MLB Best Bets Today May 7
We almost had a “3-6-9, damn she fine” MLB card, but the snow in Denver pushed one of the games out to Thursday, so now we have a 3-6-9-1 card, as in three NL games, three AL games, three interleague games, and one write-in game. Props to anybody who got that reference.
Four of the games start at 6:40 p.m. ET or later, leaving us five games during the day, with the first one a true businessman’s special in the Bronx at 12:35 p.m. ET. None of the games feature particularly hot weather, except for locales with domes (Phoenix, Miami), but there are a couple day games with some helping breezes, so we’ll see if those feature some offense or are getaway specials with both teams just looking to get nine innings in and move on.
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 May 7:
Cleveland Guardians at Kansas City Royals (-143, 9)
2:10 p.m. ET
This is an early start, so I apologize for lessened lead time than usual, but I uncovered an angle in this game that I want to see through. It will be Seth Lugo for the Royals and Slade Cecconi for the Guardians. Cecconi is a guy that I want to keep picking on until he figures out a way to be more effective, if he figures out a way to be effective. He’s running a 6.56 ERA with a 5.63 xERA and a 5.83 FIP in his 35.2 innings of work.
Cecconi hasn’t missed a lot of bats and has had some walk rate issues. He ranks in the 16th percentile in Barrel%, 22nd percentile in K%, and 26th percentile in Whiff%. But, what I want you to notice is this screenshot from Baseball Savant, the home of Statcast data on the internet.
These are Cecconi’s pitch contour plots for his two most common pitches – the four-seamer and the cutter. You notice that a lot of the usage of the fastball is up at the top of the zone and there’s a hot spot for cutters that, while on the corner, is also up in the zone.
Now consider this screenshot.
Statcast tracks just about everything with its array of cameras and data-collecting technologies. As you can see, I ran a search highlighting Attack Zones 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, and 21, 22, 23, of which the latter three are even outside of the strike zone.
With fastballs – four-seam, sinker, cutter – in those particular zones, the Royals are batting .264 as a group, which is fourth in baseball behind the Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Red Sox, but their .271 xBA is the highest in the league, so their contact quality suggests even better fortunes. Furthermore, their .395 SLG comes with a .474 xSLG, which leads the AL and ranks second overall. Their .345 wOBA comes with a .376 xwOBA that leads the league.
In other words, the Royals have done very well on pitches in this area. It’s a day game with a 15 mph breeze blowing out. Surprisingly, despite a lot of upper-zone pitch usage, Cecconi has a 44.1% GB%, yet he’s still given up eight home runs in his seven starts. All of his pitcher prop numbers are juiced pretty heavily to the Over for things like hits allowed (43 in 35.2 IP) and earned runs allowed (26).
But, the Guardians have to contend with Seth Lugo, who has a 2.68 ERA with a 4.08 xERA and a 2.64 FIP over his 43.2 innings of work. Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney was the Guardians bullpen coach for a few years prior to getting his new post a few seasons ago. Over the course of this series, the Guardians have batted .161/.235/.258 and have scored eight runs in three games. They’re not even striking out, as they have a 15.7% K%, but they’re not making much quality contact.
That’s where a guy like Lugo, who has a respectable 21.3% K% can come into play. He’s allowed just a 37.1% Hard Hit% and seems healthier than he was last season when he allowed a 45.2% HH% and an 11.1% Barrel%. I would fully expect we see a spike in his changeup usage here, along with his usual reliance on a sinker/slider/curve mix. While lefties have fared better than righties throughout his career, so this isn’t a Michael Wacha-esque situation, I still don’t see Cleveland’s lineup finding much success here.
And even if they find a little, the Royals should be able to hit Cecconi based on the information I shared about, plus a helping breeze. I’ll fade Cecconi by going with the Royals 1st 5 run line -0.5 at -115.
Pick: Royals 1st 5 Run Line -0.5 (-115)
Athletics at Philadelphia Phillies (-136, 9)
6:40 p.m. ET
It’s a bit of a chalky price, but the Phillies look like a good bet here today with positive regression candidate Andrew Painter on the bump. Painter enters with a 5.28 ERA, but a 4.03 xERA and a 3.59 FIP over his 29 innings of work. He’s been hurt by a .370 BABIP against, something that appears completely unwarranted with a strong 32.6% Hard Hit% and just a 6.3% Barrel%. There should also be more strikeouts in Painter’s future, as his 36.1% Chase Rate ranks in the 92nd percentile, but his Whiff% only ranks in the 22nd percentile. Hitters are making a very high rate of contact on pitches outside the zone and I don’t know how sustainable that is.
If nothing else, the high Chase Rate paired with the high O-Contact has led to a lot of those weak batted balls. He should see some improvements across the map as that BABIP stabilizes, as he’s done a good job to stay off the barrel and also limit walks with a 76th percentile BB%.
J.T. Ginn had a rough start last time out against Cleveland that included five walks and a drop in fastball velo. He was down about 1 mph across the board and gave up five runs on five hits in 4.1 innings of work against what is usually a pretty punchless Guardians group.
It should also be noted that Ginn has allowed a .306/.388/.554 slash and a .403 wOBA lifetime to lefties. The Guardians were able to take advantage of that, but so should the Phillies, whose best hitters are left-handed. The Phillies are 8-1 under Don Mattingly and have scored 15 runs in two games off of A’s pitching so far. I’ll take the shot here, especially with Painter’s positive signs and a Phillies team trying to dig out of a big hole during a homestand where they could very well go 6-0.
Pick: Phillies -136
