Daily Fantasy Baseball: Positive Batted-Ball Regression Candidates for Week 5
Nelson Cruz, OF, Minnesota Twins
The aggregate stats for Nelson Cruz show the ageless slugger continuing to look like one of the best pure power hitters in baseball, with the 38-year-old carrying a .297/.402/.568 slash line into Week 5 action. But daily players might be wary of Cruz given what appears to be a very streaky early 2019 campaign, with four of his five home runs bunched across two multi-homer games, both against a dismal Baltimore Orioles pitching staff.
That said, a peek under the hood at Cruz's power metrics show him to be putting together a consistently vicious campaign in terms of contact quality. The 38-year-old has begun the season ripping 52.8% hard contact and 28.3% line drives, with a 95.9 mph average exit velocity that puts him in the top 1% of all MLB hitters. In other words, Cruz's results have been good when they should be spectacular.
With the Twins drawing some tough arms on the Astros and Yankees staffs this week, we might see Cruz's FanDuel salary creep below $4,000, which smells like a bargain considering the veteran's hot-hitting pace.
