As we creep closer to the 2025 Major League Baseball season, one of the things we’d like to do here is highlight some props.
More specifically, that would be discussing some of my favorite gambling plays for the season in the props section, which would be for individual players and their stats. If you aren’t into gambling, that’s cool, too, because we’re basically just discussing who might be decent picks to lead the league in a stat.
Let’s dive right in and make eight picks on major stats.
Wheeler and Tigers ace Tarik Skubal are tied for the favorites here at +1000. There are times I don’t like taking favorites. First off, it seems like a copout or just plain boring, but secondly sometimes it just doesn’t make sense from an odds standpoint. With the odds being 100 to 1, though, I have zero issue taking the favorite. I mean, are we trying to win or not?
Wheeler is reliable, a workhorse by 2025 standards and plays for a team that’ll win plenty of games. He won 16 last year — only two away from the MLB lead — despite not getting run support on a regular basis. In eight of his 32 starts, the Phillies scored two or fewer runs. In eight others, they scored just three runs. That’s half of Wheeler’s starts. For the sake of comparison, his teammate Aaron Nola only got three runs or less in support and if we went to two or less, it was only five times.
I’ll say Wheeler leads the majors with 20 wins this year.
Strikeout leader: Cole Ragans (+2500)
The chalk pick here is Paul Skenes at +400 and that’s a reasonable play. I’m still not sure how much the Pirates will let him go with workload. I’ll particularly zero in on the possibility of them falling out of the race and then just shutting him down.
Meanwhile, Ragans is listed fifth in odds, tied with Jacob deGrom (who surely isn’t going to come close due to workload). Ragans was only five off the lead last season with 223 strikeouts and worked more than 185 innings. A natural progression in workload says he’ll be around 200 innings, which means he could approach 250 strikeouts.
This is my single favorite prop this season.
Emmanuel Clase (+700) and Ryan Helsley (+750) were the top two last season. Helsley actually led with 49. The favorite is Edwin Díaz at +650. Iglesias only had 34 last season, which equaled his career high (he’s done it three times). He only had 33 saves in 2023 when the Braves won 104 games.
What gives?
I guess it’s a lot of gut feeling here. The substance I’ve got is Iglesias remains great and has no competition whatsoever for saves in that Braves bullpen. I have them winning the NL East this season, so there should be plenty of chances. Will he end up in the mid-30s again while pitchers on teams with less high-powered offenses rack up a lot more? Maybe. His name was just calling out to me when I saw the odds. There’s obviously a chance I’ll miss. That’s why it’s called gambling.
Alonso only had 88 RBI last season, but he led the majors with 131 in 2022 and also drove home 120 runs in his rookie season, 2019. He’s now hitting behind Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto, both of whom I expect to be all over the bases this season. There’s protection behind Alonso in the batting order with players like Brandon Nimmo and Mark Vientos, too. Basically, I expect Alonso to see a ton of good pitches this season with traffic on the bases. Bring on those RBI.
Home run leader: Matt Olson (+3000)
I didn’t head into this one thinking Olson would be my play. If there weren’t odds attached, I don’t think he’d be my pick. Aaron Judge (+360) and Shohei Ohtani (+650) are the best picks and obviously show up as favorites. Kyle Schwarber at +1200 is reasonable, too, but Olson is the 10th name listed. He just led the majors in 2023 with 54 homers. He doesn’t miss games, either, as he’s played in 162 games each of the last three seasons. He had a down year in 2024, but he’s every bit powerful enough to bounce back and lead again.
Hits leader: Bobby Witt Jr. (+550)
Witt is actually the favorite here, but the plus-550 isn’t a bad price tag at all. He led the majors with 211 hits last season and he’s an everyday player in the second spot in his team’s batting order. He also doesn’t walk a ton. The result last year was a .332 batting average and 211 hits in 636 at-bats. He was only 24 years old. I’ll ride with the favorite here.
It’s been a while, but Bregman has led the majors in doubles before. He did so in 2018 when he had 51. He’s not nearly as good a hitter now, but the move to Fenway Park has piqued my interest to the point that I’m going with him here. He is a dead pull hitter who has grown accustomed to play in Houston with the Crawford Boxes’ short porch in left field. There’s a short porch in Fenway to left, too, but the Green Monster means some of those homers from past years turn into doubles. For example, xHR estimates how many home runs a player would have hit if all of his games were played in each ballpark. Last year showed 31 in Houston but only 23 in Boston. Those misses would’ve hit off the Monster.
Obviously, Bregman needs to stay healthy and have a good season — and only half the games are played at home, instead of all of them in the xHR simulation — but I like the number here.
To lead in stolen bases, the chalk pick is Elly De La Cruz. I think he leads the majors again — so he’s my pick if you want one — but the price tag of -120 isn’t worth it for me on the chance that he either gets hurt or loses out to someone else. Fortunately, we can grab numbers like 30+ or 40+ and I really like this spot with these odds.
PCA will need to show he can get on base. He hasn’t done it yet through two games, having gone 0 for 7. Last year, he only had a .286 on-base percentage in 410 plate appearances. And he still stole 27 bases in 30 tries. It’s possible he turned a corner down the stretch last season. In his last 57 games, he hit .289/.336/.469. If he’s able to hit like that, he’ll be an everyday starter all year and if that’s the case, I can’t see him falling short of 40 steals.
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