Yesterday’s article split 1-1, cashing a Grayson Rodriguez ticket with ease but losing a Kyle Tucker ticket after he went down with an injury. The bet was looking good, too — he already had a single in just one plate appearance. Oh well, let’s bounce back on FanDuel’s Dinger Tuesday. Let’s dive into today’s MLB player prop picks and home run bets for Tuesday, June 4. For more notes on today’s action, check out my slate breakdown on X.
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MLB Player Props & Home Run Picks Today: Tuesday, June 4
MLB Player Prop Pick Today: David Peterson
Let’s start today’s action off with an MLB player prop in tonight’s NL East battle between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals. This matchup is a mostly inconsequential one featuring a pair of National League cellar-dwellers, so what better way to spice things up than by getting some action on it?
The Mets will start LHP David Peterson for the second time this season. He went five innings against the Colorado Rockies with just three strikeouts. He recorded a 13.6% strikeout rate and a 5.63 xERA in that game. Last year, Peterson notched a 26% strikeout rate to go with a 4.96 xERA. He cleared tonight’s strikeout total (4.5) in most of his starts.
But we’re fading Peterson today, largely because of Washington’s ability to avoid strikeouts. The Nats rank 13th in strikeouts per game taken this year (8.14) and ranked second last year. Peterson pitched nine total innings against Washington last year and tallied seven strikeouts, but all but four of those were charged to Alex Call, who has returned to AAA.
Most books have the under 4.5 priced between -105 and -125. There are a few outliers, however — FanDuel is hanging a -102, and we can even get into the plus money at +100 on Fanatics. That’s good enough for this bet to be trading with positive expected value (+EV) in our market-based MLB betting model:
What do these numbers mean? The +100 at Fanatics is better than the -104 true odds (a breakeven price) of this bet. Our back-tested simulations show that bets like this one are profitable when wagered over the long term.
We can even tell how profitable this bet should be over the long term by using our results page. Every total strikeout prop with an OS Rating of 1 or higher two hours before game start had a 9.8% ROI over a 1,507-bet sample. While it’s down 9% at Fanatics, it’s up 19.7% at FanDuel over a larger sample.
MLB Player Prop Pick: David Peterson Under 4.5 Strikeouts +100 at FanDuel
For the best price currently available, check out our David Peterson total strikeouts live odds page!
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Bobby Witt Jr.
The Kansas City Royals will visit the Cleveland Guardians tonight, and getting on the road should benefit no one more from a home run perspective than Bobby Witt Jr. Sure, six of his nine home runs have come at home this year — but the man has 13.1 expected home runs, largely because just eight of the 23 batted balls that could’ve been home runs would’ve counted at Kauffman Field. A monstrous 14 would’ve cleared the fences at Progressive Field.
Again, Witt’s home slash line (.364/.428/.678) is far better than his road slash line (.262/.303/.402), so this isn’t a traditional split-based wager. We just want the better park factors. Still, it’s not like Witt is unfamiliar with Progressive Field — he slashed .286/.355/.571 here last season with five extra-base hits, one of which was a home run.
Witt takes on RHP Triston McKenzie, who has coughed up 11 actual and 9.8 expected home runs this season. McKenzie’s 3.77 ERA is solid, but his 4.59 xERA (24th percentile) is very much not. Fastball velocity has been an issue for McKenzie, as he is down to 90.9 mph (9th). That will be a problem against Witt, who sports a .866 xSLG against four-seam fastballs this season.
Let’s back Witt to go yard (+350 at FanDuel) and record multiple bases (-117 at Caesars). While he needs to start stepping up on the road more often, today’s matchup is the perfect spot for him to get right. It helps that he sports an elite .334 xBA (100th percentile) and .635 xSLG (98th) as well.
MLB Home Run Pick Today: Bobby Witt Jr. +350 at FanDuel
For the best price currently available, check out our Bobby Witt Jr. home run live odds page!
OddsShopper’s MLB Tools & Tips
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