3 MLB Player Prop Bets to Target on Monday 5/1/23
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 MLB odds at FanDuel Sportsbook, 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.
Matt Chapman To Hit a Home Run (+330)
With a big 10.0-run over/under, we should see plenty of runs when the Toronto Blue Jays visit the Boston Red Sox.
There are bad pitchers on the mound, a great park for hitters, and a bit of wind blowing out to left field. It's basically everything we could possibly want, and we are going to start the week, hopefully, on a high note.
Corey Kluber is off to a rough start this season and comes in allowing a .500 SLG, .320 wOBA, 5.14 xFIP, 2.53 HR/9, and 58.8% fly-ball rater versus right-handed hitters. Woof. Those are some rough numbers to be sporting when going up against a lineup that has a ton of power.
You could look to someone like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (+285), but I'm shooting for a bit longer odds.
We are turning to Matt Chapman, who is crushing it right now with a 186 wRC+, .439 wOBA, .282 ISO, 49.0% fly-ball rate, and 47.1% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers. Chapman also sits in the 99th percentile or 100th percentile in all of average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, and barrel rate, according to Baseball Savant.
When Chapman hits the ball, it's lucky the laces are still attached when it lands. Of course, I have to add Chapman To Record an RBI (+105).
Tony Gonsolin Under 4.5 Strikeouts (-110)
While unders aren't the most exciting, it's the right play when it comes to Tony Gonsolin.
Gonsolin started the season on the injured list with an ankle injury and made his first start of the season last week. In that start, he threw a total of 65 pitches, which means he's likely going to be around 75 to 80 total pitches tonight. Generally, we see pitchers increase their pitch count by 10 to 15 pitches per start until they are fully stretched out.
This means Gonsolin won't be going super deep into the game, which limits his chances to pick up strikeouts.
Next, we can look back to last season -- when he posted a very modest 23.9% strikeout rate, 12.3% swinging-strike rate, and 28.7% called plus swinging-strike rate (CSW%). For comparison's sake, the league averages last season were a 22.4% strikeout rate, 11.2% swinging-strike rate, and 27.5% called plus swinging-strike rate (CSW%).
Gonsolin is just slightly better than the league average, so he's not some dominant strike-out pitcher on the mound.
All of this should lead to under 4.5 strikeouts tonight.
Yordan Alvarez To Record an RBI (+115)
A straightforward prop at plus money? Sign me up.
Yordan Alvarez is truly one of the best hitters in the entire league, and we are getting his RBI prop at plus money tonight. The Houston Astros have a 4.80 implied run total, so they are expected to put up a good amount of runs, and we want to capture that via this player prop.
Alvarez comes in with a 146 wRC+, .380 wOBA, .260 ISO, 44.1% fly-ball rate, and 41.2% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers this season. He legitimately checks off every single box that we could possibly want, and he hits in the middle of an always dangerous lineup.
He will be up against Ross Stripling, who allows a .405 wOBA, .435 SLG, 4.35 xFIP, and 36.8% hard-contact rate to left-handed hitters this season. There's nothing suggesting we need to be worried about Stripling, and getting Alvarez at plus money to drive in a run is too good to pass up.
