3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 7/11/18

Cody Bellinger, 1B, Los Angeles Dodgers

FanDuel Price: $4,200

Cody Bellinger's platoon splits this season have been fairly moderate. He has a high (28.6%) strikeout rate and his wRC+ is just 109 against left-handed pitching, but his batted-ball profile is virtually unchanged between left- and right-handed pitchers. So why then is he a fade? It's all about the matchup.

San Diego Padres southpaw Joey Lucchesi has been that good against left-handed hitters, and that isn't reflected in Bellinger's exorbitant price tag. This year, the lefty hurler has a 28.6% strikeout rate against left-handed batters, and he has held them to just a 12.5% fly-ball rate. It's not an enormous sample (just 56 batters faced), but it's such an impressive profile that it's worth factoring into our evaluation of Bellinger's DFS prospects.

With plenty of other top hitters in good matchups, there's no need to take on the added risk of playing Bellinger against such a tough left-handed pitcher.

Akash Bhatia is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Akash Bhatia also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username tenswimrun1. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he 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.