After a feast on Monday, it was a famine on Tuesday. We lost our pick for Francisco Lindor while our bet for Luis Gil voided due to rain. Oh well, we’ll rally today. Let’s get into today’s top MLB player prop picks and home run bets for Wednesday, August 7. For the rest of my notes on today’s action, check out my slate breakdown on X!
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MLB Player Props & Home Run Picks Today: Wednesday, August 7
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Gunnar Henderson
The Toronto Blue Jays will host the Baltimore Orioles tonight, and it’s RHP Bowden Francis taking the bump for them. Francis has not been that effective this year, as his 5.44 xERA (5th percentile) and .278 xBA (9th) suggest. He is even giving up 1.7 xHR/9, which would jump to two if he played every game in the Rogers Centre.
Francis has been worse versus RHBs than LHBs, which bodes poorly for Henderson, but it’s not like he has been lighting the world on fire against lefties. They’re still slashing .241/.323/.398 against him with seven extra-base hits and three home runs in 83 at-bats.
Importantly for our purposes, Henderson is lighting the world on fire versus RHPs. He is slashing .305/.378/.594 against them with 43 extra-base hits and 23 home runs in 318 at-bats. He has mashed 25.8 xHR on the year as well with 24 batted balls that would’ve cleared the fences in Toronto.
Let’s trust Henderson to tally multiple bases (-120 at BetMGM). Even if he can’t go yard against Francis, Toronto’s bullpen has allowed the most home runs (67) and the 10th-most hits (380) this season. We’re just getting too good of a deal for him on these markets to up.
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Gunnar Henderson +475 atGunnar Henderson home run live odds page!
MLB Player Prop Pick Today: Blake Snell
In his last start, LHP Blake Snell recorded a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. He tallied 11 strikeouts and threw 114 pitches. It’s now back-to-back starts for Snell with 100-plus pitches, and the workload will catch up to him eventually. Let’s fade him in this spot against the Washington Nationals.
You may not realize it, but the Nats are good at avoiding strikeouts. They ranked second in the MLB in strikeouts taken per game last year (7.1) and rank sixth this year (7.6). They’re also sixth in strikeout rate versus LHPs on the year (20.1%), but, importantly, they lead the MLB in the metric since the All-Star Break (15.3%).
We’re getting a lot of edge because of my projections, but a market-based approach reveals an edge, too. If you don’t know what that means, read our guide to positive expected value (+EV):
To find +EV, OddsShopper’s sports betting model indexes the odds from across the market. It then calculates the breakeven price for each wager, which we call “true odds.” With that number, we can estimate how much expected value we’re getting.
In this case, the model believes Snell’s true odds of staying under 6.5 total strikeouts are +109. That gives us a sizeable edge relative to the number available at DraftKings. Our back-tested simulations reveal that bets like this one have been profitable.
Wondering how profitable? Check out our results page: AS of yesterday, our model had identified 4,258 strikeout bets with an OS Rating of 2 at any time this year. Of those, 2,417 were winners, producing a 10.7% ROI for bettors who tailed!
MLB Player Prop Pick: Blake Snell Under 6.5 Strikeouts +115 at Blake Snell total strikeouts live odds page!
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