4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 4/25/17

Danny Duffy, SP, Kansas City Royals

FanDuel Price: $9,700

Another reason Kershaw is so appealing tonight -- aside from him being, you know, really good -- is that the dropoff after him is fairly steep.

Danny Duffy is the next most expensive pitcher, and although he was excellent last season with career highs in strikeout rate (25.7%) and SIERA (3.53), he's a tough guy to figure out this year.

Duffy's velocity is down from 2016, and not surprisingly, his strikeout rate is down with it (21.2%). His walk rate is also way up, going from 5.8% to 9.6%.

And yet, Duffy's swinging-strike rate is 15.1%, which is fifth among qualified starters.

What do we make of all this? Can he get his strikeouts back up even with reduced velocity? Or is the swinging-strike rate an early season fluke? The truth is we really can't say yet, which is what makes Duffy a tough sell.

Although he's facing the lowly Chicago White Sox (who surprisingly put up 12 runs last night), Duffy will likely see a predominantly right-handed lineup. Even with all his improvements last season, he had a 38.6% hard-hit rate against righties.

Due to the lack of pitching options, particularly with poor weather affecting games on the east coast, Duffy is still a tournament play in case his high swinging-strike rate starts translating into real strikeouts. But generally speaking, and especially in cash games, there is enough risk that Duffy isn't enough of a discount to recommend pivoting off of Kershaw.