Sunday’s MLB prop bets highlight two infielders and one starting pitcher.
The pregame narrative: George Kirby is a hard-throwing righty for the Seattle Mariners and I’m expecting him to top his strikeout prop in a plus matchup. Later on, bet on Nolan Arenado and Corey Seager to have successful days at the plate.
Find out why in the best MLB prop bets for Aug. 18.
MLB prop bets
MLB Markets: Click Here | MLB Stats: Click Here
Best bet: Kirby over 5.5 strikeouts (-118)
Seattle’s starter is in the 90th percentile for chase rate (33.2%), per Baseball Savant. Pair that with a 99th percentile walk rate (2.9%) and you have a pretty good formula for a strikeout machine.
To put into perspective how good he is at limiting walks, Kirby has walked only 17 batters in 144.2 innings pitched this season.
That means the vast majority of at-bats end with a ball in play or three strikes against the hitter.
Furthermore, Kirby has an excellent matchup to rack up the Ks today. The Pittsburgh Pirates strike out the fourth most per game (9.34) across the majors. Pittsburgh has allowed four straight starting pitchers to go over this mark.
Kirby has fanned six or more batters in five of his last seven starts.
Key stat: This season, Kirby ranks 13th in the AL with 143 strikeouts.
Quick picks
Arenado over 0.5 runs (+132): Arenado sees a familiar foe tonight in Clayton Kershaw.
The two have duelled 75 times and the six-time Silver Slugger has had ample success.
Arenado is 22-for-72 (.306) lifetime against Kershaw with five home runs. More importantly, he’s only struck out 11 times. That tells me he sees the ball well out of his counterpart’s hand.
The third baseman is also having a great month. So far in August, Arenado is slashing .304/.361/.464. He may not have the same power he did years ago, but his strong play has led to six runs in his last eight games.
Considering bettors are getting a nice underdog price here, I think it’s worth taking a shot at Arenado’s runs prop.
Seager over 1.5 total bases (+110): The Rangers star has limited experience against Pablo Lopez but the results are encouraging.
Seager is 4-for-6 with three homers against Lopez, which equates to a ridiculous 2.167 SLG.
Even though he hasn’t had the best year by his standards, Seager is still one of the best at squaring up a baseball.
Here are some his batted ball metrics over at Baseball Savant:
- .574 xSLG (97th percentile)
- 15.6% barrel rate (95th percentile)
- 51.3% hard-hit rate (94th percentile)
On May 26, Seager blasted two home runs off Lopez in a 6-2 Texas win.
Picks made at 10:03 a.m. ET on 08/18/2024.
Spencer is a true sports junkie. A graduate of the Sports Journalism program at Centennial College, he first joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2023. He is now a contributing writer. He loves finding the edge to bet on in all sports but has a deep passion for the NBA and UFC. Previous stops include Sportsnet.