At long last, the MLB playoffs are here, and just two days after becoming the final team to secure their place in the postseason tournament, the Houston Astros will open their playoff run with a best-of-three Wild Card series against the Chicago White Sox. Despite finishing with a record three games worse, Houston will host all three games after winning the mediocre AL West. The winner will face the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS.
Still, if the Astros want to make a run to their third title in the last decade, they’ll need historic production from Yordan Álvarez, who is likely to win the American League MVP Award this season. Álvarez slashed .316/.432/.601 this season with 42 home runs and 106 RBI’s, narrowly missing out on becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Miguel Cabrera in 2012.
Game 1 is set to begin at 5 p.m. ET. Chicago will opt for a bullpen game, and AJ Blubaugh will open for Houston.
The Astros are -123 favorites for tonight’s matchup at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the run total set to 8. The White Sox are +102 on the Moneyline.
Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bet centered around Álvarez.
Best Yordan Álvarez Prop Bet on DraftKings Sportsbook
Yordan Álvarez 1+ Walks (Batter) (-115)
Álvarez has an effortless power stroke, but arguably the most impressive aspect of his game is his elite plate discipline. He led all of baseball with 109 walks this season, two more than Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, and he ranked fifth league-wide in walk rate. All in all, the Cuban drew at least one walk in 80 of his 158 games, including four of his final six. He also ended the season on a 12-game hitting streak, so opposing pitchers might be afraid to pitch to him; if there’s a man on second with one out, trying to induce third hitter Isaac Paredes to hit into a double-play is a much better proposition than pitching to Álvarez.
The White Sox’s pitching staff had some control issues. Although Chicago’s walk rate improved from 11.1% in the first half of the season to 8.6% after the All-Star break, it still issued the third-most walks in baseball for the season as a whole, and overall, the White Sox’s staff threw pitches in the zone at a below-average rate. Plus, although Álvarez’s chase rate (54th percentile) was his biggest relative weakness, Chicago’s pitchers incentivized chases at the eighth-lowest frequency. It depends on the exact combination of pitchers that Will Venable uses, but five of the relievers on the White Sox’s projected playoff roster are right-handed, and Álvarez had a walk rate more than twice as high against righties than lefties.
