MLB Best Bets Today August 1
The Trade Deadline is inching closer with each passing minute, as we look at the Saturday MLB card. Unfortunately, a couple of starters got scratched from yesterday’s article, which is what sometimes happens when assets that are garnering a lot of trade interest are scheduled to pitch. We’ll see if Freddy Peralta and Casey Mize get moved today or not. In the meantime, it’s a new day with new matchups.
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 MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
Here are the MLB best bets today for August 1:
Pirates vs. Reds Prediction
Pick: Pirates -115
Braxton Ashcraft has had some rough outings lately, but he’s stepping down in class here to take on the Reds. Ashcraft has allowed 17 runs on 21 hits over his last 14 innings of work in starts against the Brewers, Yankees, and Cubs. Cincinnati is not on that level and, frankly, not even really close. Only the Yankees had a higher K% in the month of July than the Reds, so this should be an opportunity for Ashcraft to get on track and rack up some strikeouts.
Last time out against the Cubs, he got very unlucky to give up four runs, as he held Chicago to a 15.8% Hard Hit% and zero Barrels. He induced a lot of chases, but fell victim to the BABIP gods. There should be a course correction in his numbers coming soon and maybe it will come here.
Andrew Abbott will go for the Reds here, as he sports a 3.85 ERA with a 4.77 xERA and a 4.76 FIP over 117 innings of work. He’s had some walk rate issues this season to go along with a decreased K%, so he’s made a lot of his own messes. With a 78.1% LOB%, he’s cleaned a lot of them up, but there are some negative signs in his profile that give us starting pitchers pointing in opposite directions.
While the Pirates have hit righties well all season long, they finished July as a top-10 group with a .335 wOBA. In fact, the Reds were one spot above them with a .342 wOBA, but that also means that Cincinnati was just 14th in wOBA against RHP at .315 with a 93 wRC+, as their solid offensive numbers in July had a lot to do with hitting lefties, not righties.
Pittsburgh should have an availability advantage in the bullpen here. Emilio Pagan, Caleb Ferguson, and Pierce Johnson have all worked three of the last four days, with Pagan pitching on back-to-back days on Thursday and Friday. The Pirates don’t have those types of concerns.
Yankees vs. Cubs Prediction
Pick: Cubs -110
A couple of southpaw slingers are on the bump at Wrigley Field today with the Yankees and Cubs battling it out. It will be Max Fried in his third start back from the IL for New York and David Peterson, the former New York Met, for the Cubs. Peterson gave up 10 runs in his second start with Chicago, so his numbers with the Cubs are quite poor, but he’s allowed a total of five runs in his other four starts.
Peterson went 6.2 shutout innings in his second home start as a Cub to erase the bad memories of the 10-run outburst from St. Louis in his first one. He also avenged that start last time out with 5.2 innings of two-run ball at Busch Stadium. Now he faces a Yankees crew that slashed just .211/.271/.351 against LHP in the month of July.
Fried has allowed three runs on six hits with an 11/3 K/BB ratio in his two starts since coming back, as he worked five shutout innings against the Pirates on July 22 and then gave up three runs on five hits over 15 batters faced against the White Sox on July 27. The Cubs smashed southpaws in July, slashing .301/.385/.509, so their offense should have the upper hand in this one, hence the line even though Fried is definitely held in higher regard than Peterson.
Neither team has any big bullpen worries or unavailable arms, however the Cubs only used lower-leverage guys yesterday, so that could give them an advantage today with some fresher guys and guys that the lineup hasn’t seen yet.
