MLB Picks: Expert Monkey Knife Fight MLB Picks Tonight

Welcome to the Friday edition of Awesemo’s top Monkey Knife Fight MLB fantasy picks on the board. There are a number of offenses in fantastic spots, specifically two teams that might be less enticing due to ownership concerns elsewhere across the industry. That’s the beauty of playing over at Monkey Knife Fight: Unlike traditional DFS sites, you can simply play the best plays. There are also strikeout concerns with the new substance ban in place for pitchers, which could make for an enticing talking point since two bad pitchers in a bad spot could fall woefully short of expectations. So with all of that in mind, let’s get to the top two Monkey Knife Fight plays on the board for this evening.

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Tonight’s Top Monkey Knife Fight MLB Player Prop Picks

Home Run Derby—Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr., Nick Castellanos MORE Than 0.5 Home Runs (2x)

MOnkey Knife Fight MLB Picks vegas betting odds lines expert predictions prop bets Vladimir Guerrero Jr Ronald Acuna Jr Nick Castellanos Blue Jays Braves Reds home runs projections fantasy baseball rankings

Every Friday of the MLB season, Monkey Knife Fight is offering a $5,000 bonus pool for any Home Run Derby contest entry of $5 or more that has all three players hitting a home run. However, with no winners last week, that money has rolled over to today, meaning there is now a massive $10,000 grand prize up for grabs. Taking multiple shots at accumulating three home runs in a lineup is made easier by simply playing the over 0.5 home run goal, and mixing-and-matching bombers in each grouping of games. If you head to the Star Shootout: Main Games section, there are 10 teams with multiple home run hitters to choose from. Among all of them, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr. and Nick Castellanos make the best trio to target.

Guerrero has amassed 24 homers in just 263 at-bats this season, a remarkable rate that should keep climbing with the help of the Triple-A baseball field in Buffalo the Blue Jays will still be playing in for some time. His 54.8% hard-hit rate, 15.2% barrel rate and 95 mph average exit velocity on the season make him a lethal home run hitter, especially against a putrid pitcher such as Matt Harvey. Plus, the Orioles bullpen is as bad as it gets, so Harvey’s departure from this game should still breed plenty of opportunity for Guerrero to go long.

Make note of Acuna’s status tonight, as he was held out of the Braves’ last two games with lower-back tightness. But should he be in the lineup tonight, it’s hard to not love an elite leadoff hitter in Great American Ballpark who also gets the possibility of an extra ninth inning at-bat due to being the road team. His 56.4% hard-hit rate even exceeds that of Guerrero, and there’s no doubt his 19.4-degree average launch angle bodes well in 80-degree weather with the wind blowing out to left.

And don’t sleep on Castellanos on the other side of that game, who has amassed four homers in just 62 at-bats against lefties this season. He gets a date with southpaw Drew Smyly tonight, who gives up loads of hard-and-high contact — a 43.6% hard-hit rate at an average launch angle of 16.1 degrees on the season. That spells disaster for Smyly against a lethal righty like Castellanos, who golfs the ball up at a 13.9-degree angle and has a 47% hard-hit rate. It would be shocking not to see at least one of these elite bats go long tonight, so lock in more than 0.5 home runs to double the investment and win a share of that $10,000 bonus.

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More or Less—Drew Smyly LESS Than 5.5 Strikeouts, Vladimir Gutierrez LESS Than 4.5 Strikeouts (3x)

The weather in Cincinnati is prime for hitting, which means targeting the two starting pitchers in the Braves – Reds game to get absolutely shelled and strike nobody out seems like a good investment. That is backed up by Awesemo’s new MLB Player Props tool, which can help identify small edges over at Monkey Knife Fight. Drew Smyly’s 20.2% strikeout rate and Vladimir Gutierrez‘s even worse 18.9% strikeout rate show why these strikeout props are so low, and yet they are not low enough.

According to the aforementioned Player Props tool, Smyly has a 72% chance to go fewer than 5.5 strikeouts, while Gutierrez is a 58% favorite to go underneath 4.5 strikeouts. Considering the return of 3x the buy-in to short these props, it has to be considered the most advantageous pitching spot to target on the entire slate. So while elite arms might be getting all the hype for the new enforcement of banned substances, hope that strikeout regression carries over to some of these poorer pitchers too.

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Author

Eric Lindquist

Eric Lindquist hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota (yes, that’s the one with Mount Rushmore). A steady diet of three SportsCenters a day at an early age led to his obsession with sports, one that 30 years later is paying dividends for him as a successful DFS player and sports bettor. Despite over half a million dollars in net career earnings, he’s most passionate about helping others achieve their financial goals, an energy you can witness on the daily in his current role as a host and analyst at Stokastic. He’s a former Division I golfer at Iowa State, wishes he was a former Minnesota sports fan, and is a proud father to a 100-pound Bernese Mountain dog named Duke that wishes he could just eat people food instead of the crap he and his wife feed him on the daily.