MLB Best Bets Today September 19
A mammoth Saturday on the diamond has arrived, as there are some games with huge playoff implications and others where teams are just playing out the string. We’re still sitting on five teams that have qualified for the playoffs, so there are five spots left and some extremely big games over the final week of the regular season. Watch out for some price inflation on these teams in “must-win” situations. It’s hard to know if the underdogs are still trying hard, but you’ll be paying a tax on contenders that absolutely have to win these 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 September 19:
Athletics vs. Guardians Prediction
Pick: Guardians 1st 5 Run Line -0.5 (-105)
Rain could be a factor in this game and we’ll see how the pace of play goes, but we may not get the full nine in this one if the Guardians have the lead past five innings. I think they’ll push very hard for that scenario just in case and may very well be able to get there.
As you know if you’ve followed the team at all or simply read this article, the Guardians employ platoons at the highest rate in baseball. They’re going to send a ton of righties at A’s starter Jacob Lopez here and righties have been very successful against him with a .271/.356/.483 slash and a .364 wOBA. They’ve hit 18 of the 20 homers and 15 of the 18 doubles that Lopez has allowed.
Incredibly, even with the hitter-happy conditions in Sacramento, righties are actually hitting better against Lopez in road outings than ones at home, slashing .279/.358/.491. While a lot of that damage came early in the season, as Lopez settled in over the summer months, he’s allowed 11 runs on 19 hits in his last 15.2 innings of work. He’ll go over 130 innings for this season in this start, which is a career-high for him. It’s entirely possible that he, like a lot of pitchers at this stage, is just wearing down.
The A’s are 29th in wOBA against RHP over the last 14 days and that should be a good thing for Tanner Bibee, who is coming off one of his stronger starts in a while with 6.2 innings of two-run ball with seven strikeouts against the Twins. I’ve been very skeptical of Bibee’s pitch-to-contact approach this season, but he had a little more swing-and-miss last time out and hopefully that carries over here.
Braves vs. Astros Prediction
Pick: Braves +113; Braves 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 (+130)
If Hayden Wesneski is able to bounce back and give his team some quality innings today, I’ll tip my cap and hope for the best in the late innings. But, I do think that the oft-injured right-hander has something going on yet again.
Over his last two starts, Wesneski has allowed 10 runs (six earned) on 11 hits in nine innings with just five strikeouts out of 40 batters faced. If we look at his velo in those two outings, they are his only two out of nine this season with an average fastball velo below 93 mph. In fact, he was 1.4 mph below his season average last time out against the Rays when he gave up seven runs.
Velocity and spin rate are two strong indicators of injury. Wesneski’s fastball spin rate was his lowest of the season and about 100 rpm lower than his season average. It was also his lowest start by Chase Rate of the season. After posting SwStr% of 12.7%, 11.5%, 10.8%, 14.8%, and 14.1% in his first five starts, each of his last four have been under 10%, including a season low 6.5% last time out.
Grant Holmes has a 3.49 ERA with a 4.86 xERA and a 4.69 FIP, so there are some major regression signs in the profile, including his 81.8% LOB% with just an 18.3% K%. He also has reverse platoon splits, in that righties hit him better than lefties, a concern in this outing. Righties do have a lower Barrel% than lefties, though, so that’s one mild positive. Also, Holmes had a 5.03 FIP in the first half and has a 4.15 FIP in the second half, so he has performed a bit better.
Both bullpens are on equal footing, which is part of the reason why I’m going to protect my Braves bet with the 1st 5 Team Total Over. I think +130 is a very good price given the signs I’m seeing from Wesneski.
