MLB Best Bets Today June 8
It is a pretty girthy Monday card in MLB, as every game starts in the evening and more than half of the league’s teams are in action. As another week gets going, we’ll have a lot of pitchers with good numbers in the early games and a mixed bag in the late slate. That means that there is a lot to handicap and a lot to dig into for June 8.
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 8:
Mariners vs. Orioles Prediction
Pick: Orioles 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 (+120)
Some corrections are likely coming for Emerson Hancock, who enters this start with a 2.80 ERA, but a 4.16 xERA and a 3.73 FIP. Hancock has been excellent for the most part this season, but it always has to be noted that Mariners pitchers and guys in similarly good pitcher’s parks often have some pretty big home/road splits. Right now, Hancock has a sub-3.00 ERA on the road, but a 4.77 FIP.
Hancock’s K% is over 14% lower on the road compared to at home and he still has an 88.5% LOB%. That seems extremely unsustainable and the Orioles have been swinging the sticks really well against righties lately, slashing .287/.367/.502 over the last 14 days.
Just generally speaking, Hancock is a guy that I could see some rough outings for in the near future, though a lot of things line up here. He’s got a 74th percentile K%, but a 19th percentile Chase% per Statcast. He ranks in the 17th percentile in Barrel% and 20th percentile in Hard Hit%. Even if it isn’t the Orioles today, he’s a guy that I think we can look to go against a few times here in the near future and likely come out ahead.
Red Sox vs. Rays Prediction
Pick: Rays -105
AL East rivals square off at The Trop as the Red Sox and Rays fire up a weekday set. It will be southpaw Connelly Early for Boston and lefty Ian Seymour will open for Tampa Bay before giving way to Mason Englert. It’s a very Rays-esque pitching setup and something that they are plenty accustomed to doing.
Seymour gave up a run on two hits in his lone start of the season back on May 15. Overall, he enters this start with a 5.23 ERA, but a 3.91 xERA and a 4.20 FIP. Englert was recently recalled and has had a couple of stints at the MLB level this season with a 4.71 ERA and a 5.46 xERA, so the numbers are not great. That said, he’s only allowed two runs in his last six MLB appearances, including a five-inning effort last time out with one run on four hits against the Tigers.
On the Boston side, Early has a lot of regression signs in his profile, as he enters this game with a 3.26 ERA, but a 4.64 xERA and a 4.63 FIP over his 66.1 innings of work. The biggest two areas are that he has an 87.3% LOB% that isn’t going to be very sustainable moving forward and that he has a .251 BABIP against despite a 43.5% Hard Hit% and a 12.4% Barrel%. That’s a lot of hard contact against.
With those numbers in mind, it should be noted that Early ranks in the 28th percentile in xERA, as well as the 7th percentile in Barrel% and just the 21st percentile in Hard Hit%. Also, that high LOB% is precarious due to just a 29th percentile Whiff%. We’ll see if it happens here in a pretty good pitcher’s park like this, but I definitely think some tough times are ahead for him as well.
