Major League Baseball has a full Saturday night of baseball on tap with 28 teams taking the field under the lights. Plus, the Guardians and Royals have a doubleheader with game two in the mix tonight. With so many options on the board, let’s take a look at the best plays from the many home run props available on DraftKings Sportsbook. After examining the environments, matchups, splits and current form, my top home run props for Saturday are from Willson Contreras, Byron Buxton and Francisco Alvarez.
Just a quick reminder before we point to the flagpole and call our shots for Saturday — all home run props are, by nature, long-shot bets. Even the best home run hitters are more likely to not hit a home run in any single game, so home run props are never “safe” picks. While there are some key indicators to consider, there’s never certainty even if every single factor seems to indicate a home run is coming up. Home run props can be a fun part of your betting strategy, but they shouldn’t be heavily relied on due to their extreme volatility.
What makes home run props exciting is that long odds yield big returns when they do hit. It also makes sense to blend these home run props with other picks in SGPs or parlay plays. I also like to play them at a small unit size in round robins, which boosts their ceiling even higher if multiple home run props hit on any given day.
Breaking down the numbers and matchups, here is why I like these three home run props for Saturday night.
Best HR Props on DraftKings Sportsbook
Willson Contreras to record 1+ home runs (+390)
The Cardinals and Padres will play in some of the most homer-friendly weather on the slate on Saturday night with warm, muggy weather and the wind blowing out. Randy Vasquez will start for the Padres and Contreras should be especially fired up to take it to San Diego after being hit by a pitch on Friday that started a bench-clearing confrontation.
Contreras has come out of the break red-hot, and he smashed a home run on Thursday against the Padres:
Contreras is up to 14 homers on the season for the Cardinals, bouncing back after a sluggish start. He has multiple hits in four of his last five contests with five doubles and two home runs over that short stretch.
In those five games, he has a hard-to-believe 86% hard-hit rate with an average exit velocity of 101.9 miles per hour. Those jaw-dropping numbers are definitely a result of a very small sample size, but he’s also locked in right now and should be fired up for this contest.
He’ll go up against Vasquez, who has been solid but not spectacular for the Padres at 3-4 with a 3.73 ERA in his 99 innings. He has allowed 13 homers on the season and doesn’t usually pitch a ton of innings. In his last seven games, he has only lasted 35 2/3 innings and has given up multiple barrels in all but two of those starts, along with a 10.3% barrel rate.
With how oustanding Contreras’ contact has been, he has a good shot to smash Vasquez on Saturday.
Byron Buxton to record 1+ home runs (+215)
I highlighted Buxton in my top MLB DFS plays of the day since he’s in a nice matchup against lefty Mitchell Parker. Buxton has six homers in his last 20 games with a 60.7% hard-hit rate and 23.2% barrel rate.
His last home run came against Shohei Ohtani on Monday:
Most of Buxton’s homers have come on the road, where he has 12 blasts in 43 games. He has a .328 batting average and six of his homers against lefties like Parker.
In his 20 starts, he has given up 13 homers, but seven of those have come in his last seven starts, and during that span, he has a 6.32 ERA and 50.4% hard-hit rate against him.
The odds on Buxton’s home run props aren’t quite as long as I usually prefer, but he’s in a good enough spot to still like the value he brings.
Francisco Alvarez to record 1+ home runs (+650)
Since Buxton’s odds are a little shorter, let’s take a long shot on the last pick in my home run props on Saturday night and roll with Francisco Alvarez, who is an extreme value at +650.
He just came back to the Mets after a month in Triple-A and homered in his second game back last Tuesday.
Alvarez has four homers in the majors this season and three have come in his last 10 games both before and after his demotion. While he was in Triple-A, Alvarez hit seven homers in his last six games in Syracuse, showing plenty of power potential for if there’s a mashable mistake on Saturday night.
Robbie Ray has given up 15 homers on the season with a 2.92 ERA in 21 games, but he has given up eight of those homers in his last six starts and has a 3.50 ERA over that span. Ray has been very good against lefties but righties have hit 13 of the 15 homers off him, including all seven that he has given up at home.
Since Ray has been struggling a little bit, Alvarez could get a pitch to hit on Saturday night, and if he does, he has been hitting the ball well enough to be a strong value play at these very long odds on Saturday night.
