MLB Best Bets Today July 30:
Today is a really difficult day for betting on baseball. The MLB Trade Deadline is at 6 p.m. ET. We have one day game between Cleveland and Detroit and every other game starts after the deadline has passed. Teams and players are going to be moving all over the place, so guys will be scratched left and right. Bullpens will be shorthanded. Lineups will be altered and benches may be short a player.
And then there’s the human side of it. Guys who have never played in another organization, guys whose best friends are changing zip codes, guys who will be away from their families while they get settled in, there are so many thoughts, feelings, and emotions with the day. It is going to be a challenging one across the league.
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Normally, I don’t pick any games on deadline day for those reasons. In the past, I’ve done a Trade Deadline live blog, but that didn’t really get the traffic compared to the effort, so I’ll do a separate Trade Deadline recap tonight/tomorrow morning and evaluate what we saw. But, for now, tread lightly on a night like tonight.
Article runs Monday-Saturday, odds current from DraftKings at time of publish, SHOP AROUND for the best prices. Tracking sheet is here.
Here are the MLB best bets today for July 30:
Miami Marlins at Tampa Bay Rays (-170, 7.5)
6:50 p.m. ET
The Marlins and Rays start up the Sunshine State series tonight with Edward Cabrera up against Jeffrey Springs. It is a big day for Springs, who will make his first MLB start since April 13, 2013 after recovering from Tommy John surgery. Springs threw 32 innings over 12 starts in the minors to get ready for this moment and posted a 4.50 ERA with a 3.06 FIP. He was pretty effective on the whole, but did run a .288 BA against and a .376 BABIP, even though he had a 26.1% K%.
I think the command will still be a bit of a work in progress for him. Also, Cabrera is a dude that can have some seriously long innings and I feel like Springs will have some long sits between innings that may keep him from being as sharp as possible.
The Marlins are fifth in wOBA here in the second half. Obviously they’ve lost Jazz Chisholm Jr. via trade and inexplicably waived Josh Bell, but some of the other guys have been swinging it pretty well.
Springs’ Over/Under Earned Runs Allowed is 1.5 at +115, but I do feel like I’d rather trade the five cents to take Marlins 1st 5 Team Total Over 1.5 in the event of an unearned run or something like that. It will be a hugely emotional moment for Springs against a very aggressive offensive team and I think he could have a bump or two in the road.
The other thing is that offense seems to be way up around the league right now. I don’t know if the balls have been altered or what, but we’ve seen some very high-scoring games and performances over the last few days.
Pick: Marlins 1st 5 Team Total Over 1.5 Runs (+110)
