We saw history in yesterday’s Opening Day slate. Austin Wells became the first catcher to hit a leadoff home run in an Opening Day game.
I won’t promise any other records will be broken tonight. But I can promise I’ve got three player prop bets I’m attacking. Take a peek below.
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Friday's Best MLB Player Prop Bets
(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
Rafael Devers Over 1.5 Total Bases (-125)
The Texas Rangers will send out young righty Jack Leiter. He’s shown some promise at the big league level. However, he finished last year with a .216 ISO and wOBA of .368 allowed to lefties. He also gave up 33.9% of fly balls and struck out just 15.1% of lefties last season.
It’s not the biggest sample size. However, Leiter also allowed 46.8% of hard contact to lefties and gave up a 9.7% barrel percentage to lefties.
Meanwhile, he’ll take on Rafael Devers of the Red Sox. Devers earned a .308 ISO and wOBA of .410 against righties last season. He also struck out fewer than 21% of the time against righties. In addition, Devers added a 64% hard contact rate and a team-best 14.8% barrel percentage against righties.
Devers stands out in tonight’s Red Sox lineup against Leiter. Take his over.
Yordan Alvarez Over 1.5 Total Bases (+110)
Yordan Alvarez slugged a .262 ISO and wOBA of .391 with 13.4% of strikeouts against righties last season.
Tonight, he’ll take on Tylor Megill of the Mets, who allowed a .159 ISO and wOBA of .318 to 185 lefties last season. Megill also allowed 49.5% of hard contact and gave up 24.3% of line drives to lefties while allowing over 27% of fly balls to lefties.
Beyond that, Megill gave up a 13.1% barrel percentage to lefties last season and fell behind batters a lot, walking 11.4% of lefties in the previous season.
Alvarez rarely hits ground balls against righties. Instead, he’s added 38.8% of fly balls and 23% of line drives with a 55.3% hard contact rate. This should translate into some good at-bats for Alvarez against Megill.
Jameson Taillon Under 3.5 Strikeouts (-128)
Last year, Jameson Taillon only added 18.5% of strikeouts against 675 batters. He struck out just 17.9% of lefties and 19.2% of righties. Unfortunately for Taillon, he’ll take on a projected lineup with six lefties in it.
Additionally, the Diamondbacks’ projected lineup struck out 18.3% of the time against righties last season. Only Eugenio Suarez has struck out more than 20% against righties since the previous year in this Diamondbacks lineup.
Taillon also earned just 8.5% of swinging strikes and added only 17.7% of whiffs last season. These are below-average numbers. Take Taillon to go under his strikeouts prop line.
