Welcome back to another Saturday MLB edition of PrizePicks player predictions.
We are officially off to a 8-5 start across the first two weekends of the season, and will be looking to keep that win column going this afternoon. We have a rare 17-game slate on tap with four make-up doubleheaders, so there is plenty of action to choose from. We're always looking for those sharp lines and sneaky plays regardless.
Saturday’s Best MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions
Revenge game alert: Kenta Maeda is set to square off with the Minnesota Twins on Saturday, a team he previously played three full seasons for. The 36-year-old is unequivocally on the downswing of his career, but he can still piece together decent performances at times. In 2023, he managed to punch out 117 batters across just over 100 innings, including one stretch of six straight games where he struck out six or more hitters.
Welcome back to another Saturday MLB edition of PrizePicks player predictions.
We are officially off to a 8-5 start across the first two weekends of the season, and will be looking to keep that win column going this afternoon. We have a rare 17-game slate on tap with four make-up doubleheaders, so there is plenty of action to choose from. We're always looking for those sharp lines and sneaky plays regardless.
Saturday’s Best MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions
Revenge game alert: Kenta Maeda is set to square off with the Minnesota Twins on Saturday, a team he previously played three full seasons for. The 36-year-old is unequivocally on the downswing of his career, but he can still piece together decent performances at times. In 2023, he managed to punch out 117 batters across just over 100 innings, including one stretch of six straight games where he struck out six or more hitters.
Surprisingly, Maeda is getting as good a matchup as he can for strikeout potential on Saturday. The Twins are sitting second-to-last in the MLB in team strikeout rate, currently averaging 10.55 whiffs per game. Maeda will surely be looking for a little extra juice against his former teammates on Saturday, and his leash should be pretty long, barring an early-game implosion. Look for him to be on the hunt for the swing-and-miss in this one.
The 23-year-old superstar Bobby Witt Jr. is off to a blazing start in 2024, currently slashing .333/.387/.702 across 57 at-bats, including four homers and 11 total extra-base hits. He has recorded at least one hit in nine of 14 games played and multiple hits in seven of those.
On Saturday, Witt Jr. will face a hittable foe in Carlos Carrasco of the Cleveland Guardians. The 37-year-old hurler has not been anything special across his two starts this year, and his combined ERA dating back to 2023 sits at a paltry 5.65. He's also lasted just eight total innings in those two 2024 starts, as his ability to pitch deep into games has waned more and more each season. Witt Jr. is far too talented of a Major League bat not to find success against below-average caliber pitching. I'm willing to live with the outcome here of plucking the over.
I'm all aboard the "overs" train today and going deep into my bag for a pick I rarely make. The volatility of hitters taking walks can vary so much that I would typically steer well clear of any pick like this, but Evan Carter is the exception. This 21-year-old has been so unbelievably impressive since debuting late last year that it is hard to ignore his props whenever they're on the board.
Carter is also a walk-taking machine and has one of the best hitter eyes across the entire MLB. He's already taken nine walks this season (compared to just six strikeouts, mind you) and has firmly entrenched himself in the top half of the Texas lineup after mainly seeing time near the bottom in 2023.
The Rangers will battle against Ronel Blanco for the second time in under a week. While the 30-year-old has been sensational through his first two starts, his one area of concern has been walks. Blanco has issued six free passes this campaign, and one of them was - you guessed it - to Carter just last week. The combination of Carter having already seen Blanco's stuff recently and also drawing a walk off him leads me to believe he'll be in a prime position to follow that up with another one on Saturday afternoon.
Make sure to check out our other best bets for Saturday:
