3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Players to Avoid on 7/26/19
Baseball is heating up, and there are plenty of DFS contests to choose from on FanDuel's main slate. While we have plenty of pieces geared towards guys you should target in your DFS contests, it's also important to avoid sub-optimal options who are overpriced and/or in tough spots.
Let's check out three players to consider fading on FanDuel's main slate for July 26.
Lance Lynn, Texas Rangers (SP)
at Oakland Athletics
FanDuel Price: $10,000
Look, you may not meet a bigger Lance Lynn homer than me. I was majorly disappointed when the St. Louis Cardinals let him walk, and his brilliant season has me all smiles.
But tonight is shaping up to be a really bad matchup for the right-hander. While it's no secret that he gets a major park factor boost by stepping outside of the great state of Texas and going to California to take on the Oakland Athletics, that's about the only benefit I see here.
Lynn utilizes and old school, fastball-heavy approach -- as we can see over at Baseball Savant, nearly 50% of Lynn's offerings are heaters. And the Athletics rip fastballs -- they clock in seventh in the league against fastballs. In April of this year, they lit Lynn up for his worst start of the season, allowing eight earned runs over 3 2/3 innings.
Save your cash and pivot off of Lynn tonight, especially at an elevated price point.
Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers (OF)
vs. Chicago Cubs
FanDuel Price: $4,700
Apparently Christian Yelich has decided that the 2018 season, one in which he won the NL MVP, was just a warm up act.
This season, he's ripped 35 home runs, or only short of last year's insane mark of 36 jacks on his way to winning that award. And any time Yelich is hitting in Miller Park, he strongly deserves consideration to be rostered -- peep his 1.304 OPS and .864 slugging percentage in Milwaukee this year.
He may get slowed a bit tonight, as Kyle Hendricks takes the ball for the Chicago Cubs in this NL Central showdown. Hendricks has more than acquitted himself against opposite-handed bats, posting a 25.2% strikeout rate and .318 wOBA over 206 plate appearances.
Hendricks has fared surprisingly well in this head-to-head matchup, too -- in 24 matchups, Yelich has just a .729 OPS against the right-hander. It's hard not recommending Yelich at home, but tonight may be a decent day to take a breath.
Mookie Betts, Boston Red Sox (OF)
vs. New York Yankees
FanDuel Price: $4,500
One day after recording the most lopsided win in the history of these two storied franchises, Mookie Betts of the Boston Red Sox will look to keep the momentum up as they try and catch the New York Yankees in the AL East race.
Betts was certainly in the mix a night ago with a 25.4 FanDuel outburst, but providing that kind of return again tonight may not be so likely -- he faces a lefty, which he has struggled tremendously with this season. He's hitting only .236 with a .682 OPS against them this year, which is a far cry from his absurd 1.207 OPS against them in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Yankees starter, James Paxton, has been fantastic against hitters with the platoon advantage -- over 280 plate appearances this year, he's limited them to a 28.6% strikeout rate and .342 wOBA.
There will likely be an onslaught of runs tonight -- Vegas is showcasing an over/under of 11.0 runs -- so it's a great game to target. It may just not be a great game to target Betts for your rosters.
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 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.
