Two starting pitchers and Mike Trout make up Friday’s top MLB prop picks.
The pregame narrative: I’m continuing to ride with the slumping Trout and have strikeout plays on Jesus Luzardo and Brandon Pfaadt.
Check out the best MLB prop bets for April 4.
MLB prop bets
Best bet: Luzardo over 5.5 Ks (+102)
Any pause here would be warranted. The Philadelphia Phillies’ southpaw is up against the MLB-best 8-0 Los Angeles Dodgers, after all.
But here’s why I’m on the over today:
- Luzardo fanned 11 batters in his season debut.
- That followed his final two spring starts in which he punched out six in each outing.
- Luzardo threw 80 pitches in his last spring start and got up to 95 in his Phillies debut. Workload shouldn’t be a concern (though I’m not exactly calling for a deep outing vs. Shohei Ohtani and Co.).
- The Dodgers have an elite lineup but they’ve struck out at close to a league-average rate since the start of last season. There are more difficult assignments on the strikeout market.
Luzardo was hurt last year, limiting him to 66.2 innings, but he appears to be just fine. His average fastball velocity in his dominant victory over the Washington Nationals was 97 mph (per FanGraphs).
That’s elite territory and represents a 1.5 mph jump from last season.
And don’t forget, Luzardo was a big strikeout arm on the rise before his rough 2024 and is just 27 years old.
Key stat: From 2022-23, Luzardo ranked eighth among starters (minimum 250 innings) in K rate at 28.7%.
Best MLB picks
Pfaadt over 5.5 Ks (+100): The Arizona Diamondbacks righty gets the same Nationals team that Luzardo carved up.
Washington was one of the hardest teams in MLB to K last year. So far this season, it is one of the easiest, striking out at the second-highest clip in baseball through six games.
Time will tell whether that’s strictly small-sample noise, but the reality is the Nats are going down on strikes often, and Pfaadt is a good strikeout arm.
He had a solid 24.3 K% in his sophomore 2024 season and fanned five over six strong innings in his 2025 debut.
But there’s also big upside here:
- Pfaadt had four double-digit K games last season.
- He had 12 starts with seven-plus Ks.
- The 26-year-old topped this line in more than 50% of his outings.
Trout over 1.5 total bases (+132): If you’ve been reading our MLB prop piece since the start of the season, you’ll be familiar with this pick and logic.
As long as Trout’s market is priced like this, I’m playing this prop.
Trout is off to a slow start following a scorching spring. And once you get past the decline realization, you can see the former MVP is still a productive power hitter.
As long as Trout is on the field, he should perform. He slugged over .500 the last two seasons, hitting a combined 28 homers in 111 games.
Trout hit a dinger in his last game, his first extra-base hit of the season, and will see Cleveland Guardians starter Gavin Williams to begin tonight’s contest.
There are things to like about Williams — big velocity, solid K numbers, lack of homers — but it’s certainly not enough for me to pass on Trout at this price.
MLB prop picks made at 2:30 p.m. ET on 04/04/2025.
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.