3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 5/10/18
Nick Markakis, OF, Atlanta Braves
FanDuel Price: $3,700
Off to a blistering start in 2018, Nick Markakis might seem like a juicy choice facing rookie Caleb Smith, but this lefty-lefty matchup is cause for concern.
Spanning 160 plate appearances in 2018, Markakis is off to some impressive marks with a .210 isolated power (ISO) and .416 wOBA, which would be career-best clips in each category over his 13-year career. He's ripped seven bombs already, one off his entire 2017 campaign.
But Markakis has historically performed worse against left-handed pitching, sporting a .323 wOBA, .106 ISO, 25.3% hard-hit rate, and 30.9% fly-ball rate in the split over his career.
It gets even worse when you factor in Smith's numbers against lefties. Isolating 2018, when he's worked as only a starter after being traded for international slot money this offseason, Smith has faced 43 left-handed batters and allowed fantastic marks of a .265 wOBA, 34.9% strikeout rate, and 29.2% fly-ball rate.
Yes, the sample size with Smith is tiny, but even based on just Markakis' numbers versus lefties, it's probably best to look elsewhere on Thursday.
Matt Kupferle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matt Kupferle also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username MKupferle. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
