MLB Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 7/21/22
Player props can be useful in a variety of ways -- from taking advantage of them straight up (to the tune of cold hard cash) to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy baseball on FanDuel. Here, we're going to focus on the former.
Utilizing our projections as a guide and looking at the odds provided at MLB odds, here are some spots where you can find value today in the prop-betting market.
Here are some MLB player prop bets to make tonight.
Please note that betting lines and our game projections may change throughout the day after this article is published. Also, the weather may be an issue in some locations.
Aaron Judge To Hit a Home Run (+220)
Giancarlo Stanton To Hit a Home Run (+300)
The New York Yankees get their second half underway with a doubleheader against the Houston Astros.
Baseball is back for the final half of the season and we are starting off with two of the league's best power hitters, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Today, they are going up against Cristian Javier, who is no doubt a good pitcher, but he's also been getting a bit lucky this season.
Javier is allowing a massive 65.2% fly-ball rate to right-handed hitters -- along with a 34.3% hard-contact rate and a 9.3% HR/FB ratio. That fly-ball rate is unbelievably high, yet his HR/FB ratio is a modest 9.3%. The league average for HR/FB ratio versus right-handed hitters this season is 11.7%. Javier could be due for a bit of regression in that area, putting righty hitters in a good spot.
We can then turn to Judge, who owns a 184 wRC+, .427 wOBA, a .337 ISO, a 40.6% fly-ball rate, and a 44.4% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers. Judge is the ideal option to help Javier start seeing some of that regression.
Stanton comes in with much of the same, carrying a 141 wRC+, a .365 wOBA, a .300 ISO, a 37.8% fly-ball rate, and a 40.6% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers.
Jon Gray Over 6.5 Strikeouts (-110)
With a favorable matchup, the over on Jon Gray's strikeout prop is the spot to go.
Gray will be taking on the Miami Marlins today, and that presents a good matchup for Gray to rack up the strikeouts. Gray comes in with a 27.3% strikeout rate, a 12.1% swinging-strike rate, and a 29.8% called plus swinging strike rate (CSW%). He started off the season a bit slow but turned things up to end the first half.
Gray racked up seven-plus strikeouts in 6 of his final 10 starts during the first half of the season. In two of those starts, he posted 10 and 12 strikeouts, showing he has the potential to reach for a big ceiling. We saw his strikeout rate push past 40% in three of those starts -- a level not many pitchers in action today can match.
The Marlins come in with a 22.5% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitchers, which is 15th in the league. Gray has some serious potential today, so I'm also adding Gray 8+ Strikeouts (+162).
