MLB Player Props: Best Bets for Saturday (August 31)
While today’s highlight for many sports fans might be Week 1 of the college football season, there is still plenty of baseball to be played, and that is what we will be diving into.
We have a full MLB betting slate on tap for today, so here are our three favorite MLB player props today, all of which are in the MLB home run betting market.
Shohei Ohtani Home Run (+250) FanDuel
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks, 8:10 p.m. ET
Odds of +250 are admittedly short for a home run prop, but not for a player like Shohei Ohtani. It might not seem like it, but this price on FanDuel is actually a good value, as most other books have this in the lower +200s.
The matchup for him tonight is against Merrill Kelly, who is generally a good pitcher but has had a rough year. He missed a bunch of time due to injury, but has returned to make three starts in August. He has been rocked in those three starts and was hit up the most in his last start, so it is not as though he has been getting better with more starts under his belt.
He allowed a barrel rate of 23.5% and a HardHit rate of 76.50% in his last start, which is comically bad.
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It also helps Ohtani that Kelly has been hit hard by lefties, with a 14% barrel rate and 58% HardHit rate in 36 at-bats against lefties in those same three starts.
Ohtani, meanwhile, is just absurd. He hit a home run last night, he hit a home run on Wednesday, and he is showing no signs of slowing down. In the month of August, he has hit 11 home runs with a .355 ISO rate, 18.4% barrel rate and 51.7% HardHit rate, three ridiculous numbers.
In the last seven days alone, he leads MLB with 13 HardHit line-drive + fly-balls, so let’s hope he stays hot tonight.
Matt Olson Home Run (+360) FanDuel
Atlanta Braves vs. Philadelphia Phillies, 7:15 p.m. ET
The pitching matchup might not seem like one that you want to target as Zack Wheeler is on the mound and he is an ace, but Wheeler really struggles against lefties. He has allowed 17 home runs on the year, and 12 of them have come against left-handed hitters. His HR/9 against LHH is 1.30, up from 0.58 against RHH.
So, targeting a lefty bat such as Olson is the way to go here. Overall, it has been a brutal year for Olson, but it seems as though he’s back, as he has been on fire in the last week. In the last seven days, he has the second-most HardHit line-drive + fly-balls with 12, only one behind Ohtani, and he is also tied for third in MLB with five balls launched, which means 100-plus mph off the bat and a 20-40 degree launch angle.
Olson has just been on fire, as detailed earlier, and he has also crushed Wheeler’s pitch-mix, which will mostly be 4-seam fastballs (41.35% of the time) and cutters (18.27%). Against those two pitches in the last two weeks from RHP, he has a 21% barrel rate and 60% HardHit rate.
Colton Cowser Home Run (+400) FanDuel
Baltimore Orioles vs. Colorado Rockies, 8:10 p.m. ET
Cowser has a great chance to come through with a home run tonight as he has a great pitching matchup and also gets the benefit of playing at a home run-friendly venue in Coors Field. While Cowser has not quite been mashing as much as guys like Ohtani and Olson, he has still been decent recently. He has 10 HardHit line-drive + fly-balls in the last two weeks, and three balls launched in the same span, all off of righties.
Cowser is a lefty who you want to target when he is facing right-handed pitching, which is the case tonight. Ryan Feltner is pitching for Colorado, and despite being a Rockies home pitcher, he actually has not been horrible his year at allowing home runs, but he is nobody to be scared of, either.
He has a HR/9 of 1.31 against left-handed hitters, which is slightly below-average. He also throws a 4-seam fastball the majority of the time (41%), and Cowser is the best 4-seam fastball hitter on the Orioles in terms of barrel rate, with an 11.58% barrel rate on the year from 4-seamers from righties.
Over the last month, Cowser has a 17% barrel rate against them, and over the past two weeks, he has seen only five, but what we like is that he swings for the fences when he sees a 4-seamer. In those five at-bats, he struck out three times and launched two balls in the other two at-bats, with a home run and a 390-foot flyout.
After the 4-seamer, he will see a changeup from Feltner 28% of the time, and he has hit changeups hard as well. Cowser has a 16.67% barrel rate and 50% HardHit rate off changeups from RHP over the last two weeks.
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