MLB Best Bets Today August 24
We’ve got 10 games on the MLB card to get the week underway, as 20 of the league’s 30 teams play on Monday. People are really starting to hone in on football with Week 0 on the college side and one more round of preseason games on the NFL side, but we have a lot of exciting races and there are still money-making opportunities on the diamond, so don’t forget about dedicating some time to that each day whenever possible.
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 24:
Rockies vs. Nationals Prediction
Pick: Cade Cavalli (WAS) To Record A Win (+109)
This is under the ‘Pitcher’ section on DraftKings with the rest of the props. Cavalli’s Outs Recorded prop is 17.5 with very heavy Over juice. His strikeout prop is 6.5 with slight plus money, which I also think is a decent look against the Rockies, as Cavalli has 21 strikeouts in his last two starts and 29 over his last three. He struck out eight Rockies in Denver back on July 22 over six shutout innings.
He’s completed at least six innings in eight straight starts and has recorded wins in four of them. While the Rockies have a .340 wOBA against RHP in August, they have a 101 wRC+, as they’ve certainly been helped by the Coors Field conditions. If we add “Away” as a split qualifier, the Rockies drop to 14th in wOBA. They’re running an 11.5% BB% against RHP away from home in August, but Cavalli only has 42 walks in 142.2 innings and hasn’t walked more than two batters in a start since June 20.
The Nationals have all their high-leverage arms available in support of Cavalli. Plus, the offense gets to face Ryan Feltner, who has a 5.97 ERA with a 5.59 xERA and a 5.68 FIP over 92 innings. Yes, he has a 6.26 ERA, but he’s actually posted worse numbers against on the road with a .307/.374/.540 slash, .391 wOBA, and eight of his 19 homers in just 37.1 innings. He has a 5.54 ERA on the road, which is about .75 runs lower than it is at home, but he has a 5.92 FIP and a 5.37 xFIP on the road compared to a 5.52 FIP and 4.81 xFIP at home.
So, the Nationals offense should be in good shape, Cavalli should be in good shape, and the Rockies are starting a road trip having lost six in a row and seven of their last eight. The Nationals are back home after a 1-8 road trip, so I’d imagine they will look to flip the script tonight.
Rangers vs. White Sox Prediction
Pick: White Sox 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 Runs (+114)
The White Sox get to take their cuts against Kumar Rocker today and he’s a guy that I’ve been watching pretty closely. I think there are a number of reasons to be concerned about him in this start.
Let’s start with this. He’s allowed 14 runs in 18.1 innings in August with a .333/.413/.617 slash against. Even last time out against the Nationals, he held them to two runs on six hits, but it should have been a lot worse, as he allowed an average exit velo of 94.7 mph with three Barrels and a xERA of 7.70. He gave up 10 hits to the Astros back on August 2 and somehow only allowed three runs over 5.1 innings.
In the second half, Rocker has allowed a .262/.341/.475 slash with a 64-point spike in SLG compared to the first half. Also, just generally speaking, there are a lot of regression signs with men on base, including his .212 BA and .247 BABIP against with RISP over the course of the season.
Rocker will likely face seven lefties in the White Sox lineup today and he’s had issues with that split this season. He has a 1.52 HR/9 with a 10.5% BB% against lefties, as they’re slashing .287/.361/.490 against him. I’m surprised that he has been better on the road than at home given how solid of a pitcher’s park Globe Life Field is, but lefties on the road are still slashing .293/.366/.424 against him. The biggest difference is with SLG and the White Sox have some power bats from the left side.
Pirates vs. Padres Prediction
Pick: Padres -102
This is an angle that I’ve talked about recently, but if you’re going to give me the Padres at a reasonable price with their high-leverage arms available, it’s going to be hard not to take it. That’s the case today, as Robbie Ray heads to the hill against Braxton Ashcraft. The presence of Ashcraft is weighing really heavily on this line, as he’s been excellent in three of his last four starts. He has a 3.68 ERA with a 3.37 xERA and a 3.59 FIP on the season.
But, the Padres own a .341 wOBA with a 115 wRC+ against righties in the month of August with a .259/.358/.404 slash. Ashcraft doesn’t walk a lot of guys, so he is better equipped than most to deal with the Padres, but still. He’s thrown 17 innings in his last two starts and while his pitch counts haven’t been high, that’s still a good amount of up-downs. Also, he had a couple of duds against the Yankees and Cubs coming out of the All-Star Break and another against Milwaukee. He shut down the Tigers, Marlins, and Reds when facing them recently. Detroit still had a couple of Barrels against him last time out, but didn’t take advantage. The Marlins hit a lot of balls hard in his complete game against them.
Ray has three starts with San Diego under his belt and he’s allowed seven runs on 12 hits over 15 innings of work with 10 strikeouts against 11 walks. It’s been a bit of a struggle for him, but it seems like it always is. He has a 3.20 ERA with a 4.61 xERA and a 4.59 FIP over 137.2 innings this season. He’s a guy who doesn’t miss bats like he used to, has walk rate and home run issues, and yet he’s running a 3.20 ERA. A lot of that has to do with park factor, but going from Oracle Park to Petco Park isn’t a big deal.
The Pirates are 28th in wOBA against LHP this month at .273 with just a .204/.292/.309 slash and a 67 wRC+. It’s a pretty big sample size of 307 plate appearances. In other words, they’ve seen a lot of lefties, more than 26 other teams, and they’ve had very poor results.
So, is Ashcraft better than Ray? Yeah, probably. But, the Padres have the big offensive edge here and one of the league’s most talented bullpens, so this is a price I’m willing to roll with.
