3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 8/6/19
While we have plenty of pieces geared towards guys you should target in your DFS contests, it's also important to narrow down your short list of plays and avoid the suboptimal ones who are overpriced and/or in tough spots.
Let's check out three guys to consider fading on tonight's FanDuel main slate.
Zach Plesac, SP, Cleveland Indians
FanDuel Price: $7,500
Plesac is sporting a solid 3.41 ERA through his first 66 1/3 MLB innings, but that number is a mirage. His xFIP is 5.21, while his SIERA is 5.31. The discrepancy is tied to his lack of punchouts as he's got a meager 17.6% strikeout rate and 9.6% swinging-strike rate.
The rookie righty is at home today versus the Texas Rangers. While Texas has a lot of swing and miss in their lineup, carrying a 25.7% strikeout rate this year against righties, they also have some nice pop in the form of a .327 wOBA and 41.9% hard-hit rate in the split, with the hard-hit rate tops among all teams.
On a night with some quality top-end pitching options, paying down probably won't be too popular, but if you take that route, guys like Anthony DeSclafani ($7,900) and Anibal Sanchez ($7,700) have more appeal in Plesac's price range.
Charlie Blackmon, OF, Colorado Rockies
FanDuel Price: $4,100
The Colorado Rockies draw a tough road matchup tonight versus Zack Greinke, who has shown some reverse-splits tendencies the last two years. In 2018, Greinke allowed righties to post a .292 wOBA, compared to a .279 wOBA for lefties. This season he's limited left-handed hitters to a .241 wOBA while righties have a .274 wOBA against him. Also in 2019, lefties have generated just a 32.2% hard-hit rate and 24.1% fly-ball rate.
None of this is good news for Charlie Blackmon, who sees his wOBA go from .524 at Coors to .288 on the road. You can make a case that Blackmon is an avoid whenever the Colorado Rockies are outside of Denver, but he's especially scary today given Greinke's numbers versus lefties.
Justin Turner, 3B, Los Angeles Dodgers
FanDuel Price: $3,100
The Los Angeles Dodgers (4.79 implied total) have some under-the-radar stacking appeal for their date with Miles Mikolas, but if you stack LA, they need to be lefty-heavy stacks. Mikolas has bottled up righties this year to the tune of a 32.6% hard-hit rate, 24.5% fly-ball rate, .283 wOBA and 1.8% walk rate.
That doesn't mesh well with Justin Turner's batted-ball splits. While the Dodgers' three bagger has a massive 50.0% fly-ball rate with the platoon advantage, his fly-ball rate in righty-righty matchups is just 34.3%, capping his upside.
If you load up on the Dodgers to try to take advantage of Mikolas' ugly home-road splits, opt for lefties like Cody Bellinger, Max Muncy, Corey Seager and Joc Pederson.
