4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 8/4/17
Finally, some normalcy came to daily fantasy baseball last night, as Corey Kluber made mincemeat of the New York Yankees, and most of the high implied team totals around the league came to fruition. Let's hope for more of the same tonight.
The two most notable hurlers for cash games are the familiar faces of James Paxton ($10,100) and Yu Darvish ($9,300). They get the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets, respectively, neither of which are great for punchouts. Still, it might be hard to pass up Paxton, who has a wicked 2.43 SIERA and 34.1% strikeout rate over his last five starts -- good for 49-plus FanDuel points in every game over that span.
That said, Darvish is a worthy pivot, whose solid 3.85 SIERA and 26.2% strikeout rate should play better in the National League where he won't have to contend with the designated hitter much, if at all. In fact, he has yet to pitch one game in an NL park this year.
In tournaments, you can expand your horizons to include Jacob deGrom ($10,500) in a tough spot against the Los Angeles Dodgers, or buy into the resurgence of Kevin Gausman ($8,800). Jacob Faria ($8,100) has scuffled lately, but he comes in cheap against the strikeout-prone Milwaukee Brewers. Both Eduardo Rodriguez ($8,000) and Brad Peacock ($8,400) also bring their usual punchout upside at low prices.
As always, it's important to narrow down your short list of DFS players to target and avoid the suboptimal plays who are overpriced or in tough spots. Let's check out four guys to consider fading on tonight's FanDuel main slate.
