MLB Player Props: Best Bets for Thursday (August 22)

Yesterday ended up being a great day thanks to Jackson Merrill, who came through for us with a home run as our biggest longshot play of the day.

As for today, we only have 10 MLB games on the docket as Thursdays are travel days, but we were still able to find three MLB home run predictions to lock in.

Juan Soto Home Run (+380) BetRivers

Cleveland Guardians vs. New York Yankees, 1:05 p.m. ET

Juan Soto has hit a home run in two straight games, and he once again has a good matchup to go yard today, so there is no fear in backing him. In fact, 15 separate times this year, an MLB player has hit a home run in three straight games, so it is not impossible, especially for a hitter as good as Soto.

For starters, this is the best game of the day from a weather perspective, as a lot of the games are colder with the winds blowing in, but this game is a positive weather game looking at Yankee Stadium, which is a hitter’s park where wind will be blowing out of the stadium.

Soto, as previously mentioned, has been absolutely on fire recently, with a home run in two games in a row, and he also has hit eight home runs in the last 14 days. His eight home runs in that stretch lead MLB, and the next-closest batter has six.

He is going up against Gavin Williams of the Guardians. Williams admittedly has done a good job of not allowing home runs, but he throws a 4-seam fastball almost 60% of the time, and Soto completely crushes 4-seam fastballs.

They are his best pitch to hit for power, by far. If you look at the season, he has a 21% barrel rate, 66.67% HardHit rate and .378 ISO rate against 4-seamers from RHP. He has somehow not hit a home run off a fastball from a righty over the past four weeks, but he is still hitting them hard, with a 18.75% barrel rate and 57.14% HardHit rate, so the recent homer-less streak is more due to bad luck than anything.

Brent Rooker Home Run (+425) Fanatics

Cleveland Guardians vs. New York Yankees, 1:05 p.m. ET

Rooker is in the Jackson Merrill category from yesterday. Like Merrill, Rooker has consistently been hitting the ball hard, but has had bad luck with actually hitting home runs. He is due for some positive regression, which could mean that the home runs are going to start to come for him soon.

It was the same thing with Merrill yesterday, and he ended up coming through for us with a home run at great odds.

As for today, Rooker is going up against left-handed pitcher Jeffrey Springs of the Rays, and his top two pitches thrown are changeups and fastballs. Those two make up roughly 85% of the pitches that Rooker will see.

Over the past month from lefties, Rooker has crushed both of these pitches. It is not a huge sample size, but just looking at the last couple games, you see some impressive at-bats.

He had a 97.8 mph HardHit on a changeup from Blake Snell on August 18, and in the same game, he had a 402-foot flyout on a fastball that he crushed 104.7 mph off that bat, but the ball traveled to the deepest part of the park. From there, we see other balls that he hit recently at 102 mph off the bat, 105 mph off the bat (on a home run at the end of July), and 108.5 mph on a lineout.

He has been hitting the ball really, really hard, and the home runs are going to start to come for him if he continues to do so, especially against a pitcher in Springs who has struggled with allowing home runs. It has been a small sample size of only four starts and 18.2 innings, but he has a HR/9 of 1.93 in his starts. That would be the worst HR/9 in MLB if extrapolated out to all qualified pitchers.

Colton Cowser Home Run (+540) FanDuel

Houston Astros vs. Baltimore Orioles, 7:08 p.m. ET

Despite only hitting two home runs in the last two weeks, Cowser has quietly been hitting the ball hard at one of the highest rates in the MLB. The stat we are looking at here is HardHit line-drive + fly-balls, and Cowser is tied with the fifth-most of these over the past two weeks.

He has hit 15. There are three batters ahead of him with 16 each, and then Francisco Lindor is the leader in this category with an absurd 21. If you look at the last seven days, Cowser has seven HardHit line-drive + fly-balls, which is fifth-most in MLB in that span. Of all the guys on the Orioles, he has consistently hit the ball the hardest over the past two weeks, especially the past week, and he has a great matchup to stay hot tonight.

He is going up against Spencer Arrighetti of the Astros, who is a decent pitcher overall but also someone who is susceptible to giving up the long ball. Arrighetti has a 1.38 HR/9 on the season, which is the 16th-worst of all pitchers who have thrown at least 110 innings. Over his last 10 starts, that number is a slightly worse 1.42 HR/9.

So, the pitching matchup is not a concern, and the pitch-mix lines up perfectly for Cowser. He is predominantly going to see a 4-seam fastball, and over the past month, he has a 16.67% barrel rate against 4-seam fastballs from RHP. Over the past two weeks, that barrel rate jumps up to 22.22%, with a 55.56% HardHit rate, and the barrel rate is up to 33.33% over the past seven days, with a 100% HardHit rate. Here are the results of the last four 4-seam fastballs Cowser has seen from RHP:

• 101.3 mph off the bat for a 388-foot flyout
• 96 mph off the bat
• 108.4 mph off-the-bat double that traveled 406 feet
• 108.6 mph off the bat

Hopefully, he crushes a fastball into the stands to cash this home run prop for us.

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