MLB Player Props: Best Bets for Wednesday (July 24)

Thank you to Tyler O’Neill for keeping us afloat, staying hot with another home run yesterday giving us a profitable day with our Dinger Tuesday predictions. As for today, Wednesday baseball always means day games, so let’s get right into our favorite MLB player props.

Play 1: Yordan Alvarez to Hit a Home Run (+325) BetRivers

Houston Astros vs. Oakland Athletics, 3:37 p.m. ET

Alvarez has been absolutely crushing the ball recently, and is really starting to come on after a slow start to begin the year. Since the MLB returned from the All-Star break he has played five games, and in those five games he has a combined ten hard hits with an absurd hard hit rate of 83.3% in that stretch. Obviously it is a small sample size, but it shows that he has been killing the ball, and the fact that he only has one home run in that stretch shows more bad luck than anything, especially when you look at his comical barrel rate of 41.7%, fly ball rate of 66.7%, average exit velocity of 104.4MPH and a launch angle of 27.2 degrees.

He should have more than one home run in this stretch just looking at those numbers, so hopefully he goes on a home run binge starting today. Luckily for him, he has an excellent matchup against a mashable Athletics pitcher in JP Sears. To get the negative out of the way first, Sears is a left-handed pitcher and technically Alvarez is better against righties than lefties, but, with that said, the splits are not that dramatic to get scared off Alvarez. You could actually make the argument that he has been better against lefties this year looking at his stats.

Against RHP here are his stats: average is .275, slugging is .525, OPS is .898, ISO Rate is .250 and wOBA is .378. Here are his stats against LHP: average is .361, slugging is .598, OPS is 1.019, ISO rate is .238 and wOBA is .430. The only stat that is better against RHP is ISO rate, which is admittedly an important stat for power but an ISO rate of .238 against LHP is still in the “great” category defined by FanGraphs. Sears, meanwhile, allows the fifth-worst barrel rate in the MLB at 10.2%, the 18th-highest hard hit rate at 40.5%, 16th-highest launch angle of 17.1 degrees and the 19th-fastest average exit velocity.

Play 2: Rafael Devers to Hit a Home Run (+350) Fanatics

Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies, 3:10 p.m. ET

Devers is another lefty hitter that has been on fire, and while he has not yet hit a home run since we returned from the All-Star break, he is similar to Yordan Alvarez in that his stats look phenemenal, so the guess here is that the home runs are going to come. He has tied his teammate Tyler O’Neill with nine hard hits in the five games since the ASB, while actually having a faster average exit velocity than O’Neill as well. But o’Neill has four home runs while Devers has zero, with the reason being the launch angle. Devers has not quite been able to get under the baseball, but if you widen the scope to look at the last 30 days Devers has been one of the best hitters in baseball.

He has nine home runs in the last 30 days with the second-most hard hits, only behind Bobby Witt Jr., and he has done that with a low fly-ball rate of 29%. Devers generally is not one of those batters who consistently puts the ball in the air, as he has a fly ball rate of 37.4% on the season, but it does have room to improve from how it has been over the past month. And even with that low number, he has still hit nine home runs. On the entire season, Devers has the third-best ISO rate in MLB at .291 and a barrel rate of 14.6%, which is the 16th-best.

He is facing a right-handed pitcher tonight in Cal Quantrill, and Devers is significantly better against righties. His ISO rate goes from .144 against LHP all the way up to .380 against RHP, which would be above Aaron Judge for the best ISO rate in MLB. Despite pitching at Coors, Quantrill does not have horrible numbers, but his hard hit rate jumps up from 29.5% against RHH up to 40.7% against LHH, which would be the worst hard hit rate allowed in MLB.

Play 3: Teoscar Hernandez to Hit a Home Run (+440) Caesars

San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 10:10 p.m. ET

If you are sensing a theme here you are correct, as Teoscar Hernandez is similar to the first two batters in that he has been crushing the baseball since the return from the All-Star Break. He did not have a great game yesterday, but in the first four games back he had a combined nine hard hits, with a barrel rate of 20% in that stretch as well. He has hit two home runs, so this is less saying he is due to go on a binge and more riding the hot hand in what should be a plus matchup for Hernandez, which we will get into.

He is having a good year in general, with an ISO rate of .222 and a barrel rate of 14.9%, putting him in the “great” threshold in both of those metrics. The beauty in backing him tonight is that he is going up against a left-handed pitcher and he is significantly better against lefties. His ISO rate goes from .187 to .323 from RHP to LHP, with all three of his fly ball rate, pull rate and hard hit rate better against LHP.

He is going up against Robbie Ray of the Giants. This is Ray’s first start on the season as he returns from Tommy John surgery, so you do not expect him to pitch very deep in the game, and the Giants bullpen can be had. They have allowed the sixth-most home runs in MLB, while having the sixth-worst ERA as well. Hernandez should be able to stay hot tonight.

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