MLB Best Bets Today April 11
We’ve got aces and faces on the mound today across MLB, as some teams send their best to the bump and others are much deeper down the depth chart. It does seem like we’ll get every game in today, as the weather looks pretty decent, if not outright good, at a lot of locations, so that’s nice. Nobody likes a Sunday doubleheader, especially the players.
Games run from 1:05 p.m. ET to 9:40 p.m. ET, so there’s plenty of time and plenty of opportunities out there on the betting board for those who are looking to get some action in while following along with The Masters or running those errands that you don’t want to do.
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 available to everybody now, but will soon be 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 11:
Athletics at New York Mets (-163, 7.5)
4:10 p.m. ET
It’ll be a cool day with a pretty stiff breeze coming in from left/across the field in Queens, as the A’s and Mets continue their series. Jacob Lopez gets the call for Sacramento, while Kodai Senga gets the ball for the Mets.
This one’s a pretty simple handicap for me, as I love what Senga has shown this season. He’s struck out 16 of the 47 batters that he has faced while allowing four runs on nine hits with five walks. He had a terrific spring and has carried that over to the season, including a big uptick in velocity that looks much closer to his 2023 season when he carried a 29.1% K%. He’s at 34% so far in starts against the Cardinals and Giants.
In terms of K% thus far, the Cardinals have the ninth-lowest mark at 21.3% and the Giants are 13th at 21.9%. The A’s, meanwhile, are 28th at 27.5%. They have a 27.4% K% against right-handers on the young season. Senga’s up to a 13.9% SwStr%, which would be a career-high, and he’s doing it without getting a ton of chases. He has an 84.2% Z-Contact% against, which is a top-50 mark among pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched so far. The A’s swing and miss a lot both inside and outside the zone and when Senga has induced chases, hitters have whiffed. The A’s have the second-lowest O-Contact%, so when they chase, and they have the fifth-highest Chase Rate in the league, they miss.
This should be a good fit for Senga and his deep arsenal, plus it’ll be his first start of the season at home, where he has a career 30.2% K% compared to a 23.6% K% on the road.
Pick: Kodai Senga (NYM) Over 6.5 Strikeouts (+100)
Los Angeles Angels at Cincinnati Reds (-136, 9)
4:10 p.m. ET
Another midday matinee play here, as the Angels take on the Reds. It’ll be youngster George Klassen for the Halos and Brandon Williamson for the Redlegs. I’m looking to fade Williamson here. I did that in his last start with the Marlins and it flopped, as he threw 6.2 shutout innings with just three hits allowed. But, he’s a major regression candidate right now and that’s even with a six-run outburst from the Pirates in his first start.
Williamson has a .182 BABIP against with a 76.9% LOB%. He’s only struck out seven batters out of the 46 that he has faced and has allowed a 44.4% Hard Hit% and five Barrels in just 36 batted ball events. The command profile doesn’t support what he’s doing and I’m not buying it for a guy that missed the entire 2025 season.
This is also Williamson’s first start on normal rest after starting on Mar. 31 and then Apr. 6. He threw 93 pitches in his last start and pitched into the seventh inning for the first time since 2023. If he shows well here, so be it, but he’s a fly ball guy in a bad park to be one of those. I think this could be a tough outing.
Pick: Angels 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 Runs (+124)
Texas Rangers at Los Angeles Dodgers (-194, 8.5)
9:10 p.m. ET
The Rangers will send Jack Leiter to the bump for his third start of the season and the Dodgers will counter with Emmet Sheehan in his third start of the young year, as Texas looks to bounce back from a tough loss last night. The Rangers scored three in the ninth to tie the game before the Dodgers walked it off in the bottom half. Still, it was a good effort from the Rangers to get back in the game and overcome 14 strikeouts.
Sheehan has allowed eight runs on 12 hits in nine innings over two starts, as he’s struck out eight and walked five. He’s battling a bit of a velo decline right now and the quality of his stuff is really lacking. Stuff+ grades all four of his pitches below average and he’s had significant drops on three of them. He’s had a laundry list of injuries in his time and maybe that’s simply catching up with him.
He’s getting fewer chases and fewer swings and misses across the board this season, especially in the zone. The Dodgers are still running a six-man rotation, so he’s had ample time between starts to figure some things out and work on what’s been holding him back, but it might just be his body. The big drop in Stuff quality for a guy who was pretty heralded coming up the ranks is worrisome.
Meanwhile, we just might be seeing the breakout of Leiter, the 2021 second overall pick out of Vanderbilt. The 25-year-old had a solid season last year with a 3.86 ERA, but his 4.45 xERA and 4.15 FIP showed that there was more work to do. While he’s definitely not faced teams on the Dodgers’ level thus far, he’s allowed three runs on nine hits in 11 innings with 17 strikeouts against just two walks, piggybacking off of a very good Spring Training.
Leiter has deepened his pitch mix and his overall Stuff+ profile is up from last season, including a lot more depth to his changeup. He’s getting more chases and getting a ton of swings and misses in the zone with a 21.5% SwStr% and a 73.1% Z-Contact%. Among pitchers with at least 10 innings thrown, that Z-Contact% only trails Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorowski. It sure seems like he’s legitimately taking a leap.
The Rangers, despite some hiccups yesterday, are second in bullpen ERA and 11th in FIP. I’ll take the full-game here with the extra-added return, but +135 for the 1st 5 is definitely intriguing as well.
Pick: Rangers +159
