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By Matt Modi
Sports Betting Writer
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With MLB back in full swing after a modest five-game slate yesterday, that gives us ample MLB player props to bet on.
For Friday, August 2, we will be diving into the MLB home run betting market and giving out our favorite MLB player prop picks and predictions.
Corey Seager to Hit a Home Run (+300) FanDuel
Boston Red Sox vs. Texas Rangers, 8:05 p.m. ET
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Seager has admittedly been a frustrating bet this season to hit a home run as he has been inconsistent. But he has been hitting better recently and has an excellent matchup against Kutter Crawford that makes him a great bet today.
For starters, Crawford has been horrendous recently. Looking at his last 10 starts, he has a HR/9 of 2.77, which is the worst HR/9 of all qualified pitchers since June 1. In those 10 starts he has allowed a whopping 17 home runs, while also allowing a barrel rate of 14.7%, launch angle of 19.5 degrees and average exit velocity of 90.1MPH.
From there, Crawford is worse against left-handed hitters. On the year, he has allowed 13 home runs to lefties and nine against righties, in roughly an equal number of ABs. The biggest difference in his splits that has caused him to allow more home runs to LHH is his fly-ball rate increases roughly 10%, from 43.4% against RHH to 53.2% against LHH. For reference, that would be the worst fly-ball rate in MLB if extrapolated out to all qualified pitchers.
Looking at Seager, for as frustrating as he has been on the season, he has actually been hitting pretty well recently. He has a .260 ISO rate over the past month against right-handed pitching, and even more recently he has three barrels in his last four games and four HardHits in his last game. Crawford's top two most frequent pitches thrown are (in order) 4-seam fastballs and cutters, both of which Seager hits well. He has an ISO rate of .222 against 4-seamers and .278 against cutters.
Mark Vientos to Hit a Home Run (+325) BetMGM
New York Mets vs. Los Angeles Angels, 9:38 p.m. ET
For this one, we are backing a hot batter in Vientos, while also backing the fact that he crushes the pitch-mix of the pitcher he is going up against: left-handed Tyler Anderson of the Angels. Vientos has hit a home run in back-to-back games, but he also had the day off yesterday, so that is not something to completely scare you off taking him today, and he has been awesome since July 1.
He has hit six total home runs since July 1, with an ISO rate of .272 and a barrel rate of 19.7% in this stretch, which are both "excellent" numbers, as defined by FanGraphs. He is also much better against lefties in general, with an ISO rate of .346 against LHP, up from .240 against RHP. He is hitting .359 against LHP, with a slugging of .705, OPS of 1.110 and wOBA of .467, all of which are fantastic numbers.
As for Anderson, he is not a great pitcher in general, but the biggest issue for him against Vientos is his pitch-mix. Anderson throws a 4-seam fastball, which is his most common pitch, 40.5% of the time, and Vientos is one of the best 4-seam hitters in the MLB. He has an ISO rate of .426 against 4-seam FBs, and an ISO rate of .368 against changeups, which Anderson throws 37% of the time.
Gunnar Henderson to Hit a Home Run (+475) BetMGM
Baltimore Orioles vs. Cleveland Guardians, 7:10 p.m. ET
The guess here is that people are tired of Henderson and mad at him for the slump he has been on, but the reality is this dude has been hitting nukes recently. He has a combined seven HardHits in his last two games, with an average exit velocity of 107.3 two games ago and 103 last game. He has been annihilating the baseball, and last game he finally got the launch angle up as well, up to 22.9 degrees.
So, while he has not yet hit a home run since the All-Star break, he is hitting .294 overall with a HardHit rate of 53.7% in that same stretch. His issue was being unable to barrel the ball up and unable to get a high enough launch angle, which seems to have been corrected based off yesterday's performance. He had four HardHits on Thursday, including one barrel, plus the 103 average exit velocity mentioned earlier.
It looks as though he is coming out of his home run slump, and he has a great matchup today to crush one against Carlos Carrasco of the Guardians. Carrasco's most frequent pitch thrown is a slider, against which Gunnar has an ISO rate of .435 and a batting average of .306. His second-most common pitch is a 4-seam FB, and Henderson has a .260 ISO rate against 4-seamers.
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