In his first season with the Padres, right-handed pitcher Michael King has a walking problem. We’ll try to take advantage of that by backing Arizona’s most patient batter this season, lefty Joc Pederson, to go over his walks prop.
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In 36 innings so far this season (7 games, 6 starts), King walks batters from both sides of the plate at an alarmingly high 13% clip (5.25 per nine innings, career worst). While he should see some positive regression to his walk rate, he’s still projected for an elevated 10% walk rate this season.
Splits-wise, King is walking mostly left-handed batters (an absurdly high 16.5% rate) but also a fair share of righties (9.6%). King had an overall lowish 7.4% walk rate last year while still with the Yankees (2.75 per nine, mostly as a reliver) but he did walk 9.3% of lefties. Thus, his high walk rate against left-handed batters this year doesn’t seem to be a fluke, even if it’s likely to regress.
King’s walks prop for today’s matchup against Arizona sits at 2.5 (the over at +130) so Vegas expects him to issue at least a couple of walks. Given King’s rates, a left-handed batter is likely to for one of these walks.
Joc Pederson has the highest walk rate on Arizona’s roster to start the season (15.1%), and he’s a great candidate to walk against King in tonight’s matchup. Pederson had a 13.1% walk rate against right-handed pitchers last year and an even better 15.4% rate against left-handed pitchers.
He’s off to a great start to the year walking-wise, walking at an even better 14.6% rate against right-handed pitchers to start the year and at an unsustainable 25% rate against left-handed ones. While his overall walk rate is expected to decrease moving forward (most projection systems have him at roughly 11% for the year), it will most likely be the result of a greater regression to his walk rate against left-handed pitchers, and less so against right-handed ones. Altogether, it’s clear that Pederson is patient at the plate.
Pederson had at least one walk in 10 out of 28 games this season, though he’s currently in a mini drought after not walking in each of the last six games. Today’s matchup against King is a great opportunity for Joc Pederson to break out of his walk slump though, and we’ll back him to do just that at odds of +115.
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Best MLB Prop Bet Today: Joc Pederson over 0.5 walks (+115 at DraftKings)
