MLB Prop Tracker (July 21)

The MLB All-Star game and the NBA season are now in our rear-view mirrors. Baseball is the main game in town for another month or so until the NFL season starts. For those just joining the baseball betting pool from NBA, we have just as many opportunities to take advantage of soft prop numbers in baseball as we did during the basketball season.

One of my favorite markets to play in for MLB props is the pitcher strikeout totals. At FTN Daily and FTN Bets, we post strikeout projections every day. Using our FTNBets Prop Shop tool, I compare our projections to the listed prop numbers and prices to find my plays for the day. Some days you will have a few big differences. Other days you may only find one that is well above or below our projected number.

Wednesday, I found two worth playing at prices that make sense to take a shot on. 

Adam Wainwright over 6.5 strikeouts (+130, FanDuel Sportsbook)

The Cardinals take on the Chicago Cubs Wednesday in a division game. Adam Wainwright is in a good position to put up numbers. He projects for the second-most innings on the slate, which is always a positive when you are taking the over on any pitcher. Wainwright also projects for 7 strikeouts, which is the exact number we need to cash. Projections tend to take an average of multiple outcomes blended together, but that does not mean they are always going to go over 50% of the time and under 50% of the time. I project Wainwright’s chance of going over to be 48.3%. At odds of +130, the books are projecting him to get over 6.5 strikeouts only 43.4%. That means we have an edge on this number of 5%, even though at under 50% it is more likely to lose than win. While it is more likely to lose than win, the payout at this +130 number still makes it a very good long-term play as it would be long-run profitable to keep taking this bet over and over if we feel it will cash 48.3% of the time and pay +130 when it does. I would play this number even if drops to +115, but below that your edge shrinks to under 1% and I’d rather not chase it that far down. 

Eli Morgan over 3.5 strikeouts (-128, BetMGM)

Eli Morgan is only projected to go 5.1 innings, and that is always scary when betting an over on strikeout props. That said, we project him to go well over 3.5 at a number of 5.1. At this number, I would have been interested even if the payout was anywhere below -140, but the -128 on BetMGM feels way too low here. We have a lot of places where the number is 4.5 strikeouts and the projection is 5.1 or 5.2. To go over 4.5 would mean we need 5 or more and that leaves very little room for error. With Morgan, we need 4 strikeouts to cash this and we project him for over 5. That’s a sizeable enough margin that I do not even mind paying a little extra juice at -128, because over the long run you can still churn profits with how often we project him to cash this.