MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 7/17/17

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Marwin Gonzalez, OF, Houston Astros

FanDuel Price: $3,600

The Houston Astros have a 5.33 implied team total against lefty Ariel Miranda tonight, who has a 4.98 SIERA this season. That will certainly get our attention, but the top Astros bats are priced over $4,000. However, hot-hitting Marwin Gonzalez falls below this threshold, so given his 17 home runs and .408 wOBA, surely this is a reasonable way to get some Astros exposure?

The trouble is despite these lofty figures, there's plenty of evidence to suggest Gonzalez has hit way over his true skill level. Firstly, his 17 dingers are already a career-high, and he's never had a full season above a .163 isolated power (ISO), so his .268 mark looks a little suspect. While we've seen other guys like Yonder Alonso make significant changes to their batted-ball profile to support a rise in power, there's nothing to indicate that with Gonzalez, who still hits the ball on the ground a fair amount (45.5% rate), and has an average hard-hit rate (30.2%).

Most concerningly, despite that stellar wOBA, his .315 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) tells a very different story, further suggesting we shouldn't expect Gonzalez to keep hitting like this. He also has just a 23.4% hard-hit rate against southpaws this season.

If you want some Astros, you're better off paying up, or grabbing the cheap Evan Gattis.