Thursday’s MLB Player Props: Aaron Sanchez Takes on the Tribe

Before yesterday, Joey Lucchesi may have been my favorite pitcher in the league. This is mostly because there’s a kid we call “Lucchesi” in the office. You can imagine we were all going nuts when the Padres’ southpaw punched out his sixth D-Back of the day yesterday following a sketchy start to his outing.

Matt “The Cobbler” Shoemaker also went over his total of 5.5, though he did so with relative ease. The new Blue Jays starter has thrown 14 scoreless frames to go along with 15 strikeouts in his two starts so far. We’ll see how he fares when he faces someone other than the Tigers or Orioles.

MLB Player Props, Thursday April 4

Here’s what we have going today:

• Yankees at Orioles: 3:05 p.m. ET
• Blue Jays at Indians: 6:10 p.m. ET

Our FantasyLabs MLB Player Props Tool leverages our projections against odds offered at various sportsbooks and grades each prop on a scale of 1 to 10. All odds as of 1:00 p.m. ET. View live odds here.

Orioles SP Alex Cobb

The Pick: Over 3.5 (-145)

Yesterday, we had the Cobbler. Today, we have Cobb. Alex Cobb … perhaps a descendant of Ty Cobb, Bob Cobb or Cliff Cobb.

Somehow, the Orioles are big underdogs against the Yankees (did the oddsmakers see the standings?) but that doesn’t mean Cobb can’t blossom. The veteran righthander is not a strikeout pitcher, but the Yankees are strikeout hitters. Their lineup has the second highest strikeout per at bat rate of the day per FantasyLabs’ models at 0.274.

With Cobb needing to reach only four strikeouts to cash, I like this bet. It’s the first over 3.5 we’ve taken all season, too. Feels nice to not have to root for five or six or even seven strikeouts. Just four.

We’re not cutting our corn down today. We’re eating it straight off the Cobb.

Blue Jays SP Aaron Sanchez

The Pick: Over 4.5 (-115)

If the Yankees lineup has the second-highest strikeout rate of the day, someone must be higher. That would be the Indians, who Aaron Sanchez is set to face in Cleveland.

This new-look Indians lineup has sucked so far. It’s scoring fewer than three runs per game so far and lead the league in strikeout rate at 33.5%.

Sanchez isn’t a big strikeout pitcher either, but started the year off strong with six in five innings. He should get some help from that Indians lineup, as well as very favorable weather conditions. The less the Indians score, the longer he can stay in the game and try and reach five strikeouts.

Over 5 (+128) is also available, and actually has a lower implied total than over 4.5 (-115), but I personally prefer cashing if he lands on five. Plus, I don’t think he has a much higher ceiling than six, which he’d need to reach if you take the plus-money option.