We’re looking away from just HRRs and total bases tonight. Our card’s a smattering of hitters who don’t necessarily appear as the most productive or hottest in August—though some do. We’re attacking the matchups, as always, and playing to the storylines and strengths of some of the league’s best hitters tonight. After a weekend when home runs went crazy, we’ll look to mostly keep the ball in the yard.
Here’s how I’ll play it. I’ll be pumping out props and predictions for individual games all season, with plenty of coverage here on DraftKings Network. Follow my handle @dansby_edits for more betting plays.
Best MLB player prop bets today
| Player prop pick | Odds | Why I like it |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout to draw a walk | -115 | Trout owns a .378 OBP and 16.9% walk rate this season, with a nutters .371 OBP against righties. The bat has gone silent, so he has found other ways aboard via the strike zone. Trout has hit only .214/.346/.310 across his last 53 plate appearances, yet still drew seven walks against 12 strikeouts. That patience meets the perfect opponent in Elmer Rodríguez, who has issued 13 walks across 23 innings. His 12.4% walk rate has bloated his WHIP to 1.52 through five major-league starts. |
| Matt Olson to hit a home run | +275 | Anthony Molina has recorded only 9.1 major-league innings, and he’s sporting a a 5.45 xERA, .355 xwOBA allowed, and an 8.6% strikeout rate. Olson makes his money on pitchers like this, night-in and night-out. His 96.3mph four-seamer accounts for 43.6% of his pitches, and while it has heat, opponents slug .635 and tag a 62.7% hard-hit rate against it. That heater will look as big as the moon to Matt Olson. |
| Junior Caminero 2+ HRR | -145 | Rober Stock’s cutter comprises 38.2% of his arsenal against right-handed hitters, and that pitch has surrendered a monstrous .758 slugging percentage and 57.1% hard-hit rate. Junior Caminero, meanwhile, has produced a .611 xSLG, .778 actual SLG and 22.2% barrel rate against right-handed cutters this season. The matchup fits, quite literally, dear reader, down to the very seam. |
| Jackson Merrill 2+ TB | +100 | Singer throws nearly 50% sinkers, Merrill slugs .574 against them and 92-degree Cincinnati gives every hard fly ball somewhere dangerous to travel. |
| Bryce Harper 2+ TB | +120 | Harper’s .372/.491/.605 heater meets a Pfaadt arsenal that produces only a 16.7% strikeout rate, leaving plenty of contact for two bases. |
In-depth analysis below.
Prop bet analysis
Mike Trout to draw a walk (-115)
Mike Trout’s resurgent 2025 power has all but dissolved into the sky this August, so we’ll attack the walks market. He owns a .378 OBP and 16.9% walk rate this season, including a .371 OBP against righties. He’s trying to get on base any way he can; Trout has hit only .214/.346/.310 across his last 53 plate appearances, and yet he drew seven walks against 12 strikeouts. When the home run swing disappears, the hall-of-fame understanding of the strike zone takes over. It’s always been Trout’s strongest defense against a slump.
Elmer Rodriguez has issued 13 walks across 23 innings, good for a a 12.4% walk rate and part of a bloated 1.52 WHIP through his five major-league starts. Small sample size, but still. His 15.2% strikeout rate keeps long plate appearances live, while his .355 xwOBA allowed should tell you how frequently those counts end badly. Rodriguez throws his sinker 44.6% of the time, followed by a 95.5 mph four-seamer, and two offspeed pitches. He’s not a pitch-count newcomer, either: Rodriguez reached 88 pitches last time out. This means we should expect, reasonably, two or three meetings with Trout, lest the Angels somehow blow Rodriguez up early.
Trout still chases infrequently, which means he reaches deep counts and carries enough veteran menace to make pitchers nibble at the corners. Seven recent walks amid a power drought have me all over this one tonight.
Matt Olson to hit a home run (+275)
Matt Olson’s swing yields some of the most consistently-violent results of his entire career in 2026. He owns 37 homers, a .527 slugging percentage and a .539 SLG against right-handed pitching. His 92.7 mph average exit velocity, 50.5% hard-hit rate, 15.4% barrel rate and 18.3-degree launch angle all span the entire season, and all of these stats suggest a hitter who does nothing but swat lasers. I mean, nearly two-thirds of his batted balls have stayed off the ground. Few hitters create more natural oblivion for a high fastball.
Anthony Molina has recorded only 9.1 major-league innings, and he’s sporting a a 5.45 xERA, .355 xwOBA allowed, and an 8.6% strikeout rate. Olson makes his money on pitchers like this, night-in and night-out. His 96.3mph four-seamer accounts for 43.6% of his pitches, and while it has heat, opponents slug .635 and tag a 62.7% hard-hit rate against it. That heater will look as big as the moon to Matt Olson.
Olson’s recent .200/.273/.300 stretch has kept the number playable, though I never like a home run under +300. Atlanta’s projected run environment is enormous tonight, and Olson’s at the center. He bats third in 91-degree air, with Acuña reaching ahead of him and a San Francisco bullpen carrying a 5.06 ERA over the last week. See ya.
Junior Caminero 2+ HRR (-145)
I wouldn’t want to be Robert Stock tonight, man. He owns a 7.40 ERA and 1.94 WHIP, with 13 walks across only 20.1 innings. His cutter comprises 38.2% of his arsenal against right-handed hitters, and that pitch has surrendered a monstrous .758 slugging percentage and 57.1% hard-hit rate. Junior Caminero, meanwhile, has produced a .611 xSLG, .778 actual SLG and 22.2% barrel rate against right-handed cutters this season. The matchup fits, quite literally, dear reader, down to the very seam.
Otherwise, Caminero enters with a .282/.369/.539 line, 37 homers and elite supporting contact. He’s been even better lately, hitting .360/.418/.520 with only seven strikeouts across his recent dog-day summer surge. Tampa Bay’s got Yandy Díaz and Jonathan Aranda routinely batting ahead of Caminero, giving the third-place slot in the lineup immediate RBI traffic. Stock’s poor control supplies an additional run-scoring path, while his short outings should unleash Caminero upon the clunky Mets bullpen by the middle innings. I know the juice is awful, but Caminero’s plate appearances possess too many productive endings for Stock to survive them all. This feels locky.
Jackson Merrill 2+ TB (+100)
Jackson Merrill’s production profile is such that it’s hard not to totally triangulate Brady Singer into the core of his heatmap. Singer throws 49.6% sinkers, 26% sliders, 15.2% sweepers, and 7% cutters. Merrill has hit .410 with a .574 slugging percentage against sinkers, adding a .529 xSLG. He owns a .500 SLG against sliders, a .513 xSLG against cutters and a 57.1% hard-hit rate against four-seamers. Singer won’t be able to reach the middle of an at bat, let alone the middle innings, without repeatedly entering a pitch family Merrill’s handled with second-half finesse.
Singer’s 4.72 ERA already is deeply vulnerable, and his 5.10 xERA suggests as much. Opponents have lined a .446 xSLG, 90.8 mph exit velocity and 9.5% barrel rate against him in 2026. In what’s forecasted to be 92-degree Cincinnati air.
Merrill’s season line sits at .239/.291/.418, although his expected production runs even hotter: a .257 xBA and .467 xSLG. Not to mention, he has also homered three times across his last 10 games, despite going 8-for-40. That combination describes a hitter whose impact contact is worth the backing of a total bases wager at even money.
Bryce Harper 2+ TB (+120)
Bryce Harper reaches Arizona, at long last, in complete control of the strike zone and the baseball for the 2026 season. He has hit .372/.491/.605 across his last 53 plate appearances, and no one’s talking about it! That line’s to the tune of 16 hits, four doubles, two homers and 10 walks. And still, his full-season quality remains formidable: a .392 xwOBA, .502 xSLG, 44.8% hard-hit rate and 11.2% barrel rate.
Brandon Pfaadt has pitched brilliantly lately, posting a 2.45 ERA and 0.82 WHIP across five August starts. His contact profile explains why total bases fit better than an aggressively priced homer. Pfaadt has allowed only a .385 xSLG, 34.5% hard-hit rate and 7.6% barrel rate, yet his 16.7% strikeout rate continues to grant hitters abundant contact. Harper should see a 92.5 mph four-seamer alongside sinkers, cutters, changeups, and breaking balls. Nothing arrives with overpowering velocity. That’s perfect for a hot hitter who wants to pull the ball to the stratosphere.
That is to say: Pfaadt must sequence six offerings precisely several times against one of baseball’s hottest hitters in order to avoid extra-base hit potential. Chase Field’s closed roof won’t help with mesa-heat carry, but Harper’s current contact doesn’t need even the slightest environmental assistance.
