Welcome back, old friend! OK, while we haven’t been on anything longer than a true four-day break, it’s fantastic to have meaningful baseball back on our screens. We have a full slate across the sport starting earlier in the day, but for our purposes on Underdog, we will look at the later action. As always, we use the OddsShopper pick’em tool to help guide the best plays that beat the market. It’s that easy: build a quick 3x Underdog entry and hit the weekend running with some expert MLB predictions!
It’s a simple question at Underdog Fantasy: Choose if a player will finish higher or lower their current projection. Build anywhere from two to six picks. Here are the top two plays from Underdog — getting 3x back on a winning entry. OddsShopper has an Underdog Fantasy optimizer tool designed to help you build winning entries.
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Underdog Fantasy MLB Pick’em Predictions Today
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Jeimer Candelario H/L Than 1.5 Total Bases
This is the play in the OddsShopper pick’em tool with the best edge against the market. We fade Jeimer Candelario doing anything more than one single tonight as the Reds are in Washington, D.C. While this is far from a pitcher’s duel between Frankie Montas and Patrick Corbin, that doesn’t mean everyone gets a hit — far from it. Candelario hasn’t been stellar enough at the plate to warrant any significant benefit of the doubt, and we know we are getting near a 2% edge against the market.
Corbin has been equally as bad as Candelario’s teammate Montas, but our hitter in question is struggling on the year with a .226 xBA and .289 xwOBA. Once we mix in the 24% strikeout rate, we see why he’s been inconsistent at best at the plate. He’s been able to put together some smaller stretches of hit streaks, but even those don’t result in enough extra-base hits. We’ll take that chance tonight with OddsShopper providing a 1.9% edge — the -122 implied odds beat the -127 true odds.
Underdog Fantasy Pick’em Prediction: Jeimer Candelario Lower Than 1.5 Total Bases
Aaron Nola H/L Than 1.5 Walks Allowed
Now is the time as we start to see Aaron Nola pick it up just as the Philadelphia Phillies are gearing towards the playoffs. Nola typically takes off gradually at the start of the season, and he hits his stride by late August into the postseason. That particularly illustrates itself with an increase of strikeouts, coming at the expense of any walks.
The good news is Nola barely walks anyone at this point, and that won’t change with an increase of strikeouts. Nola opens the second half on the road in Pittsburgh, another circumstance that shouldn’t change how stingy Nola is with walks.
The Phillies have a trio of stellar arms, but one thing stands out with Nola — he’s not making a ton of mistakes. The 5.7% walk rate is stellar this year, and he’s gone nine straight starts without giving up more than two walks — five of those starts he was lower than the 1.5 number.
We start back up in baseball with a couple of solid plays, including Nola keeping the Pirates off the base path. Even if things start to break down or even crumble for Nola, it’s usually because of the long ball or stringing a couple of hits in a row — rarely due to the walk.
Underdog Fantasy Pick’em Prediction: Aaron Nola Lower Than 1.5 Walks Allowed
