The Fourth of July was good to us, as we went 2-0 in this space, cashing our Brent Rooker total bases over (he didn’t go yard, but we still made money) along with our Max Scherzer strikeouts under. The full card, which was available both in expert picks page, profited 3.2 units. Let’s dig into today’s top MLB player prop picks and home run bets for Friday, July 5. For more notes on today’s action, check out my slate breakdown on X.
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MLB Player Props & Home Run Picks Today: Friday, July 5
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Bobby Witt Jr.
Few batters in baseball are hotter than Bobby Witt Jr., and the budding superstar now gets to face LHP Kyle Freeland in Coors Field tonight. Freeland is giving up 1.4 xHR/9 through 28.1 IP this season, with RHBs like Witt mashing all four of the actual home runs he has coughed up. Overall, RHBs are slashing .333/.393/.505 versus Freeland.
Despite Witt’s hot bat, the books aren’t respecting him enough as a power hitter. Yes, they’re respecting him enough to have his total bases prop set to 2.5 in Coors, but that generally happens with any star batter, and getting the over 2.5 for +400 at BetMGM, which are far, far too long.
Witt has the same number of actual home runs as Kansas City’s other star slugger, Salvador Perez, at 14. However, Witt leads in expected home runs at 19. Witt playing his home games at Kauffman Stadium has hurt his home run output — he has hit only 13 batted balls that would’ve cleared the fences there versus 21 that would’ve done so at Coors. Yes, 21.
Witt is generally a great buy on the home run markets whenever he is playing outside of Kansas City. Let’s hope he stays hot and benefits from both the higher elevation and shaky pitching matchup. I’ve spread 1.5 units between the total base and home run markets.
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Bobby Witt Jr. home run live odds page!
MLB Player Prop Pick Today: Tanner Bibee
The Cleveland Guardians are hosting the San Francisco Giants today, and it’s RHP Tanner Bibee on the bump for the home team. Bibee boasts a solid 3.26 xERA (76th percentile) and even an impressive 28.5% strikeout rate (86th percentile). While the xERA is on par with last year (3.69), the strikeout rate has shot up from 24.1%. While it’s possible that Bibee is that much better this year, I suspect some regression will come his way.
The Giants aren’t an elite team at avoiding strikeouts, but they’re at least average. San Francisco ranks 15th in strikeouts taken per game (8.2) and is tied for 14th in strikeout rate versus RHP (21.9%). While it’s been a bad last few days, as the Giants have averaged 10.3 strikeouts per game over their last three contests, I’m again banking on some regression to the mean here. San Francisco will figure it out.
Bibee’s strikeout total is set to 6.5 for this game, a number he has cleared in nine of his 17 starts, including five of his last six. The under is trading for odds of between +105 and -115 across the public books. While Pinnacle hasn’t opened the bidding on this one, the off-market +105 at Hard Rock is offering positive expected value (+EV):
OddsShopper’s betting model indexes the odds from across the sports betting market in order to generate a breakeven price for each bet, called “true odds.” Once we’ve done so, we can estimate how much value we’re getting relative to that point.
Here, Bibee’s true odds of staying under 6.5 total strikeouts are calculated to be -106. Most public books are under that number, but not Hard Rock, DraftKings or Fliff.
Our back-tested simulations reveal that bets like this one have been profitable. If you want to know how profitable, you can see for yourself on our results page:
This year, our model has identified 470 strikeout bets with an OS Rating of 5 or higher with at least two hours before game start. We cashed 274 of them on our way to a solid 15.4% ROI.
MLB Player Prop Pick: Tanner Bibee Under 6.5 Total Strikeouts +105 at Hard Rock
For the best price currently available, check out our Tanner Bibee total strikeouts live odds page!
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