Game Three of the World Series was a bit of a Dodgers’ romp, with the team getting out to an early lead and never looking back. Starting pitcher Walker Buehler was firing on all cylinders, putting up a dynamite six inning start with a whopping 10 strikeouts, blowing through the prop bet we looked at for MLB picks yesterday, putting us at 2-1 on the strikeout props for the Series. Home runs and hits props have been more difficult to nail down so far, but we’ll get there before the season is up.
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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
Julio Urias – Under 5.5 Strikeouts: -150
This is another very close one in my pitching model and a great line by Vegas. Urias is closer to 5.5 strikeouts than Buehler and Snell were to their respective lines, this is a tough call but I think I prefer the under despite Tampa Bay’s struggles avoiding the strikeout against lefty pitching. For his career, Urias has a 23.2% strikeout rate, which fell to just 20.1% for his 2020 season. He’s matched up against a Rays squad that finished the year with the worst strikeout rate in baseball against lefties, at 28.1%.
Part of the issue with Urias breaking through the 5.5 mark is the question about exactly how long he’ll be in the game. Urias is a pitcher with somewhat unpredictable utilization in the past, though he did make it through six innings five times in 2020, with another two starts going into the sixth. The issue is more the spot, if the young hurler gets into trouble early it would not be surprising to see a quicker than normal hook.
The other question mark is purely about the strikeout upside. Despite pitching a fair amount of innings in many of his 2020 starts, Urias only broke the 5.5 mark twice. He’s only done it four times in 18 starts in his career so far. To get there today, Urias is likely going to have to get through this lineup at least two full times. Of the first four hitters in the Rays starting lineup, only Mike Brosseau struck out more than 20% of the time against lefties this season. Brosseau put up an admittedly ugly 29.8% strikeout rate in the split, but Yandy Diaz was at just 15.6% (18.2% career), Arozarena was at just 8.7% (11.1% career) and Manny Margot was at just 12.5% (18.5% career). The goldmine for strikeouts exists from five through nine in this order, three of the five hitters have career strikeout rates over 30% in the split. This one is going to be very close and will come down entirely to how long Urias is able to stay in the game.
Kevin Kiermaier – Under 0.5 hits: +112
Kevin Kiermaier is a high-quality Major League outfielder but he’s never been what I would call a good hitter. The lefty has a lifetime .248/.307/.413 slash with a 21% strikeout rate. Against lefties for his career, Kiermaier drops to .245/.297/.365 while his strikeout rate climbs to 24.7% with an atrocious .288 wOBA. The career numbers against lefties are actually bolstered to a degree by a .315 batting average on balls in play, which means Kiermaier is likely somewhat worse at scratching out hits against fellow southpaws and has gotten slightly lucky to get to these marks.
For his career, Dodgers starter Julio Urias has held 280 left-handed hitters to a .218/.319/.389 slash with a .308 wOBA, while striking out 26.4% of them. Kiermaier should see a full complement of plate appearances and might get one or two against the bullpen later in the game, but we have a good shot at Urias taking the bat out of his hands for two of his appearances at least. With a hitter whose proposition normally falls around “somewhat unlikely” I’m happy to take the added edge the lefty pitcher offers us.
Mookie Betts – Home Run: +390
The 2018 AL-MVP makes his debut in the MLB Picks column today with a good price on his chances to hit a home run for us. The superstar outfielder had another high-end season in 2020, putting up a .292/.366/.562 slash with a .269 ISO and 16 home runs in just 246 plate appearances. For his career, Betts has hit 155 home runs in 3,875 opportunities, 34 of them coming against left-handed pitching in just 925 plate appearances.
Rays starter Ryan Yarbrough has never struggled with the home run ball, putting up a 0.99 HR/9 for his brief career so far. In 2020, Yarbrough allowed five home runs in 55.2 innings pitched, though in a somewhat meaningless small sample oddity, he’s yielded three in just 10.2 innings in this postseason. We’re getting a good price on Mookie’s home run upside partly because of the pitcher’s ability to limit home runs in general, for his career, Yarbrough has just a 0.98 HR/9 against right-handed hitters. The Rays bullpen was even more impressive limiting power, despite pitching the third most innings in baseball in 2020, with 269.2, the Rays relievers allowed just 26 home runs, tied for fifth-best in baseball.
Still, Betts is one of the top players in the game in my home run model, on either side, and if we’re picking someone we could do worse than a player who is universally regarded as one of the best in baseball.
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