MLB DW Bets - April 10th
We begin an organized betting attack!
IT’S FREE CONTENT FRIDAY. The web app is fully open for all! Just use the password “friday” (case shouldn’t matter) and it will let you in. That’ll show you the PRO tools as well. But that password will only work on Fridays. I hope. If it works tomorrow, let me know. HONOR CODE!
We are firmly two weeks into the season now. The betting content has been light so far. There are two reasons for that.
I have been crazy busy getting everything working and maintaining the fantasy baseball and DFS stuff, which takes priority
It’s not the smartest thing in the world to bet in the early weeks of the season before we have real data or bet tracking results
And I still don’t have a bet tracker up. That starts today, so it will take a couple more weeks to have decent results on that.
I realized a bug in my code. My script had been reading betting lines from games currently in process. So that massively throws off any potential bet tracker. But I’ve fixed that, and I have a new way of tracking now anyway that should work better.
So let’s try this out.
PIRATES / CUBS
I wrote this one up for the Action Network, so I’ll throw that in here. The lines may have changed, but what I locked in as my pick was:
→ Pick: Under 1.5 Home Runs + Shota Imanaga H2H Strikeouts Winner (-105 Parlay)
The under 1.5 homers was -180 when I got it, and Imanaga is a huge favorite to have more strikeouts than Mlodzinski. I got it for -105.
If there were infinite hours in the day, I could closely examine a bunch of games a day and find angles like that. And that would be enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind that life at all. To do eight hours of baseball writing every day, from whatever angle it needed to be at.
But we can’t do that, so we’re going to be relying on projections. Good news for us - we have projections here!
I also have a personal subscription to The Bat X projections. And I’ve made myself some tools and sheets that use them in conjunction with my own. But I can’t share those out, because that would be me re-selling someone else’s work, and that would be illegal at worst and just a really crappy thing to do at best.
I’m talking to Derek just to make sure he’s cool with me citing a few things here and there in this article. I haven’t heard back yet. I’m going to go for it today, and then if he says no, I won’t do that any longer.
PROP PICKS
The way the sheet/app works is to calculate what my projection model would make the bet price, and then compare it to what you’re actually getting.
That automatically creates larger differences in the more spread-out markets like home runs and stolen bases. Here’s a look:
So we have Matt Shaw over 0.5 homers for +2200 on FanDuel as the best bet. My model would say that should be +951. Home run picks from this PIT@CHC game are popping a bunch. And that brings us to another unique situation.
My projection model does account for weather, but we get these certain days in Wrigley Field, particularly where I must not be accounting for it quite enough.
The books are crazy low on home run production in Wrigley today. That doesn’t necessarily mean their weather report is better than what I’m doing. They set their prices based on what they anticipate the bettors to do, not on what the exact proper projection is.
Bettors are swarming unders on that game. The game total is like 6.5, a ridiculous number.
I also checked The Bat X, and yes - the home run projections are very, very low there. Much lower than mine. I don’t actually recommend taking any of those bets today.
The other one we’ll see a lot of at the top of the list are stolen base bets.
We’ll begin tracking these, as I said. But you do seem to get some advantageous prices on these. Konnor Griffin is actually above +1000 on DraftKings. I grabbed that one.
Dylan Beavers is another good example. He hasn’t attempted a steal yet this year, but he was a 31-steal guy in 2024 and a 25-steal guy last year with 20% attempt rates. He shouldn’t be +1250.
HOME RUN BETS
Only one really pops in the numbers to me. And that’s Ketel Marte (+540 on DraftKings). He gets a matchup with a lefty, which is always good for Marte. Splits can be finicky year-to-year, but the bigger sample bears it out for Marte.
→ Career vs. LHP: 4.2% HR%
→ Career vs. RHP: 2.9% HR%
HR% = HR/PA
That is a large difference. And Luzardo is no stranger to giving up the taco. It’s 65 degrees with winds blowing out in Philly, so it’s not a Wrigley situation where the prices are dropped becaus of the weather.
OTHER PROJECTION-BASED EDGES
Carmen Mlodzinski Under 14.5 Outs (+130 on MGM)
Check out our friends at PropFinder.app to do some line shopping.
Mlodzinski has looked okay this year, but he’s still eclipsed five innings in just three of his 19 big league starts. He probably won’t give up a long ball today, which could help, but he just doesn’t have answers after he goes through the batting order the second time. The Pirates' bullpen is fresh after an off-day, and honestly, I think they’ll just stop even letting him get into the lineup the third time. There’s no reason to do it, he’s shown over and over again that he falls apart after that second time through.
Ildemaro Vargas Under 0.5 Strikeouts +120
Best line available now might be +105 on MGM. You can’t even get even these hitter K prop UNDERS on DraftKings… cowards. But there it is on MGM for you. My fair price would be -190, The Bat X would be a -115. Nice value buy there.
Jake Irvin Over 4.5 Strikeouts +130
He’s not a good pitcher, but the projections know that. And this price isn’t right. The Bat makes it +114, my model makes it -103. Grabbing +130 is nice for basically a coin flip bet.
Yordan Alvarez Under 0.5 Strikeouts +125
He’s lined up against Emerson Hancock, who has been good in his two starts. But both projection systems would price for even money. Slight edge on Yordan to not go down on strikes.
Jorge Soler Under 0.5 Hits +117
The Angels take on the nearly untouchable Chase Burns. Soler is boom-or-bust. He’s not a dude who racks up base knocks. There’s home run potential since the game’s in Cincy. But the guy is almost a sure thing to go down on strikes once, and we’re liking his chances of an “o-for” tonight.
He should be suspended, though. He’s appealing it and projected to be in the lineup tonight, but maybe that appeal response will drop this afternoon and he’ll start the suspension tonight.
There it is! I’m hoping that Trevor chips in and helps me out with this. We’re hoping to get some prop bet picks out for big slates. It might end up being a part of the SLATE PREVIEW post most days. So check that out, it’s not only DFS stuff in that thing.
I also just might separate DFS & betting out into its own “section” so people can opt to unsubscribe if they’re only season-long players. I probably will actually do that. You’ll be automatically subbed to it and you won’t have to do anything, but other people will be able to back out if they’re not interested in the daily stuff.
where do I put in that password to access the paywall material?