MLB Pick: Brett Baty to Get a Hit (-140) at BetMGM
Picks Summary:
- Brett Baty to Get a Hit (-140)
- Brett Baty to Get an RBI (+245)
- Blake Sabol to Get a Hit (-160)
Sunday’s MLB picks are all about the prime-time game between the New York Mets (f. Brett Baty) and the San Francisco Giants.
New York Mets vs. San Francisco Giants
Sunday, April 23, 2023 – 07:00 PM EDT at Oracle Park
Playing baseball on the West Coast is amazing – especially if you’re a pitcher. Even though the weather is usually warmer out West, the microclimates for most of their ballparks tend to suppress scoring rather than enhance it.
Here are the bottom three venues on the Park Factors chart at Baseball Savant as we go to press:
- No. 28: Oakland Coliseum, Oakland
- No. 29: Petco Park, San Diego
- No. 30: T-Mobile Park, Seattle
Then you have the outlier: Oracle Park in San Francisco, which ranks No. 14 in overall park factor since 2021. This stadium has produced league-average levels of runs and hits recently – although home runs are much harder to come by.
Who Is Brett Baty?
With teams as famous as the Mets and Giants, we need to dig deeper into the lineup to find our betting value, and Baty (4-for-17, .235 BA in five games) is about as anonymous as a player from New York can get.
A native of Round Rock, Texas, Baty was New York’s first-round pick (No. 12 overall) in the 2019 MLB Draft. After the COVID-19 pandemic eased off a little, Baty started working his way up the minor leagues and played in the 2021 All-Star Futures Game before joining the parent club for 11 games last year.
It didn’t go all that well. Baty hit just 7-for-38 (.184 BA) for the Mets, but he persevered nonetheless, and they quickly called him up on April 17 after he started the 2023 campaign hitting 14-for-35 (.400 BA) at AAA-Syracuse.
For this Sunday, the projections as FantasyData have Baty posting 0.87 hits as the No. 8 batter in New York’s lineup. That makes -140 a worthwhile investment; this bargain price is possible in large part because Baty is a relatively unknown commodity for public bettors compared to, say, Pete Alonso or Francisco Lindor.
MLB Pick: Brett Baty to Get a Hit (-140) at BetMGM
Will Brett Baty Get an RBI?
Runs batted in are definitely rarer than hits, but at +245, we’re willing to give it a shot. Baty has two ribbies in his five games thus far, and FantasyData projects him for 0.44 more this Sunday.
We share that optimism. Ross Stripling (4.12 xFIP in 12.1 innings) is a quality back-end option for the Giants, having re-habilitated his career somewhat with the Toronto Blue Jays (3.67 xFIP in 2022), but consistency is a concern; Stripling has already been demoted to the bullpen once, and he gets the start this Sunday because Alex Wood is out with a strained hammy.
Once you get past Stripling, the Giants have the No. 26-ranked bullpen on the FanGraphs WAR charts, performing below replacement level at minus-0.1 WAR. And it won’t be particularly chilly this evening at Oracle Park, with partly cloudy skies and temperatures around 50 degrees with light winds.
MLB Pick: Brett Baty to Get an RBI (+245) at Bet365
Who Is Blake Sabol?
Our third MLB player prop was a tough choice – it was either Sabol (a fringe prospect for San Francisco) getting a hit, or Giants INF Thairo Estrada hitting a home run. We went with the former because of Oracle Park, which has a park factor of 82 for dingers.
Sabol (8-for-42, .190 BA in 14 games) is a fairly raw rookie for the Giants, but he made their Opening Day roster after they acquired him from the Cincinnati Reds, who had just taken Sabol in the Rule 5 Draft. Sabol is projected for 0.91 hits this Sunday, with Tylor Megill (5.48 xFIP in 21 innings) due to take the mound for New York. Bet accordingly.
MLB Pick: Blake Sabol to Get a Hit (-160) at BetMGM
