MLB Prop Tracker (July 7)

With NBA season winding down, I will be doing a few more MLB prop bets as I transition over. Today, I decide to give our regular boys a breather and step in to write the MLB prop of the day.

Strikeout projections for Wednesday day’s starting pitchers

The tools we have at FTN are amazing and I wanted to show you how I use those tools for my own MLB plays. The one I want to talk about here is our pitching model on FTNDaily. Our pitching model has many projections for various stats, but one I use often is the projected Ks. Once I have the projected strikeouts, I have my baseline to start looking for good numbers and prices to play or play against.

Finding the best price to bet on any prop

Step two in the process for me is to use our free FTN Prop Shop tool to find the best price and number. I just go down the strikeout projection list and type in the names of each pitcher. The prop shop will then spit out the number of strikeouts needed to cash over or under on each different sportsbook available and a price for betting on each side. You will see this is a prop market where the number of strikeouts and the payouts for the same number of strikeouts will differ quite a bit, so shopping around in this market creates an advantage all by itself.

How do you find a good strikeout prop bet?

The rule of thumb I have used is 10% or better for an even money bet and 20% or better is I have to lay -110 or greater. So to use Wednesday as an example, the prop shop link above is from my research on Sonny Gray of the Cincinnati Reds. We project Gray for 6.8 strikeouts Wednesday. We can find his pitching prop at O/U 5.5 strikeouts with the over paying +110 to +120. One site even has it listed at O/U 6.5 strikeouts for +140. I decided to make this wager on BetMGM, because it was paying +120 for the over 5.5 Ks. We need to get at least 6 strikeouts to cash this, and our projection of 6.8 Ks is more than 10% above that number. Again, we are also getting paid +120 here. If it was 6.8 projection, 5.5 K prop and a -120 payout, I would be staying away. With an edge of more than 15% on our projection against the number needed to cash and a payout 20% above even money, it makes this a wager worth taking.