MLB Player Props: Expert Picks for Logan Allen, Joe Musgrove

There's a lot of day baseball on this Wednesday, and I've identified two pitcher props that have value.

Here are my picks for Logan Allen in Guardians vs. Mariners and Joe Musgrove in Cardinals vs. Padres.

MLB Player Prop Picks

In the table below, you'll find each of Action Network Director of Predictive Analytics Sean Koerner's top player prop picks from Wednesday's slate of games. Click on any pick or team logo to navigate to a specific bet discussed in this article.

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Logan Allen has just a 14.3% K rate after one start. As always, we don't want to overreact over a small sample and it's important to look into the underlying data in order to figure out why he struggled in his first start against the A's, where he only struck out three.

The underlying data was solid. He managed to generate a swinging-strike rate of 16% and his sweeper/changeup/cutter all generated a 35%+ whiff rate. Allen simply suffered bad luck in terms of timing of those whiffs and putting hitters away.

There are two areas I think we can expect immediate improvement:

• He only threw a first-pitch strike 48% of the time in the opener. I’m guessing he was a bit rusty and this will be something he works on for this start and we should see it closer to 60%+ going forward, which will go a long way in seeing a huge boost to his K%.
• The A’s swung at 77% of his pitches that were in the zone. I would expect that rate to be closer to 68% for Allen going forward and getting more called strikes is another reason why we should expect his K% to go way up going forward. The Mariners have the seventh-lowest swing rate on pitches in the zone, so they should help with that.

The Mariners will only have one left-handed batter in the lineup today. Normally that would be a pretty big downgrade for a lefty like Allen, but he has very minimal platoon splits and his K% is only 0.5% higher against lefties. So the stacked RHB lineup won’t impact him as much.

I'm projecting Allen close to a 68% chance to clear 4.5, so I like the value we are getting here, even with the -155 juice. Five and six strikeouts are his two more likely outcomes.

Pick: Logan Allen Over 4.5 Strikeouts (-155)

Musgrove is off to a rough start with just an 11.6% strikeout percentage after two starts. However, the underlying data suggests it should be closer to 24.2%, so I’m expecting positive regression to come his way.

He’s throwing in the zone at a higher rate, especially on the first pitch (career-high 74%) after two starts. If this trend continues, he will struggle to strike out as many hitters against teams that are looking to swing.

The Cardinals rank in the top eight in both swing rate on pitches in the zone and on the first pitch, so they may put the ball in play at a higher rate than expected.

His most likely outcomes are 5-6 Ks, so this will likely be a sweat, but I like having exposure to under 6.5 at -146 considering I’m showing the fair price closer to -215.

Pick: Joe Musgrove Under 6.5 Strikeouts (-146)