3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 4/13/18

Nolan Arenado, 3B, Colorado Rockies

FanDuel Price: $4,300

There are a few reasons to avoid Nolan Arenado on Friday. And the first starts with Arenado himself.

The Colorado Rockies star third baseman has gotten off to a hot start to the 2018 season, but it has been primarily fueled by a sky-high .359 BABIP, compared to a career mark of .298. We would expect that to regress, especially when taking Arenado's unchanged batted-ball profile into account. His hard-hit rate is 35.0%, and it has been at least 36.0% each of the past three years. Arenado is also whiffing more, posting an 11.1% swinging-strike rate on the season, which would be a career-high if it were to hold up.

Arenado is also on the road, away from the friendly confines of Coors Field -- the most offensive-friendly park in baseball -- and facing a tough pitcher. Tanner Roark has a history of limiting hard contact, allowing right-handers to post just a 27.4% fly-ball rate and 21.9% hard-hit rate in his career. And through two starts, Roark has added in swing-and-miss stuff, as he has posted an 11.9% swinging-strike rate so far on the season. Arenado has just a .263 career wOBA on the road against right-handed pitching.

Of course, there's the added risk that Arenado's suspension comes down and he becomes a late scratch. But, outside the numbers, that's just another reason to avoid him for MLB DFS.

Akash Bhatia is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Akash Bhatia also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username tenswimrun1. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.