Home Run Bets: Thursday MLB Picks & Promos, Including Reds’ Matt McLain

Baseball fans can scoop up bonus bets while sweating home run wagers daily throughout the season. Here, we’ll review possible home run picks for April 3, evaluating some options. Remember that these evaluations can be applied to fantasy sports picks and MLB odds.

Michael Conforto continued his hot season for us, going 2-for-2 with a dinger and a couple of walks. That makes two straight days of picking winners, so we’ll see if we can make it three.

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Best Home Run Bets For April 3 MLB Promos

We’ll provide a few home run bets each day this article runs. But keep in mind when perusing these that the situations apply to more than just the player named. You can use that logic with many players when targeting pitchers, bullpens, or homer-friendly conditions. For example, if we select Aaron Judge but you want a longer shot, you can easily bet on Anthony Volpe instead.

Programming note: I will skip over the earliest slate of games for these home run bets. With only three late afternoon/evening games today, I’ll cut down from my usual three darts to just two.

Matt McLain

Don’t we kind of have to try to pick on Nestor Cortes? He had an opening start for the ages, in a decidedly poor sense. He served up four dingers in a single inning to the Yankees, a first for the most historically successful franchise in the game. They’ve been known to employ a few heavy hitters over the years.

Cortes’ velocity was down almost two mph from last year, which is a major red flag. It’s normal for velocities to be down at this point of the season, but that’s a bit much. Dropping to 90 mph also puts Cortes near the edge of MLB playability.

Homers were also an issue for Cortes even at higher velocity each of the past two seasons (1.56 HR/9, 1.24 HR/9).

McLain is off to a flying start in his return from injury. He’s got a .393 xwOBA and is a career 163 wRC+ hitter against lefties.

Milwaukee has the sixth-highest home-run factor.

Josh Naylor

Yankee Stadium has a dream set-up for Naylor today. The big lefty will be hitting against Carlos Carrasco with pleasant temperatures (69 degrees), and the wind is blowing out at 13 mph.

Naylor has made a living hitting against sinker-slider righties, and that’s what he’ll face in Carrasco. Last year, Carrasco’s three most used pitches were sinker, slider, and four-seamer. Naylor has been above-average in his career against each of those offerings.

And to say home runs have been a problem for Carrasco the past few years would be like saying Hunter Greene has decent velocity. As his stuff has diminished, Carrasco served up 1.8 and 1.65 HR/9 in the past two seasons. In his age-38 season, that isn’t likely to improve.

General Home Run Betting Strategies

Several factors will help point the way to games that may see higher home-run totals.

For one, look for ballparks with an above-average rate of home runs hit. Statcast’s park factors can help. The linked table is also sortable by handedness via the filters.

If you’re targeting a particularly lefty- or righty-heavy lineup, sort by the home-fun factor for that handedness to get an even better idea of the home-run potential.

Targeting higher game totals will also help. Look for games with high over/unders — preferably at least eight.

While home runs allowed can be volatile, we can also look at pitcher home-run rates. Some pitchers have a true talent for suppressing or allowing more homers than average. Maybe they give up too many fly balls, which can lead to more home runs. Or opposing hitters barrel their pitches at a higher-than-normal rate due to poor command or fastball shape.

Finally, check the weather. Outfield winds and high temperatures can cause balls to fly further than usual, which means a higher chance of home runs. Conversely, cold weather and infield winds can kill fly balls.

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