MLB Best Bets Today April 15
All 30 teams will attempt to take the field today, as we’ll have to wait and see how Mother Nature times up her involvement. Yesterday featured a ton of severe weather in places without baseball teams and that will likely be the case here again, but games in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Chicago could be threatened by rain and thunder.
After an incredible offensive display on Monday, where the league slugged nearly .500 and batted nearly .300, we were back to normal yesterday, as we had 125 runs across the 15 games. We had 144 runs across 10 games on Monday, so it seems as though that was just a blip on the radar. A massive blip, but a blip nonetheless.
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 15:
Chicago Cubs at Philadelphia Phillies (-143, 9)
6:40 p.m. ET
Yesterday’s card featured a ton of left-handed starters. Today’s has five and this is the only game with competing southpaws, as the Cubs and Phillies battle it out with Shota Imanaga and Jesus Luzardo.
Imanaga is somebody that I am looking to fade right now. So far, he’s allowed five runs on nine hits with 20 strikeouts against four walks. That’s an outstanding K/BB ratio and we’ll see if he can keep that up thanks to his velocity uptick, but all three of his starts thus far have come in pretty favorable conditions for a guy with a 22.2% GB%. Imanaga only has a 5.6% HR/FB% with just one homer allowed despite a lot of aerial contact.
Today, Imanaga will have to deal with a first-pitch temp in the upper 80s with a little bit of a helping breeze to RF. Those are very much conducive conditions for hitters and not for a guy like Imanaga. I expect that we’ll see him give up at least a couple of homers and that’s why I’m looking at Phillies 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 Runs at +110.
The moneyline feels a little rich and I’m not sure how the Phillies bullpen will fare if they get a lead. I really like what Luzardo has done this season, though he’s gotten extremely unlucky with a .500 BABIP against with men on base and a .667 BABIP against with RISP. He has a .359 BABIP against and a 46.5% LOB% while striking out 36.6% of opposing batters. Unlike Imanaga, Luzardo also has a 52.5% GB%, so he’s been doing a good job of keeping the ball down while throwing with more velo.
Luzardo only has a 24.4% Hard Hit% with three Barrels allowed. He has a 16.9% SwStr% and a big increase in Chase Rate. He’s just run bad on the sequencing side of things and that should normalize as we go forward. In other words, I think the Phillies have a noteworthy starting pitcher advantage in this one. With that, I’ll also take the 1st 5 Run Line -0.5 at -105.
Picks: Phillies 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 Runs (+110); Phillies 1st 5 Run Line -0.5 (-105)
Washington Nationals at Pittsburgh Pirates (-181, 9.5)
6:40 p.m. ET
Jake Irvin and Mason Montgomery are the listed starters here, as Montgomery will open for Carmen Mlodzinski as the Pirates look to continue their hot start to the season. My focus is on Irvin here, though, as he is stepping down in class after facing the Cubs, Dodgers, and Brewers to open the season. Nothing against the Pirates, who are 10th in wRC+ and seventh in wOBA, but their lineup is nowhere near as talented as the other ones. They’re running very hot right now, but I think we can all agree that they’re overperforming.
Irvin has a 25% K% thus far with a 12.5% BB%. The Brewers and Cubs are first and second in BB% against the Dodgers are 11th, just one spot behind the Pirates, but we know that they’ll be among the league leaders when all is said and done and I don’t know that Pittsburgh will be. Irvin is throwing harder this season and has a 10.1% SwStr% with just a 21.2% Chase Rate, so he’s actually getting swings and misses in the zone, something that is a good indicator of stuff quality.
By Stuff+, Irvin has seen improvements to his four-seam, sinker, cutter, slider, curveball, and changeup, so all of the pitches he’s been classified with have been better according to that pitch model. Despite the heightened K%, he has a 59.5% LOB%, so he’s probably a positive regression candidate on a team that has not gotten a lot of productive pitching.
While that may or may not happen today, I do like Irvin’s newfound swing-and-miss prowess against a lineup that is not on the level of the three teams that he has faced so far. With the big plus-money price, this is worth a shot in my mind.
Pick: Jake Irvin (WAS) Over 4.5 Strikeouts (+124)
Texas Rangers at Athletics (-122, 10)
9:40 p.m. ET
If J.T. Ginn has fixed his platoon problems, I’ll tip my cap and wear this loss. He’ll get the start today for the A’s, though it’s fair to wonder how deep he’ll work into the game. Ginn’s first three appearances came in relief, going 3.2, 2.0, and 1.1 innings before throwing four shutout innings against the Mets in his first start of the season last time out. He threw a season-high 68 pitches in that outing and it was definitely very promising with a good rate of swings and misses given how few first-pitch strikes he made.
What has kept Ginn from being a successful, full-time starter is that lefties own a .317/.388/.561 slash with a .403 wOBA against him in 276 plate appearances. He also hasn’t pitched well in Sacramento, so that’s part of the equation also, but lefties have done a ton of damage and that has neutralized the good results he has against righties.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Kumar Rocker, who has allowed five runs on 11 hits in 10 innings and owns a 5.34 ERA with a 5.11 xERA and 4.74 FIP in his career, but there were some positive signs in his two starts. First of all, one was against the Dodgers and this is an easier assignment. Second, he limited hard contact with just a 36.4% Hard Hit% against. Next, he got the Reds to expand the zone in his first start with a 34.1% Chase Rate and a 13.8% SwStr% overall.
It looks as though Rocker’s arsenal is different this season as more of a sinker/slider/changeup guy. He has a 51.5% GB% in his two starts so far and that should help him pitching in Sacramento here.
The Rangers bullpen has had a lighter workload lately than the A’s bullpen, as those guys have been getting consistent work. That may not be a bad thing in April while everybody is trying to get into rhythm, but there are some guys working in high-leverage that haven’t done much of that in their careers.
While the Rangers are off to a bad start against LHP, and it continued last night when they were shut down by Jeffrey Springs, they have a 113 wRC+ against RHP with a .250/.323/.422 slash. The A’s are only slashing .245/.314/.376 in that split.
Pick: Rangers +102
