Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is among three players featured in Friday’s top MLB prop picks.
Today’s MLB props narrative: Guerrero has been one of the game’s hottest hitters and gets a plus matchup vs. aging Los Angeles Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw.
Check out my top MLB prop bets for Aug. 8, featuring predictions on Kyle Stowers and Chase Burns.
MLB prop bets
Best bet: Stowers over 1.5 total bases (+135)
Stowers burned me on this prop last night, but I’m going right back to him for the same reasons as yesterday.
He’s been punishing the ball for a long stretch and crushes right-handers. As with last night, when Atlanta deployed Carlos Carrasco, Stowers will face a prime right-handed fade candidate in the Braves’ Bryce Elder.
Elder is well-below average in nearly every metric that matters — velocity, hard-hit rate, strikeout rate and run prevention — and he’s surrendered bombs at an alarming rate the last two seasons.
Opponents are batting .322 off him at home and he enters with a 6.03 ERA.
On top of that, Atlanta’s bullpen has been dreadful despite silencing the Marlins last night after they put up six runs on nine hits off Carrasco.
The Braves have a 6.42 bullpen ERA in the second half, the second-worst mark in MLB.
Back to Stowers. The left-hitting slugger has an excellent .300/.376/.610 slash line vs. righties.
Though he’s had a slow start to August, Stowers is coming off a dominant July: .364 BA, .818 SLG, 10 homers.
Key stat: Stowers’ 153 wRC+ is the sixth-best mark in baseball.
Best MLB picks
Guerrero over 1.5 total bases (+105): The Blue Jays begin a marquee matchup vs. the Dodgers and I like Guerrero to strike in the series opener.
Kershaw, who has good control, doesn’t miss bats and is serving up hard contact at his highest rate since Statcast started tracking in 2015.
It’s hard to see Kershaw fooling many Blue Jays, who are the most difficult team in the majors to strike out. Among the players leading that charge is Guerrero, who has the lowest K rate of his career.
Expect the Blue Jays slugger to put the ball in play and continue his second-half surge.
- Guerrero has a 216 wRC+ since the all-star break, good for the fourth-best mark in MLB.
- He’s clubbed six of his 18 homers in those 20 post-ASG contests.
And he’s been punishing southpaws all season, batting .324 with a .935 OPS.
Burns over 15.5 outs (-120): The hard-throwing Cincinnati Reds rookie will be well-rested ahead of a plus matchup tonight.
Burns logged one inning on Aug. 2 before the Reds’ game was suspended and hadn’t pitched since July 28 before that. He recorded his third consecutive 10-strikeout outing that game.
Playing his Ks prop is certainly tempting, but betting the over on his 7.5-strikeout line at -143 isn’t appealing.
Despite all the Ks, Burns cleared this outs prop in all of those double-digit strikeout performances.
He has the benefit of facing the Pittsburgh Pirates on the road and not his hitter-friendly home park, and the Reds only got 3.2 innings out of starter Brady Singer last night.
The Pirates rank 28th in MLB in wRC+ vs. right-handers and are second-last overall in the second half.
MLB prop picks made at 1:05 p.m. ET on 08/08/2025.
Chris joined NorthStar Gaming from Covers.com where he was a publishing editor and wrote betting content. Before that, he was the sports editor at VICE Canada, worked for theScore and covered the Blue Jays for MLB.com. In addition to filling out the lineup card each day for the editorial team, Chris writes frequently himself, primarily on the NBA and MLB.