bit rusty in his minor-league rehab assignment, allowing four earned runs in 11 innings of work, however he struck out 19 of 51 batters faced, including nine in just 5 2/3 innings at Triple-A Norfolk, so it looks like he could hit the ground running. Gausman still has terrific potential despite a somewhat disappointing first few years to open his major-league career. Looking for pitching on the waiver wire early in the season is all about taking chances on upside, one thing Gausman definitely has.

Matt Wisler
, SP,
Atlanta Braves
(20 percent owned)

Matt Wisler is another pitcher who came into the league with expectations he didn’t live up to last season. The 23-year-old was tagged for a 4.71 ERA in 109 innings in the majors, as he also struggled to keep the ball in the yard. That trend has continued this season, as he has given up three homers in 20 1/3 innings, however Wisler has managed to avoid major damage by keeping runners off the bases, giving up just four walks and 15 hits to date. There is some BABIP-related luck involved here, but Wisler has an extremely low line drive rate, so batters really aren’t squaring him up yet. He limited the
Los Angeles Dodgers
to just one unearned run while striking out six in 6 2/3 inning, and now has consecutive quality starts against the
Washington Nationals
and Dodgers, pretty good results. Wisler is young enough to continue improving, and is worth a look in some more deeper formats.