We have spent the majority of the time in the introductions of our player prop articles recently marveling at the numbers that the New York Yankees’ best hitters continue to produce. However, New York got its first scare of the season when slugger Juan Soto left Thursday’s game after the rain delay with forearm soreness. He sat out his first game Friday night, and while early tests indicate he should avoid an IL stint, it will be interesting to see what impact that injury could have on the Yankees lineup if he were to miss extended time. After all, Soto and Aaron Judge entered Friday tied for first in fWAR, each rank in the top five in bWAR, and are top two in wRC+, OPS+, on-base percentage, and OPS.
Who do we have our eyes on from a player prop perspective this weekend?
Read on for our Top MLB Player Prop Bet picks for Saturday.
Saturday's Best MLB Player Prop Bet Picks
Let’s dive into our top MLB player prop bet picks on Saturday’s slate of games.
(MLB player prop bet odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
Luis Castillo Under 5.5 strikeouts (-165)
Seattle Mariners righty Luis Castillo has inflated props today because of his career success against the Kansas City Royals. Castillo has held current Royals hitters to a combined .194/.219/.300 slash line in 93 combined at-bats, with a 26.9% strikeout rate in that span. He has successfully navigated Kansas City’s two best hitters, as Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez are a combined 4-for-25 against him with none of those hits going for extra bases. However, those two have combined for just four strikeouts against Castillo, and not only have four of his career starts against Kansas City come between 2020-22, but he recorded just a 5.8 K/9 rate against the Royals despite winning both of those starts last season.
Castillo has recorded three or fewer strikeouts in two of his last four starts, and while those were against the Yankees and Orioles, the Royals stack up with them as a top-four scoring team in the American League. There have been many areas where the Royals have proven this team is built different than Royals’ teams of the past, and we expect them to make Castillo work, as they have done all year against right-handed pitchers, with the fourth-lowest strikeout rate (19.1%) in that split.
Nestor Cortes Over 2.5 earned runs (-145)
Nestor Cortes has egregious home/road splits this season, and has been a much better pitcher in the Bronx. In six home starts, Cortes has pitched to a 1.12 ERA, owns an 8:1 K:BB ratio, and has allowed a .170 OBA. In seven road starts, Cortes is 0-3, and those numbers inflate to a 6.17 ERA, a 3.4 K:BB ratio, and a .295 OBA.
Despite Cortes' home success, we are still projecting a rough start for him, as his numbers are inflated by the fact that four of his six starts in the Bronx have come against bottom-five scoring teams, while the other two starts were against teams that rank 19th or worse in scoring (the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays). A Dodgers lineup that ranks in the top three in the majors in all three slash line categories (batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging) in road games while also ranking second in wOBA (.339) and wRC+ (120) in that split should prove to be a much tougher challenge.
Entering Friday, the Dodgers had cashed their team total Over in five of their last seven games, and we expect that trend to continue with them jumping on Cortes early in this one.
Will Smith Over 0.5 RBIs (+135)
If we expect Nestor Cortes to have a rough outing, we might as well double down with a Dodgers hitter to do the damage, and there is no hitter in their lineup that has feasted on left-handed pitching more than Will Smith.
Smith entered Friday with a team-best 1.304 OPS and .426 batting average against southpaws. He has batted cleanup in 47 of the 54 games played, which is a prime run-production spot in a lineup where the top four (Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Smith) entered Friday's series opener slashing a collective .306/.390/.525, and whose No. 1-5 hitters lead the majors in OPS. And per Inside Edge, Smith has an NL-best 1.757 OPS when ahead in the count this season, while the league average is 1.094.
Smith entered the weekend leading all catchers in slugging (.512) and was tied with Salvador Perez in wRC+ (147), while ranking in the top two in wOBA and xwOBA. He has at least one RBI in four of his previous seven games, and we are even more confident in him driving in at least one run tonight when facing a left-handed pitcher.
Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.