What better way to shake off the vicious wounds of the football slate than by diving right in for some MLB picks action? Between the MLB DFS slate and some excellent looking MLB player props for Game Five of the World Series, there’s plenty of action for a Sunday evening. The Series rolls on after the Rays truly unbelievable comeback, walking Game Four off in chaotic style.
The Dodgers will be looking to take the series lead back with ace Clayton Kershaw on the hill, while the Rays are countering with an excellent starter of their own in Tyler Glasnow, in what is a repeat of the Game One matchup. The pitching should be set to suppress offense somewhat early on, before the teams begin to mix and match and jockey for position with their bullpens.
[PUMPKIN]
As always, I’m working with my home run model as well as my pitching model for the power and strikeout props, while making sure the analysis aligns with stats and with Awesemo’s fantasy point projections. If he’s projecting a low DraftKings total for a pitcher, you can rely on the notion that I won’t be predicting that pitcher to blast through a strikeout prop.
If you like to place bets and you’re yet to visit OddsShopper, you’d just doing it wrong. The site lays out the entire day of betting action for all of the major sports, provides individual game dashboards and helps you track odds across multiple books so you can be sure to get your money in on the best opportunity for the bets you like. Even if you’re just wagering with friends by text message during football Sunday, like some of us, the site is great for quick checks of odds that your buddies may have wrong.
MLB Picks, Player Props & Best Bets: Home Runs & Strikeouts
Max Muncy – Home Run: +400
Max Muncy ranks third overall in my home run model for tonight’s game. With the Rays drawing Clayton Kershaw we’re seeing a little bit more power on the Dodgers side of the ledger, though with the matchup against Glasnow it’s pretty close on both sides. Hunter Renfroe would be my choice from the Rays side of things, given his ridiculous upside in the platoon split. Since we have far more pinch hit risk with the Renfroe pick, and because I don’t want to go to the Cody Bellinger or Mookie Betts well, we’re going with big Max.
Muncy showed continued excellence at the plate through his 248 plate appearances in 2020, hitting 12 home runs and putting up a .251/.374/.515 slash. He’s hit exactly 35 home runs in each of the previous two seasons as well, putting up a monster .319 ISO in 2018 and a .265 mark in 2019.
Muncy hit 64 of his 87 career home runs against right-handed pitching. For his career, he has a .229/.358/.477 slash with a .248 ISO and a WRC+ 25% above average. Over the course of 57.1 innings in 2020, Tyler Glasnow allowed 11 home runs, though only three of them were yielded to lefty bats in only 10 fewer opportunities. For his career, Glasnow has allowed the longball more to same-handed hitters, putting up a 1.54 HR/9 compared to a 1.01 HR/9 mark against lefties. The matchup isn’t easy, but it’s one of my preferred home run spots on the board overall and we’re getting a good price.
Tyler Glasnow – Under 7.5 Strikeouts: -143
(Note: If you want the Over take it at Sugar House or DraftKings at +112)
This is another tough call of a strikeout prop bet. Vegas has been sharp with dropping these right around the projection, making MLB picks difficult through this Series, though this time around I’m getting a bit more headroom between the strikeouts I project Glasnow for and the mark he hast to hit to pay this prop bet. We did just see Glasnow blow through eight Dodgers hitters in only 4.1 innings in Game One, though he needed 112 pitches to do it, which could impact his overall workload tonight.
Glasnow is an excellent strikeout option, for 2020 he put up a monster 38.2% strikeout rate in his 57.1 innings, following up the 33.0% mark he posted in 60.2 innings in 2019. Glasnow has been good against both hands for his career, posting a 27.5% strikeout rate against lefties and a 29.4% mark against same-handed hitters. The righty fireballer relies on what is essentially a two-pitch arsenal, weaponizing his 97 mph four-seamer and a ludicrous curveball to generate a ton of swing and miss. 33 of Glasnow’s strikeouts this season came on the fastball, the other 58 on the curve, a pitch with an ungodly 2,939 spin rate and a 52.8% whiff mark.
The Dodgers were excellent against right-handed pitching through 2020. They led the league with a .240 ISO and had a WRC+ 26% above average in the split, with a .259/.338/.498 team slash and struck out just 20.2% of the time, second-best in baseball behind the Astros in the split. Since the start of the 2017 season, the Dodgers active roster has just a 20.9% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching, the fifth best in baseball. This is going to be a close one, I’ll take the Dodgers side between their ability to limit the strikeout and the possibility of getting to Glasnow and chasing him early with their overall quality against righties.
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