The MLB is offering up a loaded slate for tonight’s action, and if you’re looking to get some action down, I’m here to help. I’ll have a bigger card than just the two bets featured below, which you can find on Discord or our expert picks page. Still, I’ve got a total of 2.5 units on the bets outlined below. Let’s get into today’s top MLB player prop picks and home run bets for Saturday, July 27.
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MLB Player Props & Home Run Picks Today: Saturday, July 27
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Yordan Alvarez
The Houston Astros will host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Minute Maid Park today, and with high temperatures and humidity in the forecast, we’re backing Yordan Alvarez against an inexperienced pitcher. It’s LHP Justin Wrobleski taking the bump for L.A., and, over a 15 at-bat sample against lefties in the MLB, he is allowing a .400/.471/.733 slash line.
We’re working with a small sample here, and Wrobleski’s splits against same-handed batters in the minors are a lot better (they have a .274/.337/.368 slash line), but Yordan Alvarez is too good not to target here. He is slashing .352/.410/.586 against southpaws this season with five home runs and 18 extra-base hits.
Splits aside, Alvarez’s expected stats are objectively impressive. The 27-year-old owns a .294 xBA (94th percentile) along with a .587 xSLG (98th). That’s with 18.6 expected home runs (and 20 expected home runs in Houston). Let’s trust him to show out against an inexperienced pitcher or a Los Angeles bullpen that has allowed the seventh-most home runs (49).
I’m trusting Alvarez to tally multiple bases (+100 at DraftKings) and go yard (+310 at Caesars). The lack of home-run output for Alvarez versus lefties is a concern, but the sheer number of extra-base hits point to value, especially on the total bases market.
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Yordan Alvarez +310 at Caesars
For the best price currently available, check out our Yordan Alvarez home run live odds page!
MLB Player Prop Pick Today: Justin Wrobleski
I obviously believe that Justin Wrobleski is beatable, but how beatable is he? I would say very. In his first three major league starts, he has recorded strikeout totals of four, four and five, with a high pitch count of 84. He now must take on one of the MLB’s best teams at avoiding strikeouts.
Houston ranks third in strikeouts taken per game (7.1), far ahead of the teams Wrobleski has faced so far: Detroit, Boston and Milwaukee, all of whom are below-average in terms of strikeouts taken. Houston leads the MLB in strikeout rate versus LHPs on the season (17.4%), but they are just 14th since July 1st (22.2%).
Those are my projection-based notes. You can also find an edge here with a market-based approach. Wrobleski clocks in at +125 to stay under 3.5 strikeouts on Fliff, but every other book has this one at odds of between +115 and -105. Pinnacle, a sharp book, lists him at +102. As a result, we’re getting positive expected value (+EV) at Fliff:
To spot +EV, OddsShopper’s betting model indexes the odds from across the market. It then calculates the breakeven price for each wager, which we call “true odds.” After that, we can estimate how much expected value we’re getting.
With this bet, Wrobleski’s true odds of staying under 3.5 total strikeouts are estimated to be +108. Our back-tested simulations reveal that bets like this one have been profitable. If you want to know how profitable, you can see for yourself on our results page: As of today, our model had identified 453 strikeout bets with a double-digit OS Rating — 253 of those bets won, yielding a 10.6% ROI!
MLB Player Prop Pick: Justin Wrobleski Under 3.5 Strikeouts +125 at Fliff
For the best price currently available, check out our Justin Wrobleski total strikeouts live odds page!
OddsShopper’s MLB Tools & Tips
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