Tonight’s card really wants to see the ball keep leaving the yard, so we’re being aggressive with Dinger Tuesday expectations here. You can find a bunch of my home run parlays in the MLB Dugout Betting Group on your DraftKings app (make sure you play your straights! round robin when necessary, etc.!). The following five plays are the ones I’m heaviest on today in terms of stake.
Here’s how I’ll play the slate. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drake Baldwin 2+ total bases | -130 | Drake Baldwin has cleared two total bases seven times in 10 games. His 91.8 mph EV meets Jake Irvin’s 5.62 ERA & Washington’s collapsing bullpen. |
| Fernando Tatis Jr. 2+ total bases | -145 | Fernando Tatis Jr. is slugging .573 against lefties with 92.8mph EV, and Nick Lodolo’s 6.58 xERA should get destroyed in 94-degree Great American with a 122 homer factor and an 8.57 bullpen ERA behind him. |
| Junior Caminero to hit a home run | +275 | Junior Caminero’s 37 homers and .516 pitch-weighted xSLG against Manaea’s arsenal meet a middling starter on a skid; Manaea’s given up four-plus runs in three straight starts. |
| Cal Raleigh to hit a home run | +360 | Cal Raleigh’s got seven homers in 10 games and 98.7mph EV against Paez’s pitch mix, whose three MLB innings yielded 23.1% barrels and a .786 xSLG. |
| Munetaka Murakami to hit a home run | +300 | Munetaka Murakami has bludgeoned 23 homers in 307 PAs against righties. Ronel Blanco, on the other hand, has a 7.71 ERA, and has allowed .589 slugging to lefties. This includes three Triple-A homers surrendered in 7.1 innings during his didn’t-figure-it-out demotion. |
In-depth analysis below.
Best MLB player prop bets today: analysis
Drake Baldwin 2+ total bases (-130)
Second-year player though he may be, Drake Baldwin has reached the point where he’ll rake consistently, and the matchup only needs to cooperate. Baldwin owns a 91.8 mph average exit velocity, 51.5% hard-hit rate, and 12.8% barrel rate on the season. He’s churned through 21 total bases across his last 10 games, and cleared this very line seven times, hence the disappointing juice. His SL .300/.382/.493 slash against righties makes this recent surge so much easier to trust at this beggar’s price point.
Jake Irvin gives me confidence this won’t blow up in our faces. Irvin’s logged a 5.62 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, and 1.54 HR/9. After a particularly rough one last time out, his home ERA has climbed above 7.00.
Baldwin carries a .530 pitch-weighted xSLG against Irvin’s arsenal. He has slugged .525 against four-seamers and .506 against sinkers, with hard-hit rates above 56% against both shapes.
Washington cannot reliably extinguish Baldwin after Irvin leaves, either. Its bullpen owns baseball’s worst recent ERA, while the temperature should reach the low 90s. Baldwin also projects atop Atlanta’s order, creating a strong chance at five plate appearances. It’s worth the cost.
Fernando Tatis Jr. 2+ total bases (-145)
Fernando Tatis Jr. enters Cincinnati having bent the summer toward his very own superstardom, just not with the intensity of, say, a PCA. He owns a 92.8 mph average exit velocity and 53.7% hard-hit rate on the season, after a start that saw him go on a biblical home run drought. His SLG% against left-handed pitching sits at .573. And big lefty Nick Lodolo offers no pitch that materially weakens Tatis’s pure swing. His premier spot in the Padres lineup should also deliver four or five swings.
Tatis boasts approximately a .500 wxSLG against Lodolo’s full pitch mix/arsenal. It hasn’t been a great year for Lodolo: he’s allowed a .496 xSLGa and .384 xwOBA while pitching to the cacophonous tune 6.58 xERA. His second-half ERA is now 7.83. His fastball gets obliterated when it misses locations, and his breaking pitches have stopped looking juicy to hitters.
Great American Ball Park, too! We love that. Temperatures are forecasted around 94 degrees, and the park’s home-run factor even in neutral weather sits around 122 on the season. Cincinnati’s bullpen affords even longer leash for this bet to hit even after Lodolo gets the hook. It ranks 28th entering the slate, and posted an 8.57 ERA over the previous week.
Tatis has averaged 2.2 total bases across his last 10 games. He can clear this with one swing, yet his speed and line-drive pedigree, as always, preserve multiple-hit paths.
Junior Caminero to hit a home run (+275)
Junior Caminero’s sitting pretty on 37 home runs for the season, and we’ll take him to go yard again even against Sean Manaea tonight. SL, Caminero is batting .282 with a .536 slugging percentage. He’s currently on a 14-game hitting streak and is one of the AL’s best power hitters. He’s easy to click.
As far as his opponent’s arsenal goes, Sean Manaea attacks with four-seamers 38.3% of the time, sweepers 30.8%, sinkers 19.7%, and cutters 7.7%. Caminero’s xSLG against those pitches, respectively, is elite except for the sweeper: .620, .401, .511, and .537. Go ahead and average/weight those results out against Manaea’s usage, and you get a .516 matchup xSLG for the matchup tonight.
Manaea’s had a good second half, and he’s lowered his ERA to 4.55, but still has an expected ERA closer to 4.80. Even with the improvements, he’s allowed at least four earned runs in three straight starts. His fastball remains especially meaty against Caminero’s swing path. Only Manaea’s sweeper, his best counter, could erase Caminero completely tonight. And, even still, Caminero’s done decent damage against it. Give me a souvenir.
Cal Raleigh to hit a home run (+380)
When Boston replaced Sonny Gray with Jedixson Paez, Raleigh’s chances to keep his power surge going improved drastically. Paez has thrown only three major-league innings, so calling that a certainty would be a silly thing to do. But, in fairness, across those innings hitters still went nuts: 95.3 mph exit velocity, 23.1% barrel rate, .786 xSLG, and zero strikeouts.
His minor-league profile is that of a flamethrower, so this isn’t all a perfect square. Paez struck out 30.8% of hitters and walked only 2.9% across 61.1 innings in the minors this year. He also, however, allowed a 19.6% HR/FB rate. So, sure—he can mow lineups down, but once he gets solved, the ball gets tattooed.
Enter Raleigh, who’s finally obliterating mistakes after PCA slapped the Big Dumper—Big Dumper’s dumper, I suppose—in August. His last 10 batted balls have yielded a 98.7 mph EV, 70% hard contact, 40% barrels. Six of those ten have been in the air. He’s gone yard seven times in the L10 games, and averaged 3.3 total bases.
Cool, damp Fenway weather trims my enthusiasm considerably, but not all the way. Still, all he’s gotta do is clear the Monster.
Munetaka Murakami to hit a home run (+300)
Munetaka Murakami’s recent box scores look quiet and potentially figured-out—I know. But the underlying power is still there. Let us not for get that, on his rookie season, which has included an injury stint, he has hit 29 home runs across 447 plate appearances. Against right-handed pitching, that drills down to 23 homers in 307 trips, a 7.49% home-run rate per plate appearance.
Ronel Blanco might help the box score look better for Mune tonight. Blanco’s got an outright-bad 7.71 ERA, 5.42 xERA, 11.8% barrel rate allowed, and .469 xSLGA. Left-handed hitters like Murakami’ve clocked a .589 SLG against him this year. His figure-it-out demotion earlier in the summer solved little, maybe even nothing. Blanco surrendered 12 earned runs and three homers across 7.1 AAA innings.
Murakami’s pitch-weighted xSLG against Blanco’s full arsenal lands near a stratospheric .542. However, Blanco throws four-seamers and curves almost half the time, and those are precisely the two shapes Murakami still sees the best. In his last ten batted balls in play against those two pitches, Mune’s got a 97.5 mph EV, 60% hard-hit rate, 50% blasts, and 30% barrels. Two home runs in that sample size, too.
Ignore the strikeout rate for tonight. If anything, it helps narrow Murakami’s successful outcomes toward serious damage of the souvenir variety.
