Monkey Knife Fight Home Run Derby:
Texas Rangers at Seattle Mariners
Shelby Miller will take the mound for the Texas Rangers tonight against the Seattle Mariners and Yusei Kikuchi. Miller is allowing 2.3 HR/9, so this is naturally a great game to attack when attempting to predict three home runs. Miller is allowing, over the last 15 days, a fly ball rate over 40%, and a hard hit rate just under 55%. His strike percentage is under 60%, and the average distance on batted balls is over 250 feet! Vegas has this game set at nine runs, giving the Mariners an implied run total of over five runs. There are three batters that stand out in tonight’s expected lineup. First, Mitch Haniger is leading off, and he has decent power splits against right-handed pitchers, coming into this game with a 0.029 ISO differential. He is hitting 0.037 HR/AB, and over the last 15 days, he has an average batted ball distance of 223 feet, an average exit velocity of 90 MPH, a fly ball rate of 46%, and a hard hit rate over 40%. Vogelbach is much better against right-handed pitching, entering the game with a 0.064 ISO differential, and he is hitting 0.111 HR/AB. His average distance on batted balls in the last 15 days is 235 feet, his average exit velocity is 91 MPH, his fly ball rate is almost 50%, and his hard hit rate is the same. Finally, Edwin Encarnacion is slightly better, as far as power is concerned, against right-handed pitchers, and he is hitting 0.065 HR/AB. His advanced statistics over the last 15 days are slightly less encouraging, but most importantly, his fly ball rate is almost 40%, and his hard hit rate is still over 30%. With Miller on the mound, stacking the Mariners makes a lot of sense on Monkey Knife Fight tonight.
Recommended Batters: Mitch Haniger, Dan Vogelbach, and Edwin Encarnacion
Home Run Prop Bet:
Dan Vogelbach (TBA) – Seattle Mariners – 1B
As outlined above, the Seattle Mariners get a great matchup against the Texas Rangers and, more importantly, Shelby Miller. Of the three recommendations above, Dan Vogelbach is the most likely to hit a home run. On the season, he is hitting .313 with 8 home runs and 16 RBIs. He has been cooling off of recent, hitting only 2 home runs in his last 10 games. However, taking into consideration the talent-level of the opposing pitcher, as well as Vogelbach’s great ISO differential against right-handed pitching, it seems ignorant to ignore his upside. Seattle is not a hitter-friendly area, but the matchup makes up for it. Vogelbach is hitting clean-up for a reason. Do not individually gamble on all three of the Monkey Knife Fight recommendations, but placing a bet on Vogelbach’s home run prop is a good idea.
PrizePicks Over/Under:
N/A
This section will only be filled out if PrizePicks offers one of the above-mentioned home run prop bet recommendations. Unfortunately, they do not for tonight’s slate.
*Odds are from MyBookie. They continually update available prop bets on their prop builder, so odds should be released closer to the start of the contests. If you do not see the recommended player available, he will likely become available later in the day, and odds will be updated in the article when that happens.*
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