The American League MVP race seems like it has been narrowed down to a two-man race between Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr., and Major League Baseball fans were treated to a three-game series with the two sluggers going head-to-head from Monday to Wednesday in the Bronx. Now that we are in the “dog days” of September, more and more teams have scheduled days off on getaway days, and today’s MLB schedule is limited to eight games, with one of them involving the Yankees and Aaron Judge, who looks to snap a 15-game streak without a home run.
What players do I have my eye on among today’s small eight-game MLB slate?
Read on for our top MLB player prop bets and picks for Thursday, September 12.
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Thursday's Best MLB Player Prop Bets
(MLB player prop bet odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
Framber Valdez to record a win (-140)
Among his last 13 starts, Framber Valdez has received a decision in 10 of those, and nine have been wins. Valdez has been especially on fire of late with scoreless appearances in three of his last four starts. That accomplishment is made even more impressive when considering two of those came against two of the top-nine offenses in baseball, the Diamondbacks and Royals.
Valdez has been able to work around some control issues of late, as he has issued three walks each in back-to-back starts. However, while Oakland ranks in the top half of the league in walk rate since the All-Star Break, I expect Valdez to challenge an A’s lineup that he has held to a collective .179/.247/.281 slash line in 78 at-bats (only includes current A’s hitters).
I toyed with the idea of backing Valdez’s Under of 1.5 earned runs at -125 odds, but this wager for him to record a win at not much steeper of a price made more sense, especially since Houston is a massive -258 moneyline favorite.
Jake Burger Under 1.5 total bases (-105)
Miami Marlins slugger Jake Burger started the second half of the season on fire with seven home runs in his first 15 games after the All-Star Break, and accumulated a more than respectable .974 OPS through the month of August. However, September has been a different story for him thus far, as he is slashing just .148/.179/.185 this month.
Burger entered Wednesday’s series finale against the Pirates with just one extra-base hit in 27 at-bats this month, and he is not a likely candidate to go over this projected number of total bases with a multi-hit day, as he has had just one such a game since August 16.
Burger now faces Marlins southpaw DJ Herz, and he has been poor in that split, as his .220 batting average and .708 OPS are 32 and 55 points lower, respectively, than his numbers against right-handed pitching. Herz also held Miami to one hit over six scoreless innings in his only start against them this year for his first big league win, and his 13 strikeouts in that game were the second-most by a Nationals rookie since the team moved to Washington in 2005.
If Burger’s O/U for hits was set at 0.5, I would have been more inclined to bet on that and back the Under. But for some reason, Burger’s O/U is 1.5 (-240 to back the Under), so while that looks like a lock given his drought of multi-hit games, I am going the much more economical route with the Under on his total bases.
Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.