MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 5/5/17

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Dallas Keuchel, SP, Houston Astros

FanDuel Price: $10,700

You may have noticed that I skipped over the most expensive pitcher in the intro. That wasn't by accident.

Dallas Keuchel has been fantastic so far, and he appears to have regained his 2015 Cy Young-winning form. Through six starts, he has a 3.34 SIERA, 62.8% ground-ball rate, and 22.2% hard-hit rate. Outside of the invincible Mike Trout, he should have no problem handling the Los Angeles Angels.

Why then is he not a top play? Keuchel may have that elite batted-ball profile, but he has a more average strikeout rate of 21.8%. The Angels are notably stingy with strikeouts, too, offering up punchouts just 17.5% of the time against lefties.

Kuechel has four straight games with 46-plus FanDuel points, so you could hardly be blamed for choosing him, but keep in mind that all of them required the win and quality start bonuses, an extra 10 points.

Obviously, high scores tend to have those bonuses included, but wins can't be relied on, and we want strikeouts to raise our floor when things don't go right. Keuchel should have a tougher time getting those tonight.

He's is unlikely to put up a clunker today, but he isn't worth his elevated price, especially with Coors in play.