HR Props · MLB
Draper's 2 Home Run Picks for Friday's Slate
By Cal Draper — Cal lives in the prop markets: hits, strikeouts, homers, the stuff the books price last and worst. He hunts small edges in matchup splits and park effects and swears the season is won a quarter-unit at a time.
Today's board is filled with batters in great spots to go deep tonight with plenty of value. William Contreras is the lead play at +440 at Caesars. The value in this play is much more than the surface stats suggest. Contreras is hitting .267/.333/.400 against right-handed pitching in 403 plate appearances, and the slugging understates the contact quality because the ball is not leaving the yard at the rate his profile should produce. Rhett Lowder is the counterweight: the right-hander allows 1.29 home runs per nine with a .438 opponent slugging, and the split is the whole story. Lowder has surrendered 12 home runs to left-handed bats in 307 batters faced with a .455 slugging against them. He's been getting shelled early and ofen, and I expect that to continue against a bevy of dangerous bats for Milwaukee, including Contreras.
Austin Riley at Citizens Bank Park is another option that offers immense value, with us getting +560 at Caesars. Riley is hitting .231/.327/.336 against left-handed pitching in 165 plate appearances, and that slugging number is the trap: the surface looks like a pitcher's matchup. Cristopher Sánchez allows 0.72 home runs per nine with a .353 opponent slugging, but the split is the tell. Sánchez has given up 13 home runs to right-handed bats in 561 batters faced with a .404 slugging against them. Riley is a right-handed bat, and Citizens Bank Park is extremely favorable to RHB with its short porch in left. Riley has had his power zapped for much of this season, but he's still a dangerous player to go deep at any moment, and the value here is too good to pass up.
The Play
- William Contreras OVER 0.5 Home Runs: +440
- Austin Riley OVER 0.5 Home Runs: +560
Confidence: High on Contreras, medium on the other two.
Home run props carry real variance, so you keep the stake modest on nights like this, but the prices on the Brewers' bats in Cincinnati are the best structure of the slate.