You know what? I already made an April Fools’ joke in the other piece I wrote for DraftKings Network this morning, so we’re just going to keep things simple in this space. There’s 14 games on the diamond today. Listed below are the bets I like. It’s that straight forward.
We’re 1-1 (-0.4u) for the season so far on article plays. Let’s dive in.
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Boston Red Sox at Oakland Athletics
Joe Boyle Over 2.5 Walks Allowed (+135)
Let’s immediately get weird. Boyle is a very interesting pitching prospect with a huge fastball. In fact, in three starts for Oakland in 2023, Boyle’s average fastball velocity was a whopping 97.9 mph. It’s easy to see why the Athletics are high on the right-hander and, in what’s going to be another lost season for the franchise, it makes sense to get Boyle in the rotation at the MLB level and see if he can’t figure some things out.
However, if there’s a red flag with Boyle, it’s definitely his control. You might even say Boyle has no idea where the ball is going once it leaves his hand. FanGraphs hilariously has the 24-year-old’s command at a 20 or 30 grade and it isn’t difficult to see why when exploring Boyle’s minor league numbers. In 117.1 innings at Double-A and Triple-A last season, Boyle issued 93 walks. You read that right. He faced 522 batters in that sample and walked 17.8% of them. For context, Blake Snell led all qualified MLB pitchers in walk rate in 2023 with a 13.3% mark. Snell started 32 games and walked at least three opponents in 22 of those outings. Maybe things will be different for Boyle, yet I’m willing to take my chances with this prop at plus-money.
Cincinnati Reds at Philadelphia Phillies
Over 8 (-115)
Reds to the over feels like a lean we’ll have a lot this summer, right? Cincinnati is already 3-0 to the over in 2024 after their opening series with the Nationals and I doubt a trip to Citizen’s Bank Park is going to slow the momentum. You might have to take some of these numbers with a grain of salt, due to sample size and Washington’s underwhelming pitching staff, but the Reds are currently slashing .327/.381/.596 with a 142 wRC+ as a team. Nick Martini is hot. Will Benson is hot. Heck, even Luke Maile has a home run to start the season.
On the other side of this matchup are the Phillies, who got out of the gates slowly against the Braves, yet still managed to ruin Max Fried’s ERA for a while this past weekend. Philadelphia has one of baseball’s deepest lineups. That’s not really up for debate. The team should be able to do some damage against Andrew Abbott, who has not looked sharp on an MLB mound for some time. It felt like the league figured out the left-hander towards the end of last season, with Abbott posting a 6.42 ERA across his final 11 starts of 2023. He then followed up those struggles with a very underwhelming Spring Training. Between the slumping sophomore and Cincinnati’s below-average bullpen, there’s not a lot of reason to expect a low-scoring affair.
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is theglt13) and I may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.
