MLB Best Bets Today April 17
All 30 MLB teams take the field on Friday, so long as Mother Nature allows it. We’ve got rain chances in places, some snow in Denver, and some cooler weather than we saw early in the week. On the other hand, we also have some good hitting conditions in some places, including Wrigley Field for the early start between the Cubs and Mets.
Six of today’s starting pitchers are slated to make their fifth starts of the season and 25 of the 30 listed starters will be making at least their fourth start, so sample sizes are getting bigger, pitch counts are rising, and we’re getting a stronger data set to use when handicapping these guys going forward.
I’ll be posting my daily best bets Monday-Saturday with a Sunday Night Baseball preview on Sunday, as all the day games make it tough to get something out with lead time out here in Las Vegas. All lines are from DraftKings and are current at the time of publish. Please take the initiative to SHOP AROUND for the best odds. It matters. A lot.
One new offering this baseball season is our Opta AI Player Prop Projections. They are for VSiN Pro Subscribers only, so you can check out our current offers here. Zachary Cohen will be using those projections and his own handicapping to write up MLB player props.
Greg Peterson will have his best bets posted the night before and you can also check out his daily lines to see what looks to be off-market. Steve Makinen has also released his updated Bullpen Betting Systems and DraftKings Splits Systems, plus he’ll have a daily analytics report.
Feel free to use my opinions and thoughts, as well as our suite of MLB Betting Tools, including the DraftKings and Circa Betting Splits, Steve Makinen’s Daily Ratings, Greg Peterson’s Daily Lines, the 1st 5 Innings Analyzer, and Umpire Stats. Check out our new MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
That’s a lot of coverage and we’ll be doing it all season long. We’re happy to have you along for the ride.
Here are the MLB best bets today for April 17:
San Francisco Giants (-156, 8) at Washington Nationals
6:45 p.m. ET
The Giants continue their Eastern U.S. swing with a matchup against the Nationals, as ace Logan Webb gets the call for San Fran. It’ll be Zack Littell for the Nats, who hasn’t thrown the ball badly, but has had a home run issue so far this season. Given how little power the Giants have shown thus far, maybe it won’t be that bad of a matchup for him.
But, my focus is on the Washington offense against Webb. Thus far, Webb has allowed a 91.5 mph average exit velo with a 45.9% Hard Hit%. Normally that’s not a big issue because he’s a ground ball merchant, but he’s also dealing with a K% decrease and a BB% increase over his first four starts of the season.
After seeing some gains last season in SwStr% and CSW% (called + swinging strike percentage), he’s below his career norms in both of those areas. His Stuff+ numbers are down across the board. They’re still above average, but this isn’t the Logan Webb that we’re used to seeing.
The Nationals own a .250/.333/.433 slash and a .345 wOBA at home, which ranks ninth. This is a pretty good hitter’s park, especially on warmer days and temps will be in the upper 70s at first pitch in this one. It’s no secret that Webb, who pitches in a phenomenal pitcher’s park, has had some home/road splits in his career. Last season, he really didn’t, as his ERA was still 3.36 and his wOBA against was only five points higher. But, he also had more swing and miss last season than he had over the previous three seasons. Back in 2024, his home ERA was 2.83 and his road ERA was 4.11.
I’ll take a shot on the Nationals 1st 5 Team Total Over 1.5 Runs at -115. This is definitely manageable juice for an offense that has swung it well so far and ranks fifth in Platoon%, so a lefty hitter vs. a righty pitcher or the opposite. Collectively, lefties in road games for Webb have a .275/.333/.398 slash and batted over .300 in both 2024 and 2025.
Pick: Nationals 1st 5 Team Total Over 1.5 (-115)
Tampa Bay Rays at Pittsburgh Pirates (-126, 8.5)
6:45 p.m. ET
Interleague action brings the Rays to the Steel City to take on the Pirates. Pittsburgh will get a look at a familiar face in Nick Martinez, who spent the last two seasons with the rival Reds. Tampa Bay will get a look at Bubba Chandler for the first time.
Chandler’s shown flashes of brilliance this season, but he’s also shown that he’s a young pitcher still trying to find his way. He’s walked 12 in his 14 innings of work, while also punching out 14 hitters. When hitters have made contact, they’ve hit the ball hard with a 48.6% Hard Hit% and a 10.8% Barrel%. Despite the hard contact and the traffic on the bases, Chandler has a .196 BA against and a .229 BABIP against. He has a .244 xBA against and a gap of 33 points in his wOBA-xwOBA, so he’s run on the right side of luck and variance thus far.
It’s also going to be warmer at PNC Park than it has been for Chandler’s other three starts. That could allow the hard contact to travel a little bit farther.
The Rays are doing this really brilliant thing with Martinez this season – they’re having him throw his best pitch more often. Over the course of his career, the changeup has been his bread and butter and his usage of that pitch is a career-high 32.4%. The Rays have also gotten him to throw his bad fastball less and focus more on sinkers. His GB% is up this season and he has continued to allow a ton of weak contact. His career Hard Hit% is just 33.2% and his Barrel% is just 6.7%. That’s what he’s done his entire career and more CH usage should only help.
The Rays are actually swinging it well thus far, as they rank seventh in wRC+. So are the Pirates, who rank ninth. The Rays are doing it with contact, as they have a K% of just 18.2%, while Pittsburgh has a higher walk rate and more homers. It’s kind of nitpicky to prefer one offense over the other right now, but I do feel like Tampa Bay, especially away from The Trop, is at least right on par, if not better.
Also, the Pirates used Dennis Santana back-to-back days and he picked up the loss yesterday after Yohan Ramirez blew the save. They used five different pitchers yesterday and the Rays used three relievers and have only had one RP throw back-to-back days since Sunday. I’ll take Tampa Bay as an underdog here. As I was writing, the price came down, so somebody else out there seems to agree.
Pick: Rays +104
Los Angeles Dodgers (-314, 9) at Colorado Rockies
8:40 p.m. ET
The Dodgers and Rockies will play a very cold one in Denver, as snow is in the forecast to start the day and a few flurries could be blowing around on a miserable night at Coors Field. I’ll be honest with you, the Dodgers are playing way better at the start of the season than I expected. They’re off to a 14-4 start when a World Series hangover was certainly possible. It makes sense for this team to fire out of the gate and try to manage workloads as the season goes along, but I wasn’t sure that would be the case.
That being said, with their talent, I think there are going to be some days where they just don’t look that engaged. A 35-degree night with the wind blowing in could very well be one of those nights. I can’t imagine Tyler Glasnow, who gave up four runs on five hits and a lot of hard contact last time out, is going to be put at any unnecessary risk. He’s had back-to-back starts with 100+ pitches and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s out earlier than that tonight.
Tomoyuki Sugano gets the start for the Rockies and it’ll be damn cold for him as well. He’s allowed four runs on 10 hits and all four runs have come on solo homers. He’s a very clear regression candidate with a 2.16 ERA, 4.97 xERA, and 5.39 FIP, but the ball probably isn’t going to carry very well in this game. That should cut down on Sugano’s home run problem and he’s a guy that doesn’t really walk anybody dating back to his years in Japan. He also didn’t walk many last season. He just gave up way too many home runs.
To be safe, I’ll roll with Rockies +1.5 at +163 instead of taking the moneyline, since it’s very possible that the Dodgers simply win because they’re better. But, with a rare 9 at Coors Field, each run is more valuable and I could absolutely see a one-run win for the Dodgers. Since 2021, there have only been two totals of 9 or lower in this ballpark. One went Over and one pushed, for what it’s worth.
Pick: Rockies Run Line +1.5 (+163)
