3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Hitters to Avoid on 4/29/16
As is the case in most daily fantasy sports, finding information on players you might want to roster is a lot easier than finding players to avoid.
While you can get away with a zero from a hitter in daily fantasy, you certainly don't want to target guys whose matchups aren't enticing.
Here are three hitters you may want to lessen your exposure to or even fade altogether on Friday.
Lorenzo Cain, OF, Kansas City Royals
FanDuel Price: $3,200
Tonight, the Royals travel into Seattle to play King Felix Hernandez and the Mariners, and no other Royal has a tougher matchup than Lorenzo Cain. The Kansas City outfielder is off to a very slow start in 2016, and that may be exemplified tonight in his matchup against Fernandez.
Cain is hitting just .203 to start the season, with a wOBA of .263. However, against right-handers, Cain’s wOBA drops to .231. His career wOBA is .316 against right-handers, so he should break out of his slump sometime, but his strikeout rate for his career against righties is 20.9 percent. So far this season in 65 at-bats against righties, Cain has a strikeout rate of 27.8 percent.
Facing Fernandez in a pitcher's park is not going to help those numbers tonight. Righties have a wOBA of only .202 against Hernandez this season and a hard hit rate of 16.7 percent. Even though Hernandez has not looked as dominant this season so far, posting an overall walk rate of 14.2 percent, righties’ walk rate against him is 10.9 percent, and their BABIP is an insane .103. Cain’s struggles might continue tonight.
Michael Saunders OF, Toronto Blue Jays
FanDuel Price: $3,200
Michael Saunders has been a member of the landmine club once before this season, and he is back again for another round of a tough lefty-lefty matchup with Drew Smyly. This season, Saunders has crushed right-handed pitching, but against lefties, he has a wOBA of just .304 and an average of .222. Saunders posts a strikeout rate of 33.3 percent in his 18 at-bats against lefties this season.
These aren’t too far off from his career numbers either. His career strikeout rate against lefties is 28.3 percent, and his wOBA is only .284. Now tonight against the tough lefty, Smyly, things aren’t looking up, especially hitting at home in a pitcher's park.
Smyly has actually been tougher on righties to start the year, but he is still devastating against lefties. Left-handed hitters have a wOBA of .258 against Smyly this season, and for his career, that number actually drops to .238. Smyly’s left-handed opponents also own a hard hit rate of only 18.2 percent against him this season, and while the sample size is small, his career numbers back it up enough to scare me away from Saunders.
Carlos Ruiz, C, Philadelphia Phillies
FanDuel Price: $2,700
Carlos Ruiz has been a pretty good option at catcher over the last four games. He has been putting up nice numbers at a very low price tag, posting an average of just over 17 FanDuel points per game in his last four games. However, tonight the Phillies get to face off against Corey Kluber and the Indians, and Ruiz’s time as a bargain option at catcher might be coming to an end.
Ruiz hasn’t been bad against right-handers this season, but his wOBA drops from .591 against lefties to .325 against righties. More importantly, his hard hit rate is only 26.1 percent against right-handers so far this season, and his fly ball rate drops to 34.8 percent against righties compared to 62.5 percent against lefties.
Kluber on the other hand has been good against righties so far this season. He has faced 49 total right-handers so far in 2016, and they are posting a wOBA of .251 and a strikeout rate of 32.7 percent. While righties haven’t struck out as much against Kluber during his career, they do post a wOBA of just .266 against him in his six Major League seasons.
