MLB
3 MLB Prop Bets to Target on Friday 8/5/22
If Teoscar Hernandez gets hold of one tonight, it should clear the fences. Which other player props can we focus on for Friday's slate?

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways -- from taking advantage of them straight up (to the tune of cold hard cash) to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy baseball on FanDuel. Here, we're going to focus on the former.

Utilizing our projections as a guide and looking at the odds provided at MLB odds, here are some spots where you can find value today in the prop-betting market.

Here are some MLB player prop bets to make tonight.

Please note that betting lines and our game projections may change throughout the day after this article is published. Also, the weather may be an issue in some locations.

Teoscar Hernandez to Hit a Home Run (+360)

One of the most likely homer candidates of the night according to numberFire's projections, Teoscar Hernandez is a pretty clear value at +360 odds to go deep in Minnesota. The projections think his odds should be around +285. Whew.

He'll draw Tyler Mahle to start the game. Mahle holds a 46.1% fly-ball rate, which ranks fourth-highest among qualified pitchers this season.

Hernandez has a .498 slugging percentage and a .495 expected slugging percentage on the strength of a 42.9% hard-hit rate.

When he gets one in the air (he has a 34.2% fly-ball rate, it's usually tagged, as 53.3% of his fly-balls classify as hard-hit).

Bryan Reynolds to Hit a Home Run (+420)

The odds on a homer for Bryan Reynolds are quite nice at +420.

He'll have a platoon advantage against righty Dean Kremer, who has a career 48.3% fly-ball rate and a 32.7% hard-hit rate allowed. Those numbers in 2022 alone across 220 batters faced are 45.9% and 31.1%, respectively.

Speaking of 420, Kremer's slugging percentage allowed of .420 is misleading: his expected slugging allowed is actually .483.

Reynolds' fly-ball rate is 39.9% against righties this season, though the hard-hit rate is down (29.2%) from his career average (36.8%).

Helping matters is playing in Baltimore, a homer-friendly park.

Robbie Ray Under 7.5 Strikeouts (-110)

Lefty Robbie Ray faces the Los Angeles Angels tonight at home, a game in which Ray's Seattle Mariners are -196 favorites to win.

His strikeout prop of 7.5, though, seems a bit high.

While, yes, the Angels' active roster holds a lowly 85 wRC+ against left-handed pitching, the strikeout rate of 22.3% is just middling.

Ray's 27.5% strikeout rate is higher than his called-strike-plus-whiff rate (26.7%). Since 2020, among 138 qualified pitchers, only 22 of them (around 16.0%) have had a higher CSW% than K%.

Ray should be closer to a 21.1% strikeout rate based on these peripherals, a difference of 6.4 points -- which is the third-largest overperformance since 2020.

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