There’s nothing more exciting in baseball than a four-bagger, and with 14 games in action, there should be plenty of those for tonight. Predicting who’s going to hit a home run is usually an exercise in futility, but there’s no harm in trying, right? Here are three players I’m backing to go deep tonight.
You can bet on home run props and so much more at DraftKings Sportsbook if you want to get in on the baseball action.
Best Home Run Props on DraftKings Sportsbook
Christian Walker 1+ Home Runs (+260)
This bet isn’t so much about Walker as it is about Tampa Bay Rays starter Zack Littell, who’s conceded 13 home runs this season, the second-most in the American League. Littell induces a lot of chases and doesn’t walk a lot of batters, but neither of those is particularly relevant to his ability to avoid the long-ball tonight. What is relevant is that Littell has induced whiffs on just 17.6% of swings and ranks in the bottom quintile in hard-hit percentage. Most seasons in his career, he’s also given up a high number of pulled fly balls, the most likely type of hit to result in a home run. His signature slider has less movement than most comparable pitches and he’s given up an expected wOBA of .447 on the pitch.
Of all the Astros, though, Walker is the most likely to take advantage. Although he’s only tied for third on the team in long balls — both Isaac Paredes (7) and Jeremy Peña (6) have hit more — he’s a better bet for tonight than either. He’s posted a .421 slugging percentage against breaking pitches so far this season and hit three of his homers against them, a higher mark in both categories than Peña, who mostly mashes fastballs. Also, although Paredes has hit breaking balls for a better slugging percentage, he has posted just a ninth-percentile swing speed. The extra 5.5 miles per hour in Walker’s bat speed and Paredes’ can be the difference between a homer and a fly-out to the warning track, especially against a slower pitcher like Littell.
Tyler Soderstrom 1+ Home Runs (+310)
Soderstrom’s torrid pace has tailed off recently, as he’s only hit one home run in the last month after opening his season with a league-leading nine in his first 18 games. Still, he has the exact sort of combination you’d want out of a power-hitting, boom-or-bust first baseman. While he chases, whiffs, strikes out, and walks at below-average rates, he ranks in the 78th percentile in bat speed, the 87th percentile in exit velocity, the 91st percentile in hard-hit percentage, and the 89th percentile in barrel percentage. Plus, he’ll be playing at home tonight at Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, which has seen plenty of offense this season, although it’s worth noting that Soderstrom has been better on the road.
More noteworthy than Soderstrom’s home-road splits are his strong platoon splits; so far this season, he has slashed .261/.261/.370 in 46 plate appearances against southpaws and .275/.353/.529 in 156 plate appearances against righties, hitting nine of his 10 homers against righties. Not only is Angels starter Kyle Hendricks a righty, he’s also a pretty washed-up one at 35 years old with a 5.18 ERA and is backed up by the league’s worst bullpen. To be fair, Hendricks ranks in the 92nd percentile in hard-hit percentage and the 97th percentile in average exit velocity, in part because his pitches are so slow, but six of the seven homers he’s given up this season have come against lefties, who have posted an OPS .098 better than their right-handed counterparts against him.
Teoscar Hernández 1+ Home Runs (+500)
Hernández didn’t go yard or even get a hit in his first game back from an adductor injury that cost him two weeks, but it shouldn’t take too long for the 32-year-old Dominican slugger to get back to form. It wasn’t too long ago that Hernández hit four bombs in a five-game span between April 23 and 28, and while he only ranks in the 17th percentile in average exit velocity, his swing speed is above average and he consistently finds the launch-angle sweet spot. He also plays at Dodger Stadium, which has been the most homer-friendly park for right-handed batters over the last three seasons, per Statcast. Plus, at +500, he represents better value than his teammates Shohei Ohtani (+180), Freddie Freeman (+370), and Mookie Betts (+425), given that he’s hit more homers than Freeman or Betts over the last two-plus seasons.
It’s hard to predict much about Ryne Nelson’s performance tonight, given that he’s made just one start and nine relief appearances this season, but in Nelson’s 55 starts between 2022 and 2024, he conceded 43 homers, with a 3.2% homer rate that makes him more long ball-prone than the average MLB pitcher. Nelson also ranks in just the fifth percentile this season in average exit velocity and the 24th percentile in hard-hit percentage. He also throws fastballs on 58.4% of his pitches, and Hernández has posted a .625 slugging percentage and a .417 wOBA this season against fastballs.
