Saturday is always a glorious day to bet on baseball, and this one should be no different with plenty of struggling arms making their way to the hill to step up against some menacing power threats.
We’ll take a look at three home-run threats who are beginning to heat up and should find the seats as they begin their march up the league leaderboard.
Here are my free MLB player props for Saturday, April 19.
Best MLB home run props today
Jonathan Aranda (+420 at FanDuel)
Marcell Ozuna (+360 at FanDuel)
Lawrence Butler (+450 at DraftKings)
HR picks for April 19
Jonathan Aranda (+420 at FanDuel)
I’m looking to fade New York Yankees starter Carlos Carrasco here. He’s pitched to a decent amount of contact in the air over his career, but this season—with a Yankees team that loves to convert its hurlers into fly-ball arms—he’s operating over 10 points higher than average in the fly ball department.
His slider has been torched for two homers and a .933 xSLG in four appearances, and that should open the door for Jonathan Aranda, hitting a blistering .382 to begin the year, to go deep.
It’s early, but Aranda has clearly taken a liking to sliders from righties – going deep once and posting a 1.776 xSLG in a limited sample. He certainly won’t keep that up all season long, but that’s more than enough reason to believe in the slugger here.
We should see plenty of fly balls in a park that grades out top-10 in park factor for homers so far this season.
Marcell Ozuna (+360 at FanDuel)
The ever-mediocre Simeon Woods-Richardson will be pitching to an Atlanta Braves offense that finally found some life at the plate on Friday night. While the odds aren’t the spiciest on many of these Braves hitters, there should be a number of homers, and the Big Bear is my first target.
Marcell Ozuna may be off to a slow start in the home run department, but two of his three have come in the last five games, and now he’ll face an extreme fly-ball pitcher at home, who’s been known to throw strikes and enters the day with a dastardly .579 Expected Slugging Percentage.
Ozuna has destroyed changeups from righties with a .686 xSLG since the start of last season and has 13 home runs in total against changeups and fastballs. The change was the pitch which yielded the most homers for Woods-Richardson a year ago, and so far this season, it’s come home with a .667 xSLG in a limited sample.
He should see plenty of both, and against a less-menacing strikeout arm, should get us on the board.
Lawrence Butler (+450 at DraftKings)
The last piece of the puzzle is Lawrence Butler, a player who’s been trying to rediscover his power stroke and lift the ball a bit more.
He’s started to figure things out, hitting a home run on Thursday, and now he’ll face an inexperienced arm in Chad Patrick who has been a heavy fly-ball pitcher throughout his career in the minor leagues and has been the same guy in a limited number of big-league innings.
He should help Butler lift the ball and tap into his power, and that’s bared plenty of fruit with Butler hitting .273 against fly-ball pitchers so far this season. He’s also crushed cut-fastballs with an .812 xSLG since the start of last season, and that’s the pitch which Patrick is currently relying upon the most.
Today’s most popular HR bets
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(+600) - Aaron Judge
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(+550)
Betting info courtesy of DraftKings
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