MLB Best Bets Today August 21
All 30 teams are in action on Friday, but the standalone game between the Braves and Brewers at 4:10 p.m. ET is absolutely the game of the night. It will be Chris Sale vs. Jacob Misiorowski, as we have a former Cy Young Award winner against the current odds-on NL Cy Young Award favorite. What a great game to get the day and the weekend started. I don’t have a play in that one, but I have interest in other games.
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.
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 MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
Here are the MLB best bets today for August 21:
Tigers vs. Royals Prediction
Pick: Tigers -113
The Royals are riding high with a five-game winning streak and none of their pitchers seem to be riding as high as Noah Cameron. The southpaw has a 1.19 ERA with a 1.98 xERA and a 2.08 FIP over his last four starts and one bulk relief appearance against the Tigers that resulted in seven shutout innings. Cameron just threw a complete game one-hitter against the Angels with eight strikeouts…
He also threw 115 pitches in that outing and that was on August 16, so he’s going on the more traditional four days rest. It was the Dodgers, so a grain of salt, but he has made one appearance on four days rest during this stretch and he allowed four runs on six hits with just two strikeouts. In starts on four days rest, Cameron has a 5.03 ERA, a big departure from his 3.67 ERA with five days rest between outings.
Given that he has thrown 106, 101, and 115 pitches in his last three outings and now he’s going with the shortened rest, I think this is a really tricky spot for him. He may continue to dazzle and deal, but I’m skeptical.
Detroit sends Troy Melton to the bump with a 1.71 ERA, 3.06 xERA, and a 3.55 FIP over his 14 starts across 84.1 innings. He’s only had two poor starts this season and one came last time out against the White Sox with three runs allowed on nine hits in just 4.1 innings. But, he allowed a .529 BABIP in that start and had a little bit of tough luck. Unlike Cameron, he’s on the extra day of rest. Also unlike Cameron, the Tigers were off yesterday, so his bullpen is completely rested, while the Royals needed to use five relievers yesterday.
Frankly, the Royals are ripe for a downturn given that they just played the A’s, who are missing several starting position players, and the Angels, who just outright stink. The Tigers have faced some good teams and good pitching lately.
Lastly, Jac Caglianone is hurt, Maikel Garcia just got hurt again, and Vinnie Pasquantino just came off the IL. Melton could get a bit of a watered-down lineup tonight.
Twins vs. Padres Prediction
Pick: Padres -115
Unless there is a massive starting pitcher discrepancy, it’s hard not to look at the Padres when they are a short favorite with one of the league’s best bullpens. None of their three main guys have pitched since Tuesday and nobody worked yesterday with the off day coming back from a six-game road trip to Cleveland and New York. The Twins also had yesterday off to travel west for their six-game roadie.
Connor Prielipp and Randy Vasquez are the listed starters here, as the rookie left-hander for the Twins comes in off of a brutal start against the Phillies. He gave up eight runs in five innings with eight hits and four walks allowed. Walks have been a problem lately and I can’t help but wonder if he’s getting a little bit gassed. He’s given up 14 runs in his last 15.1 innings and walked 10 batters in that span.
Prielipp only threw 82.2 innings in the minors last season and just 23.1 innings in 2024. This season, he’s approaching 110 innings across two levels. He has a 5.34 ERA with a 4.27 xERA and a 4.13 FIP. Given that Vasquez has a 4.30 ERA with a 5.84 xERA and a 4.54 FIP, you can see why this line is as short as it is. Positive regression looks possible for Prielipp and the opposite for Vasquez.
But, this is something Vasquez did last season too. He survives despite a low K% and a mediocre BB% for one reason or another. Home run prevention is part of it with just a 9.6% HR/FB%. Surprisingly, Petco Park has been unkind to him this season with a 4.78 ERA and a .368 wOBA against, but that seems like a pretty big outlier given how good of a pitcher’s park it typically is.
Either way, even if there are concerns about Vasquez, Prielipp’s ceiling doesn’t seem high at present. I will gladly take the Padres pen as a short favorite over the Twins pen if the two starters cancel each other out. And I still think there’s a chance that Vasquez is better than Prielipp. The Padres are 10th in wOBA against LHP in the second half and the Twins are 26th in wOBA against RHP.
Pirates vs. Dodgers Prediction
Pick: Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD) Over 7.5 Strikeouts (+124)
Based on recent returns, this looks like a bit of a lofty ask for Yamamoto, who has only gone over this number once in five second half starts and twice since the end of May. But, I do believe that he has a good shot at it tonight and that the plus-money price is pretty attractive.
Over his five second half starts, Yamamoto has faced the Brewers, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Mets, and Yankees. Those teams are 18th, 4th, 8th, 24th, and 30th in K% against RHP. Yamamoto had seven strikeouts in a complete game against the Yankees. He only had five against the Mets, but he had a 13% SwStr%, so the possibility was there for more.
The Pirates are 26th in K% against RHP in the second half. Yamamoto is also at home, where he has a 25.3% K% compared to a 23.6% K% on the road – not a huge difference, but a difference. Pittsburgh has the fourth-highest swinging strikes divided by total strikes percentage in the league per Baseball-Reference, higher than anybody Yamamoto has faced recently.
I’ll take the shot here with a Pirates lineup that has very little exposure to Yamamoto, who is on a couple extra days of rest here.
