Ah the dog days of summer, limited sports to bet on, it’s hot as balls outside. But we had the MLB mid summer classic and the home run derby tonight.
Pete Alonso +300
Gunnar Henderson +400
Bobby Witt Jr. +425
Marcell Ozuna +480
Adolis Garcia +550
Teoscar Hernandez +1200
Jose Ramirez +1600
Alec Bohm +2200
Six of the eight hitters are right-handed, with Gunnar Henderson the only pure lefty in addition to switch-hitting Jose Ramirez. Over the last three seasons, Globe Life Field has a higher park factor for right-handed home runs (120, 2nd) than left-handed homers (110, 7th).
Alec Bohm u18.5 First Round Homers (+100)
Two factors are at play here.
First, with there now being a pitch limit, I'm going to skew toward unders in general. You could snag a handful of these if you agree with that thesis.
Second, my skepticism of Bohm makes him the best route for exploiting this theory. His 8.3% barrel rate is barely above the league average, and he has the second-lowest fly-ball rate to boot.
Betting the under here -- rather than Bohm -340 not to advance -- allows me to exploit these two angles without laying massive juice.
Pete Alonso to Not Make Semifinal (+198)
This is a volatile event. We're going in with a lot of certainty that Alonso advances, which he probably will! But with only 33.6% implied odds that Alonso fails to advance, I want to buy into the unpredictability.
In addition to Alonso's aforementioned form, his key to success was his synergy with his pitcher, Dave Jauss. Jauss wasn't there last year, and Alonso hit just 21 homers in the first round. Even with Jauss back this year, it's possible that synergy doesn't play as big of a role with the pitch limit now in play.
Alonso's experience means he is more likely to advance than not. I just think the market's a bit too confident in him here, allowing us to bet the other side and buy into uncertainty.
Marcel Ozuna to Win (+380)
As much as I like Hernandez, it's Marcell Ozunawho checks the most boxes in this year's field.
Here are Ozuna's ranks in various batted-ball categories at Baseball Savant: 98th percentile in barrel rate, 98th percentile in hard-hit rate, 97th percentile in launch-angle sweet spot, 95th percentile in average exit velocity.
Makes you think….
Among batters in this field, Ozuna is first in barrel rate -- by a whopping three percentage points -- and second in hard-hit rate. He also checks in at 225 pounds, second behind only Alonso.
The only thing he lacks is Alonso's experience as this will be Ozuna's first Derby.
As mentioned above, I think Alonso is overvalued at +300. That opens up value elsewhere. Even though Ozuna's odds are short, I do think he deserves to be the favorite here, allowing me to lay the +380 and see if Ozuna hits as well as his profile says he could.
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