MLB Best Bets Today June 1
Much to the chagrin of many, there are no day games on Monday, but we do have a decent slate with nine games. The teams not playing might be more interesting today because a lot of teams had limited off days in May, so the teams that get a little bit of a breather might be able to come back looking fresh and reinvigorated. While that doesn’t help us place bets today, it could help tomorrow and beyond.
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.
Here are the MLB best bets today for June 1:
Marlins vs. Nationals Prediction
Pick: Nationals -144
NL East rivals duke it out in D.C., as the Marlins continue their road trip and the Nationals continue their homestand. The road has been unkind to the Marlins, as they enter with just an 8-19 record away from loanDepot Park and have been outscored by 47 runs, allowing 5.6 R/G. One of the primary road culprits has been tonight’s starter Sandy Alcantara, who has allowed 21 runs in 29.2 innings on the road this season and a .333/.381/.512 slash with a .394 wOBA.
This mirrors what Alcantara did last season as well. He has a 3.74 ERA at home with a 6.07 ERA on the road, similar to last season’s 4.40 ERA at home and 6.92 ERA on the road. Add up the last two seasons and Alcantara has a 6.66 road ERA with a 5.01 FIP in 96 innings of work. He’s allowed 73 runs, 71 of them earned, and opposing batters own a .299/.368/.479 slash with a .368 wOBA. Among qualified pitchers over the last two seasons, his 73 runs are tied for the seventh-most allowed, but five of the seven guys ahead of him have thrown at least 24 more innings.
Finally healthy, Cade Cavalli has been sharp this season, posting a 3.62 ERA with a 3.96 xERA and a 3.01 FIP. He’s struck out 68 in 59.2 innings of work and has only allowed three homers with a 46.2% GB%. If not for a .361 BABIP against, his numbers would look even better. Cavalli has only allowed more than three earned runs in one of his 12 starts and 3+ earned runs in just three of his 12 starts.
Recently, the Nationals have a .260/.333/.483 slash against righties with a .356 wOBA that ranks fifth over the last 14 days. The Marlins are slashing .220/.303/.358 with a .297 wOBA that ranks 19th in that span. The Nationals are also sixth for the season in wOBA at home. Miami is just 27th in wOBA on the road.
White Sox vs. Twins Prediction
Pick: Under 8 (-114)
David Sandlin will make his second MLB start and second against the same team as he lines up against the Twins once again. It will be Joe Ryan for the favored hosts, as these two AL Central rivals play for the second time in as many weeks. Chicago took three of four from the Twins last week in games that finished 3-1, 5-3, 15-2, and 6-2.
But, now the White Sox are without Munetaka Murakami, who means a ton to this offense. Over the last 14 days, which encompasses 11 games, he slashed .263/.404/.553 with a .418 wOBA and a 168 wRC+. Only Chase Meidroth, Randal Grichuk, Edgar Quero, and Colson Montgomery had wRC+ marks over 100 and Grichuk and Quero are platoon guys against lefties. Ryan is not a left-handed pitcher.
Ryan is having a stellar season and has been simply outstanding of late. He has a 2.94 ERA with a 2.83 xERA and a 2.59 FIP in his 12 starts over 64.1 innings of work. If we dig deeper, he has a 1.97 ERA with a 2.01 FIP since getting blown up by the Mets back on April 23. Even with an injury scare on May 3, Ryan has come back with five runs on 15 hits over his last four starts covering 25.2 innings with a 30/4 K/BB ratio.
The biggest development this season for Ryan is that he’s only allowed four home runs. Michael Baumann at FanGraphs did a deep dive into his updated arsenal and where he has been locating pitches to show why he’s done better with limiting the long ball. The White Sox have scored 275 runs this season and 126 of them have come on home runs. Murakami’s absence hurts a lot because he’s one of the few hitters that consistently draws walks. He has 44 of the team’s 216 walks. His 17.9% BB% is a big deal with a .378 OBP. As a team, the White Sox have a 9.7% BB%, but that drops to 8.6% if we take Murakami out of the equation.
Sandlin allowed one run on a solo homer over six innings against the Twins in his MLB debut. He’s a true wild card, as he’s racked up some impressive strikeout rates, but has also walked a lot of hitters in his minor league career. He has 305 K in 248.1 innings across 1,056 batters, so a 28.9% K%. In the upper levels, though, he’s issued some walks including 11 in 16.1 innings this season. He actually threw a high rate of strikes in his first start and only had an 8.2% SwStr%, something I would expect to be higher here against a Twins team that has struck out a lot of late.
Both bullpens are fine and Grant Taylor is available for the White Sox tonight after throwing 31 pitches on Saturday.
Rangers vs. Cardinals Prediction
Pick: Rangers -125
Jacob deGrom and Michael McGreevy are the listed starters here, as the Rangers and Cardinals fire up an interleague set. If situational spots exist in baseball, this could be a decent one, as the Rangers got to St. Louis while the Cardinals were still playing the Cubs on Sunday Night Baseball, as the Redbirds won 5-1 to take a series victory against their hated rivals. In fact, this will be STL’s first game against a team outside of the NL Central since May 17 against the Royals.
It was a happy flight for Texas after a sweep of the Royals, as they’re now three games away from .500 in a wide-open AL West division. It does seem like the Rangers are picking things up offensively, as they’ve posted a .338 wOBA and a 116 wRC+ against RHP over the last 14 days. On the whole, Texas is seventh in wOBA at .347 and fifth in wRC+ at 122 over the last two weeks. St. Louis is just 22nd in wOBA in that span overall and 21st against RHP.
deGrom hasn’t been terribly sharp lately and has allowed seven homers in his last three starts, but my focus is on fading McGreevy here. He has a 2.98 ERA with a 5.64 xERA and a 4.12 FIP. He’s living on a .249 BABIP and an 83.9% LOB%. Neither of those are sustainable with a 41.4% Hard Hit% and an 11% Barrel% against, plus his well below average 18% K%.
McGreevy has allowed a .228 BA, but based on batted ball data and other factors, he has a .290 xBA, which ranks in the bottom 6%. His xERA ranks in the bottom 10% of the league and his Barrel% ranks in the bottom 14%. His .368 xwOBA, which is 77 points higher than his actual wOBA, ranks in the bottom 10%. His .525 xSLG ranks in the bottom 5%. What McGreevy has done well is keep hitters from pulling the ball at a high rate, but that will only take him so far, even at home in a good pitcher’s park.
A reckoning is coming for McGreevy and hopefully it happens tonight with a Rangers team that seems to be trending up.
