4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 7/18/17

Carlos Beltran, OF, Houston Astros

FanDuel Price: $3,100

As we've become accustomed to in 2017, the Houston Astros juggernaut has a high implied team total (5.32), this time against southpaw Sam Gaviglio.

Carlos Beltran is an affordable way to get exposure to this otherwise pricey lineup, but he hasn't shown enough with his bat this year to garner much confidence. Despite hitting a lot of fly balls and holding a respectable 33.0% hard-hit rate, he has just a .302 wOBA. Against lefties, it's even worse, with a .247 wOBA and 26.6% strikeout rate.

You might see his .262 BABIP and wonder if positive regression is in store, but his expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) sits at .278, suggesting his low marks are warranted. Even with a higher hard-hit rate recently, since the start of June his xwOBA is still just .263.

While the mock funeral the Astros performed for Beltran's glove was certainly amusing, let's hope they won't need one for Beltran's bat by season's end. Okay, that's probably a little dramatic -- he did homer last night after all -- but in any case, it might be best to avoid Beltran unless we see some consistent improvements.