Underdog MLB Top Plays April 16: Bryan Reynolds Covers The Bases
Published: Apr 16, 2022
With baseball all day and night, let's take a look at some of our favorite player props over on Underdog Fantasy we’re looking to attack. Pitching continues to struggle throughout the league, so taking advantage of that fact should continue to be one of our primary focuses in the early stages of this campaign.
MLB Underdog Player Props:
UNDER 3.5 strikeouts
Matt Manning was called up by the Tigers last year and was not great by any stretch of the imagination, but when he did get outs, they mostly came via the groundball. He notched a 14.8% K-rate. 14.8%, take that in for a second. That’s SO low.
Things didn’t get off to a much better start striking out a whopping 10.5% of his opponents and now faces a Royals offense that has a very solid track record of putting the ball in play. They’ve only struck out 18.1% of the time this year, which is the fifth-lowest mark in baseball after holding the third-lowest K-rate for the entire 2021 campaign at just 21%.
Manning hit the over in just seven of his 18 starts last year, so I’m really digging the under strikeouts here.
OVER 1.5 total bases
In 2021, Bryan Reynolds hit left-handed pitching extremely well, notching a .325/.403/.512 slash, along with a .385 wOBA. He took it a step further on the road against lefties, notching a .337/.410/.528 slash. His wOBA sat at .393 there.
His counterpart in this game is Josh Rogers, who impressed in his first start of the year, but the 27-year-old hasn’t really been able to stick in the majors. He has made 10 starts – including his first this year – since 2018. In his 67 major league innings, Rogers has had little success against right-handed hitters. In 46 innings against righties, they’ve belted 15 HR and own a .305/.385/.620 slash line.
Reynolds and his brand new contract extension look really good to hit the over his total base number here.
UNDER 17.5 pitching outs
Cal Quantrill has a tall task ahead of him facing off against a potent Giants offense in this game. Although he pitched well in his first start, the Royals' offense is far less potent than the Giants’ is. Against right-handed pitching this year, the Giants have a .808 OPS as a team, which is the fifth-highest mark in the league.
The Giants' offense is one that strikes out a lot, but if the opposing pitcher doesn’t pose much of a threat there, that’s even more dangerous. Quantrill really doesn’t miss bats at all after notching just a 19% K-rate last year, he started off 2022 with a whopping 9.5% K-rate in his opening start.
We’re basically asking Quantrill to get through six innings here if you take the over, a number that may be impacted by Quantrill’s pitch count limitations and match-up.