MLB Best Bets Today April 2
Fourteen games are scheduled for Tuesday, though every outdoor game outside of California has rain in the forecast. The conditions should be good for pitchers today because of cold temps and a lot of the games feature winds blowing in.
I’ll talk about this on my Sharp Money hit at 5 p.m. ET, but performance with RISP is a bit of an outlier right now. Teams are batting .278/.358/.427 after posting a .256/.337/.418 slash last year. The .326 BABIP with RISP will regress as we go forward, so keep an eye out for some inflated totals right now.
Top MLB Resources:
I’ll be leaving in the long intro blurb probably throughout the week so you can see the cadence of the article and what you can expect.
I’ll be writing my MLB best bets today article Monday-Saturday over the course of the season, but those that have read it in the past will notice a few wrinkles.
I will only be writing up games I have picks on. In the past, I would share information about other games and pitchers on my radar, but I’ll just be filing those things away in my own mind in hopes of finding bets down the line.
Also, I will be incorporating more props into my MLB article this season, rather than just sides, totals, and run lines. Pitcher strikeout props, outs props, and other things that are widely available in the legal U.S. markets will be included.
The VSiN Daily Baseball Bets podcast is gone (RIP), but I will be co-hosting the Double Play Baseball Podcast for DraftKings with Dustin Swedelson. That will be less of a betting podcast and more of a general baseball podcast, but we will sprinkle in a little bit of handicapping content.
The season-long tracking sheet can be found here. Typically, this article will come out around 8-9 a.m. PT, but I’ll try to get it out quicker on days with a lot of day games.
Lines will be from DraftKings Sportsbook and accurate at time of publish. In the interest of transparency and a lack of confusion, I will cite lines from the “Game” tab, which, unfortunately, means “Action” regardless of who starts. When possible, always select the “Listed Pitcher” odds where both pitchers must start, especially if there is no significant price difference. The game I handicapped and the game you handicapped is with the two listed, probable pitchers. In the era of openers and late scratches, pitching changes will happen and odds will change. Protect yourself the best you can.
Finally, SHOP AROUND. Have multiple sportsbooks to choose from so you can get the best line possible. My lines in the article are from DraftKings because they own VSiN, not because they have the best odds on that game. It is your responsibility to get the best line that you can.
Check out all my preseason content, including previews for all 30 teams and baseball betting tips, right here.
MLB Odds | MLB Betting Splits | MLB Matchups
Here are the MLB best bets today for April 2:
Detroit Tigers at New York Mets (-130, 7.5)
7:10 p.m. ET
We’ll get our first chance to see if the hype surrounding Casey Mize is worth it as the Tigers and Mets square off for the second game of this three-game series. It will be Adrian Houser for the winless Mets, who dropped all three games to Houser’s former team and then got beat 5-0 last night by Detroit.
Spring Training results are what they are, but Mize had 20 strikeouts in 20.1 innings of work and allowed just five runs on 12 hits over his five starts. More importantly, his Stuff+ numbers and his pitch velocity looked fantastic. Mize seems to finally be healthy and he was touching 98 in the Spring, plus there were a lot of rave reviews about the splitter that made him so effective at Auburn.
Houser is just a guy and I honestly think the Mets are going to be a bit of a bad fit for him. Houser is a pitch-to-contact dude and the Brewers led MLB last season with +40 Outs Above Average per Statcast. The Mets were 25th in Defensive Runs Saved and 23 in Outs Above Average. Houser had a 4.12 ERA with a 4.21 xERA and a 3.99 FIP last season over 111.1 innings, but his 20% K% was the first time he had reached 20% since 2019 and nearly half of his appearances that season came in a relief capacity.
Houser’s Hard Hit% rose to 46.3% last season, which is a pretty obscene number. Even with the good Brewers defense, he had a .320 BABIP against. He managed to overperform in some areas because 10 of the 13 homers he allowed were solo shots and his K% actually jumped with men on base, which isn’t usually how it goes.
I find that the Tigers also have the deeper bullpen between the two teams here and Mize has more upside than Houser. I feel like all of those things are worth the plus-money price here. Shop around, as it seems like most shops have a slightly better number on Detroit.
Pick: Tigers +110
Cleveland Guardians at Seattle Mariners (-118, 7)
9:40 p.m. ET
The top pitching matchup of the night features Shane Bieber and Luis Castillo up at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. There are a lot of reasons why I like Cleveland today, but I can simplify them into one short explanation. I just expect them to put more balls in play and have more chances to score runs.
Castillo wasn’t terribly sharp in his first start against Boston. While he is stepping down in class against the Guardians – and Bieber is stepping up not facing the Athletics – Castillo only had a 5.5% SwStr% in that start and didn’t really pound the zone like he usually does. He allowed a 43.8% Hard Hit% and his velocity was down a little bit as well. None of those things are surprising early in the season, but you’d like the chance to jump on a guy like him while he’s trying to get into the rhythms of the season.
Bieber, who is in a contract year, threw six shutout innings with 11 strikeouts against the A’s. Yes, I realize that it’s Oakland, but Bieber’s velo was up a full mph from 2021 and 2022 and he seems to have a revamped changeup that looks like a terrific weapon. He didn’t even use his trademark curveball all that much, even though we were all told that the movement and metrics resembled his 2021 season when he threw it 31.2% of the time.
His fastball command was so good against Oakland that he actually threw it nearly 45% of the time. I anticipate more of a pitch mix here against the Mariners, who have struck out in over 31% of their plate appearances to this point.
This is a bet on Bieber over Castillo, but the Mariners offense has been off to a really slow start in general with a lack of contact authority. Triston McKenzie definitely didn’t look right with the decreased velo last night and they jumped on him, but that’s been about it.
I’ll trade a few cents per the DraftKings line and take the Guardians 1st 5 at -105 as opposed to the full game at -102 since the Cleveland bullpen is a real work in progress right now.
Pick: Guardians 1st 5 (-105)
Boston Red Sox (-148, 8) at Oakland Athletics
9:40 p.m. ET
Brayan Bello and Alex Wood are the slated starters for this one as Boston’s West Coast swing continues. Bello had a solid debut over five innings with two runs allowed on five hits. He only struck out two, which is a bit of a red flag against the free-swinging Mariners. He only had a 9.5% SwStr%, but he threw a ton of first-pitch strikes (65%) and his heavy sinker and ground ball profile should play up pitching ahead in the count more frequently.
Bello is stepping down in class here to face the A’s, who have struck out a lot and have done very little offensively. So that helps, but what also helps is that Bello has stopped throwing his four-seam fastball and pitching coach Andrew Bailey seems to be doing a masterful job with the Red Sox rotation. Bailey, who was actually drafted by the A’s and played nearly a decade in the bigs, is the first-year PC after serving for four years in that role with the Giants.
Bello allowed a .310 BA and a .646 SLG on his four-seamer last season. It was a horrible pitch for him that he used nearly 21% of the time. He didn’t throw it at all against the Mariners and Bailey has lowered the overall fastball usage for Boston’s starters. That allows Bello to go sinker/changeup and mix in the slider, which he’s throwing harder this season. He sat 96.1 mph in his first start after sitting 95 with the sinker in last year’s outings.
For his career, Bello is a 55.8% GB% and it is tough to string hits together to score runs, especially with an offense like Oakland’s. He’s got a much higher upside than Wood, who started well against Cleveland before giving up six runs on seven hits. Cleveland’s righties had five hits, a walk, and a hit by pitch in 12 PA in that first game and the Red Sox could send out as many as six right-handed bats here.
I’m looking to play on pitcher adjustments early in the season. Velocity increases, different usage distributions, and other tweaks are the things that I want to see. Wood looks to be the same pitcher he’s always been, but Bello seems to have a heightened ceiling with Bailey’s influence. I also like Bello Over 16.5 Outs at -125 if you’d rather go that route.
Lastly, Bailey was Wood’s pitching coach in San Francisco each of the last three seasons. The information he can provide should help Boston’s hitters quite a bit.
Pick: Red Sox -1.5 (+105)
