Two of baseball’s best arms factor into today’s MLB prop bets.
The pregame narrative: Blake Snell has a pair of Cy Young awards under his belt and Tarik Skubal is poised to join the club soon enough. I’m backing each of them to clear their out totals today. Elsewhere, I’m fading Framber Valdez against the Baltimore Orioles.
Find out why in the best MLB prop bets for Aug. 24.
MLB prop bets
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Best bet: Snell over 18.5 outs (+128)
Snell is on a monumental heater and I want in.
Check out his stats over eight starts since being activated from the IL on July 9:
- 1.03 ERA
- .117 opponent BA
- .170 opponent SLG
- 52.1 IP
- 70 strikeouts
Those numbers speak for themselves but let’s dig a little deeper.
Last year’s Cy Young winner has cleared this total in three of his last four starts. That includes a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 2 and 6.1 innings of shutout ball against the Atlanta Braves two weeks ago.
Now, he gets to go up against a Seattle Mariners team which can’t hit lefties.
That’s no exaggeration — the Mariners have the lowest batting average against southpaws since the all-star break (.180) and the third-lowest wRC+ (70).
Snell is also a bonafide workhorse, throwing 106.6 pitches on average over his last five starts. He’s also dominated this Mariners lineup in the past.
Key stat: Seattle is batting .186 with a 31.3% K rate against Snell in 80 combined plate appearances, per Baseball Savant.
Quick picks
Skubal over 18.5 outs (+102): Consider this a co-best bet. I love Skubal’s chances of dicing through the historically inept White Sox today.
The AL Cy Young award frontrunner has an MLB-best 2.49 ERA while ranking second in WHIP (0.93).
He’s cleared this line in four of his last six starts while landing on exactly 18.0 outs — or 6.0 IP — in the outliers.
Skubal has an extensive history against Chicago and the results aren’t pretty … for the White Sox.
He’s held their current lineup to a .205 batting average and .260 SLG in 78 combined plate appearances.
He fell just shy of this total in his only start against them this year, throwing 6.0 shutout innings. But that was on opening day and he was limited to just 83 pitches.
Chicago ranks bottom-two in batting average, runs per game, wRC+, slugging percentage, and just about every other offensive metric you can imagine.
I’m officially putting a no-hitter watch on this game.
Valdez under 17.5 outs (+120): Valdez is on a tear right now, clearing this line five times in his last seven starts while posting a 1.94 ERA. But I think the O’s can bring him back down to earth.
Baltimore has hammered the lefty before and is batting .326 with a .488 SLG against him in a combined 92 plate appearances.
The O’s have one of the best offences in baseball and rank fifth in wRC+ (120) vs. LHP since the all-star break.
Look for them to ride the momentum of Anthony Santander’s go-ahead grand slam into today’s game.
Picks made at 9:36 a.m. ET on 08/24/2024.
Avery joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2022 before stepping into a full-time role soon after. He loves betting on and analyzing golf — mainly because it’s easier than actually playing — but is a fan of all sports, from the NFL to the UFC.