MLB Best Bets Today August 25
Everybody is slated to take the field tonight, as all 30 teams are scheduled for Tuesday and we’ve had some pretty tame weather patterns recently, so there are no threats of a rainout across the board. That’s good because the last thing that teams want to do these days is play a doubleheader or lose an off day this deep into what is a really long season. With smooth sailing on that front, we’ve got a lot of straightforward handicaps tonight.
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 25:
Astros vs. Yankees Prediction
Pick: Astros +131
It will be the second career start for Ethan Pecko, as he’ll take the mound at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night. Pecko’s line for his debut doesn’t look great, as he allowed two runs on three hits over 3.2 innings with four strikeouts against three walks. But, he only allowed two hard-hit balls and zero Barrels, as the Angels didn’t make a lot of good contact over their 10 batted balls. He had an 11.2% SwStr%. I think there were just a lot of nerves, as he only had a 38.9% F-Strike% and a 31.5% Zone%.
Pecko’s stuff graded very well, as his 107 Stuff+ with four above average pitches seems promising. He just struggled to locate them. It can certainly be daunting to go to Yankee Stadium and face some of the big names in that lineup, but the Yankees are 29th in wOBA against RHP in the second half with a 78 wRC+. They are only slashing .203/.281/.356 with a 27.8% K%.
We also need to have an extended discussion about Will Warren. The Yankees right-hander has a 4.43 ERA with a 4.67 xERA and a 4.27 FIP over 122 innings of work, but that only tells part of the story. Warren pitched to a 2.59 ERA in the first month of the season and a 3.82 ERA in May. Since then, he’s been objectively terrible, including a 6.08 ERA over his 23.2 innings of work in the second half.
Warren’s first June start came on the 8th. Over his last 12 starts and one relief appearance, he has a 5.77 ERA with a 6.24 xERA and a 5.39 FIP in 57.2 innings of work. He’s given up 12 homers in that span and a 47% Hard Hit% with a 9.2% Barrel%. If we look just at his five second-half starts and one relief outing, he’s allowed a 59.4% Hard Hit% with an 11.6% Barrel%.
Both teams had Monday off, so the bullpens are on pretty equal footing. The Yankees have a lower bullpen ERA this month, but the Astros have the lower xERA and FIP.
Houston’s offense against RHP has a 105 wRC+ in the second half and ranks 13th in wOBA, so the Astros should have the offensive advantage here tonight. If nothing else, this game looks much tighter than the line would imply.
Orioles vs. Cardinals Prediction
Pick: Orioles +116
This game is for the birds. Literally, as we have the Orioles and Cardinals together at Busch Stadium. It will be Chris Bassitt for the O’s and Matthew Liberatore for the Redbirds, so we get a righty vs. lefty matchup here and that’s one of the main factors in the handicap.
These two pitchers have both had subpar seasons. Bassitt has a 5.08 ERA with a 5.10 xERA and a 4.58 FIP over 67.1 innings, but he just recently came back from the IL and has allowed five runs on 13 hits in 11 innings. His .353 BABIP in those two starts isn’t really indicative of how his contact quality against has been, so I’ll be rooting for that to improve. Plus, his two starts have been against the Rays and Yankees, two teams that have extensive reports and experience against him dating back to his time with the Blue Jays.
Liberatore has a 5.04 ERA with a 4.81 xERA and a 4.45 FIP over his 125 innings of work. He has a 5.17 ERA over 31.1 innings in the second half, despite a really strong 37/8 K/BB ratio. His contact management still isn’t great and he’s been awful from the stretch, allowing a .366 wOBA with men on base for the season.
While you can argue that Liberatore > Bassitt, and I probably wouldn’t fight it too much, the Orioles are ninth in wOBA against LHP in the second half, even with a 27.2% K%. They are fourth in SLG at .443 and that has really helped offset the swings and misses.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, are 26th in wOBA against RHP in the second half, slashing just .249/.314/.346. They’ve been a bit better in August, but still nothing that stands out greatly and they are at a power disadvantage against the Orioles based on the splits.
The Cardinals also have a FIP north of 5.00 as a relief corps in August. The Orioles are sixth in FIP at 3.26, and have a 4.50 ERA, so there’s some positive regression due for this unit.
Reds vs. Giants Prediction
Pick: Giants -104
Veteran right-handers square off here with Brady Singer against Adrian Houser. Singer comes into this start having allowed 3+ runs in each of his last six outings. He’s given the Reds some length, completing at least six innings in five of those, but he hasn’t been terribly sharp with a 25/12 K/BB ratio in 35 innings of work. He’s given up 39 hits in that span and has actually allowed seven Barrels in his last two starts.
Houser has been the opposite. He’s largely been used as a bulk reliever since getting bumped from the rotation in mid-June. But, he’s a guy that got off to a terrible start to the season and his numbers still kind of reflect that. Houser gave up 21 earned runs over his first five starts from April 1-24. For the full season, he has a 4.08 ERA with a 4.97 xERA and a 4.59 FIP over 108 innings. If we look at the season from April 25 on, he has a 3.06 ERA. That does come with a 4.59 xERA and a 4.45 FIp, so he does have some blow-up potential, but he’s allowed one or zero runs in each of his last six appearances, with five of them 4+ innings of work.
The Giants are 11th in wOBA at .322 in August against RHP with a .244/.316/.419 slash and a 105 wRC+. The Reds are 25th in wOBA at .293 with an 81 wRC+ and a .205/.286/.377 slash in that split.
San Francisco has a better bullpen ERA, but a lower xERA and FIP in the month of August. But, I think there are enough other factors to push me towards the Giants here and hopefully their leverage guys can shut it down if need be.
