MLB Best Bets for Opening Day include six bets from the 13 games on Thursday's MLB schedule.
While two games were postponed early, there's still plenty of action and our staff has you covered with picks on Tigers vs White Sox, Nationals vs Reds, Giants vs Padres, Twins vs Royals, Pirates vs Marlins and Yankees vs Astros.
Here are our MLB Best Bets: Opening Day Picks & Expert Predictions.
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MLB Best Bets Today: Opening Day Picks, Predictions (March 28)
The team logos in the table below represent each of the matchups that our MLB betting staff is targeting from today's slate of games. Click on the team logos for any of the matchups below to navigate to a specific bet discussed in this article.
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Specific betting recommendations come from the sportsbook offering preferred odds as of writing. Always shop for the best price using our MLB Odds page, which automatically surfaces the best lines for every game. | ||
Tigers vs. White Sox
By John Feltman
Tarik Skubal is getting a lot of buzz as a dark horse AL Cy Young candidate, and for a very good reason. Skubal sparkled in 80 innings last season with 11 K/9 and 1.5 BB/9 ratio.
He also generated a 53% groundball rate, so he is primed to dominate from the get-go. The White Sox are projected to finish at the bottom of the AL Central, and their numbers against Skubal are not pretty.
In 86 ABs, the current Sox on the Opening Day roster are a combined 18-for-86, good for a .209 average and 25 punchouts.
The Sox last season were 11th in strikeout rate, which is terrible news going against Skubal. If that wasn't convincing enough, the young hurler generated a 31.4 CSW%.
Even if there is a pitch count for his first start of the year, I am not worried due to the fact that Skubal rarely gets behind in counts. He should work efficiently and mow down this weak White Sox lineup.
Pick: Tarik Skubal Over 6.5 Strikeouts (-110 at DraftKings)
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Nationals vs. Reds
The Nationals are projected to be one of the worst teams in baseball this season and having Josiah Gray as the Opening Day starter is not very encouraging.
Gray posted a 5.03 xERA last season because he doesn't have great control over his pitch arsenal. All three years he's been in the big leagues his BB/9 rate has been over four and it did not get any better in spring training, walking 13 batters in his 16 2/3 innings.
Gray has transitioned from being a fastball-reliant pitcher to an arsenal of five pitches that he throws at about the same rate, which is a good thing in theory, but when his top four pitches are all allowing an xwOBA over .340, that is a problem.
The Reds feasted on right-handed pitching last season, having the 10th-best wOBA in baseball. Not to mention, the wind is going to be blowing more than 10 mph straight out to center field and Gray in the past has had a flyball problem.
Frankie Montas basically missed the entirety of last season, but he was a pretty decent pitcher before the injury with two straight years with an xFIP below four. Outside of a little home run problem in spring training — which has not been a problem before in his career — he was pretty solid.
He'll be facing a lineup that was bottom five in wRC+ a season ago against right-handed pitching. Their best hitter against righties was by far Jeimer Candelario, who had a .372 wOBA, but he's now in the other dugout playing for the Reds. Outside of him, nobody had a wOBA above .340 against righties in 2023.
I have the Reds projected at -182, so I like the value on them at -150.
Pick: Reds Moneyline (-150 at ESPN BET)
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Giants vs. Padres
By D.J. James
The Giants struggled mightily with hitting right-handed pitching in the latter half of 2023. However, this is a revamped lineup.
Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler will add some much-needed power in the middle of the lineup. In fact, ZIPS projects them both to have over 20 homers. Add those two to Mike Yastrzemski, LaMonte Wade Jr., Wilmer Flores, Thairo Estrada, Marco Luciano and Michael Conforto, and the bulk of the lineup is well above average.
The Padres will always hit the ball, and no one on San Francisco matches up with Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Manny Machado. That said, the rest of the San Diego lineup is relatively weak.
Logan Webb is the better pitcher when compared to Yu Darvish. Darvish has a solid arm, and San Diego’s rotation is more than solid to help contend in the NL West, but Webb does a far better job of keeping the ball on the ground and pitching deep into games.
Finally, Webb can go six strong innings and hand the ball to Tyler Rogers, Taylor Rogers and Camilo Doval. This is more than enough artillery to throw at a worse San Diego lineup.
The Giants should come out triumphant in this game. This Padres' lineup is not overpowering. The Giants could, at least, be equal with their new additions.
Webb is the better starter and can eliminate whatever weaknesses the Giants have in the bullpen. Take them to -125.
Pick: Giants Moneyline (-104 at BetRivers)
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Twins vs. Royals
By Tony Sartori
While Minnesota features a solid lineup, it struggles in the contact department and is prone to striking out. In 2023, it ranked in the bottom 10 of the league in BA and last in K%.
Those are two weaknesses that are likely to get punished by left-hander Cole Ragans, who gets the ball on Opening Day for Kansas City. Looking like a guy who could one day win a Cy Young, Ragans went 5-2 with a commanding 2.64 ERA and 1.07 WHIP in 12 starts in 2023.
His underlying metrics suggest that those results were not a product of luck, considering he ranked in the 83rd percentile or higher in xERA, xBA, Whiff% and K%. Therefore, we could have a great pitching duel on our hands as right-hander Pablo Lopez gets the ball for Minnesota.
More established at this point of his career, Lopez enters 2024 with four straight sub-3.76 ERA seasons under his belt. Like Ragans, his analytics were tremendous last year as he ranked in the 80th percentile or higher in xERA, xBA, average exit velocity, Chase%, K% and BB%.
We could see a strong start to this year for Lopez against a Royals offense that ranked in the bottom half of the league last season in BA, SLG, OPS and wOBA. Through four career starts against Kansas City, Lopez is 3-1 with a 2.70 ERA.
There were five or fewer total runs scored in three of those four outings. I'd bet this under at 7.5 or 8.
Pick: Under 8 (-114 at FanDuel)
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Pirates vs. Marlins
I don’t view the Miami Marlins as that much better than the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I think people are sleeping on the Buccos a little bit.
Pittsburgh has a win total of 76.5 this season, their highest win total since 2019. Miami is just a tick ahead of them at 77.5, so even the market is telling us these teams are very competitive.
Offensively, the Pirates have a better lineup right now compared to the Marlins. Luiz Arraez is a hit machine, but the Marlins are banking on bounce-back seasons from a lot of guys. Arraez, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jake Burger are the only players projected with a WAR above 2.0.
Pittsburgh has five players projected to post a WAR over 2.0. Bryan Reynolds is an established All-Star, and the Young Bucs movement is here with Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jack Suwinski, Endy Rodriguez and Oneil Cruz all expected to take big steps forward. Cruz led all players with seven home runs during Spring Training and is showing no effects of lingering issues coming off his injury.
Andrew McCutchen, Rowdy Tellez and Michael A. Taylor give them three solid veterans in the middle of that order to help raise the floor of this lineup. Seven batters on Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster were drafted in the first or second round.
On the mound for Pittsburgh, Mitch Keller will be making his second Opening Day start in a row. He posted a 4.18 xERA last season and ranks in the top 15% of the league at limiting hard contact. Keller’s strikeout rate jumped up above 25% last season, and he earned himself a five-year contract extension as the clear ace of this team.
Behind Keller is an elite bullpen, projected with the third-highest bullpen WAR at Fangraphs, led by All-Star closer David Bednar.
Jesus Luzardo had a 3.96 xERA last season and while I do give him the advantage in this matchup, Luzardo does surrender a lot of hard contact. He allowed a 40.0 HardHit% last season, and his average exit velocity and barrel rate allowed were both in the bottom third of the league.
When I look at these two teams, I think they will finish the season a lot closer than people might expect coming into the year, but with the young talent of this Pirates squad, I like the upside of Pittsburgh as their top prospects are finally ready to crack the everyday lineup.
Keller has proven that when he’s got his stuff working, especially that sinker, he can be dominant. Once the game switches to the bullpen, the advantage shifts to the Buccos.
I’ll back the Pirates to raise the Jolly Roger at anything over +110.
Pick: Pirates Moneyline (+116 at FanDuel)
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Yankees vs. Astros
By Kenny Ducey
The Astros are getting older. Jose Altuve will turn 34 in just over a month, Alex Bregman is 30 and Jose Abreu took a huge step back at 36 last year.
All three of these guys will be asked to carry a lot of the load offensively, hitting in the top five of the order, and given Jeremy Pena may not be the second coming of Carlos Correa as we all thought, it’s quite hard to be overly excited about this lineup aside from the core of Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker.
Of course, the Astros still matched – if not exceeded – their offensive output from 2022 last season, but this team can only survive so long before the bulk of its hitting drops off. That doesn’t have me overly excited to bet them as a favorite here on Opening Day.
Speaking of declines, Framber Valdez is still ranked in the top 10% of all pitchers in ground ball rate, but is far from the guy who rolled ‘em up at better than 67% over the past two seasons.
As his ground ball rate dropped to 55.7% last season and his hard-hit rise, the perennial Cy Young candidate lost a bit of his luster with a 4.33 xERA and at 30,
I don’t know if I’m ready to say he’ll return to form given strikeouts tend to drop with age – and he’s never been better than league average in that category.
All of this is to say, I like the Yankees here. Nestor Cortes Jr.’s peripherals in a season mostly lost to injury pointed to positive regression over the course of a full campaign, and New York’s offense should look drastically better this year with Juan Soto slotting into the top of the order.
Anthony Rizzo is healthy, Austin Wells should start behind the plate and Alex Verdugo is providing stability to the bottom of the order. The time to fade the Yankees has likely passed, and the time to buy low has begun.
Pick: Yankees Moneyline (+130 at DraftKings)
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