MLB Best Bets Today May 20
We’re staring down a split schedule on Wednesday, as we have a handful of getaway day games coupled with a fairly robust nighttime slate. Thursday is something of a respite for those embracing the daily grind, as we have seven games, so more than half of the league’s teams will be idle heading into the holiday weekend.
As far as the slate goes for today, it’s an “aces and faces” kind of day, with Cam Schlittler, Trey Yesavage, Shohei Ohtani, and Joe Ryan among the starters, but we also have a lot of lesser-known games, guys who are struggling, and a lot of guys in line for either positive or negative regression.
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 20:
Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs (-120, 6.5)
7:40 p.m. ET
It will not be a fun night to be a hitter and could also be a tough night to be a defender, as we’ve got a stiff wind blowing in at Wrigley Field. You don’t even have to look at a weather forecast most days to know what the wind is doing on the North Side of Chicago, as the total in the Cubs game will tell you exactly how it is.
Kyle Harrison and Edward Cabrera are the listed starters here. Harrison has been quite a find for the Brewers, who continue to isolate and pluck pitchers from other teams and turn them into very strong arms. The 24-year-old southpaw comes in with a 2.09 ERA, 3.32 xERA, and a 2.88 FIP over his 38.2 innings of work. His 89.3% LOB% won’t stick around forever, but he’s struck out 30% of opposing batters and has limited them to a 28.1% Hard Hit% and a 6.3% Barrel%. Tonight, he draws a Cubs lineup that ranks 26th in wOBA over the last two weeks against lefties, posting just a .273 SLG.
The Cubs are sending out Edward Cabrera, whose K% is down pretty dramatically from where it has been in past seasons. His BB% is down as well, looking more like what he did last season, but the total package amounts to a 4.06 ERA with a 4.38 xERA and a 4.51 FIP. Over 51 innings, Cabrera has 45 strikeouts, making this the first season in his career where he is trending towards under a punchy per inning. As a result, his .255 BA against is the highest of his career.
Where Harrison has really minimized loud contact, Cabrera has a 12.9% Barrel% against. Not that Barrels are going to be all that prolific tonight, but this is a guy that can fall behind in counts and will allow a lot of hard contact as a result. Cabrera also has a career-worst 89.7% Z-Contact%, as he’s had to generate his swings and misses on pitches outside the zone. That’s fine, as he has a career-best 34.4% Chase Rate, but the Brewers are often one of the most responsible teams with their swing decisions and have the second-lowest Chase Rate as a team per Statcast and fifth-highest Z-Contact%.
Lastly, on a night like tonight, manufacturing runs will be important. Obviously the Brewers don’t chase much, so that’s a positive, plus they project to make more contact than the Cubs given the pitching matchup. But, they’re also a stronger team on the basepaths, sitting fourth in FanGraphs’ all-encompassing BsR baserunning metric and second in stolen bases.
The Cubs are 13th in BsR and tied for 16th in steals. With tonight’s weather, I think those elements matter and feel like the Brewers are worthy of a look.
Pick: Brewers -101
Pittsburgh Pirates at St. Louis Cardinals (-118, 7.5)
7:45 p.m. ET
In another NL Central rivalry, the Pirates and Cardinals face off at Busch Stadium with Carmen Mlodzinski and Michael McGreevy as the slated starters. I’m looking to pick on McGreevy here, who enters with a strong 2.10 ERA, but a 5.77 xERA, 3.87 FIP, and a 3.78 xFIP. The low FIP and xFIP numbers are byproducts of a stellar 5.8% BB% and he has lifted his K% up to 18.8%, but that is still well below the league average.
He doesn’t miss a ton of bats, so a 90.2% LOB% is not sustainable in the slightest. His .203 BABIP is also unsustainable, as rest of season projections put him anywhere from .289 to .310 moving forward. He’s allowed a 39.6% Hard Hit%, which is above league average, but an 11.1% Barrel%, which is not.
McGreevy’s .542 xSLG against is in the bottom 3% of baseball and his xwOBAcon is in the bottom 5%. His xERA of 5.78 is in the bottom 12%, his xBA of .288 is in the bottom 11%, and his Whiff% of 19.9% is in the bottom 17%. There are not a lot of strong metrics under the hood for McGreevy. Specifically, his fastball has been way more fortunate than expected with a .224 BA and a .340 xBA. Furthermore, he’s allowed a .429 SLG and a .740 xSLG with a .299 wOBA and a .462 xwOBA. There’s been a lot of high contact quality off of his fastball and he’s going to pay the price at some point.
Certainly I’d love for Ryan O’Hearn to be out there since lefties make up for most of the impending regression with a .233 BA / .349 xBA on the fastball, .465 SLG / .742 xSLG, and a .319 wOBA / .468 xwOBA. He’s throwing that pitch nearly 31% of the time to lefties and a correction should be coming.
Mlodzinski is on the other end of the spectrum to some degree, as he has a 4.40 ERA with a 4.80 xERA, but a 2.98 FIP and a 3.72 xFIP. He’s got a .351 BABIP against with a 68.5% LOB%. His 4.8% HR/FB% won’t stick around forever, especially with the hard contact that he has allowed, but he has certainly deserved a better fate from a sequencing and batted ball luck standpoint. He has allowed a 52.9% Hard Hit%, so the BABIP will likely remain outside the realm of normal, but shouldn’t be in the .350 range forever. All of the rest of season projections have his BABIP right around .300.
It should also be noted that Mlodzinski gave up seven Barrels in a two-start stretch on April 26 and May 2 and has allowed only four Barrels in his other five starts and two bulk relief outings. He’s only allowed one in each of his last two starts.
With some better fortunes probable for Mlodzinski and the opposite for McGreevy, the Pirates should be able to capitalize and play from in front here and turn it over to their higher-leverage arms.
Pick: Pirates -102
