3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 4/30/18

Christian Villanueva, 3B, San Diego Padres

FanDuel Price: $3,900

Christian Villanueva has been one of the biggest early-seasons surprises so far in 2018 as he has bopped eight home runs already. However, his 38.8% hard-hit rate is very good but not quite high enough to support the notion that Villanueva is one of the game's most elite sluggers. Moreover, his 16.4% swinging-strike rate indicates that he will continue to strike out, perhaps even at a higher rate than his current 28.2% strikeout rate.

Villanueva has also done the vast majority of his damage against left-handed pitching. Against right-handed pitchers in his career, Villanueva has a 31.1% strikeout rate, 28.6% hard-hit rate, and 131 wRC+. Against southpaws, he owns a 25.6% strikeout rate, 48.3% hard-hit rate, and otherworldly 340 wRC+.

This is obviously still a small sample size because Villanueva hasn't played much in the majors before this season, but the peripherals indicate that Villanueva has some extreme platoon splits

Tonight, Villanueva is facing a right-handed pitcher who is extremely stingy against righty hitters. Over his career, Jeff Samardzija has allowed right-handed batters to post a lowly .295 wOBA. This includes a 31.5% fly-ball rate and 25.7% hard-hit rate, both of which are decidedly below average.

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.