MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Monday, July 22nd

brent-rooker-800x480

Traditional MLB DFS formats aren’t the only way to profit from daily fantasy baseball. MLB PrizePicks is a great fantasy pick’em site where we can take today’s projections versus theirs and combine two or more baseball predictions for sizeable payouts.

In this space, we’ll explore a few PrizePicks plays for the upcoming MLB slate. This article isn’t the be-all, end-all of great plays or a recommendation for a full ticket; it’s simply a starting place for you to explore thinking about the game within the game. Maybe you want to scatter these plays across entries. Maybe there are only two or three you think are worth playing. Daily fantasy pick’em gives us the flexibility to make only the plays in which we think there is value rather than being forced to create a full lineup while competing against the best DFS players in the industry.

PrizePicks is daily fantasy baseball made simple, and our MLB PrizePicks picks tool makes the process even simpler.

If you haven’t signed up for a PrizePicks account, make sure to use the PrizePicks promo code ROTOBONUS and get a $100 deposit match. Also, check out more apps like PrizePicks.

All stats cited are since the start of the 2024 season unless otherwise noted.

Editor’s Note: Looking for more places to play? Check out our PrizePicks promo code and Sleeper promo code, two of the best DFS apps available today.

MLB PrizePicks Predictions for Monday, July 22nd

Brent Rooker MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)

Randy Arozarena and Trea Turner have solid DEMON total bases projections to attack, but Brent Rooker is slightly better, according to our projections. Rooker gets to be in the heart of the order, facing a guy in Spencer Arrighetti who struggles mightily to throw strikes. Arrighetti has an 11.7% BB rate, so there should be traffic on the basepaths for Rooker to get pitches to hit. And Rooker is a monster on contact. Rooker has a 16.6% barrel rate against righties on a 62.3% hard-hit rate and a 32.5% fly-ball rate, while Arrighetti has allowed a .182 ISO to righties. The ballpark in Oakland stinks for homers, but Rooker’s opportunity to take shots is great, as we have him projected for 1.8 total bases.

Bryce Miller MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)

Bryce Miller can get blasted pretty hard by lefties, but the Angels don’t have the power lefties to do enough damage against him. Miller should face six righties, against whom he has a 25.9% K rate, allowing just a 4.9% BB rate and 6.3% barrel rate. The Angels projected lineup’s 22.7% K rate against righties isn’t huge, but it also just has a .289 wOBA and .132 ISO, so they should struggle to do damage against Miller, who could — therefore — get 6 IP. He’s struck out 6 in 2 of his last 3 starts. In 3 of the last 4 starts in which he’s gone 6 IP, he’s struck out 6. I don’t love this play, but we have him projected for 5.5 strikeouts, suggesting that a 5.5 DEMON projection is too much juice to leave on the table.

Carlos Carrasco MORE Than 4.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)

Speaking of rough plays where we shouldn’t leave juice on the table, Carlos Carrasco isn’t good, but 4.5 with a DEMON boost is too low against a Tigers projected lineup that has a 25.4% K rate against righties. Carrasco only has an 18.5% K rate, but he’s gone 5+ IP in each of his last 6 starts. This stretch of volume with the DEMON boost is enough to bet on 5 Ks, considering that we have Carrasco projected for 4.6.

Javier Assad MORE Than 4.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)

These Brewers don’t strike out very much, but Javier Assad has 8.33 K/9, and the Cubs have let him get up to 90+ pitches in 5 of his last 6 starts. He doesn’t have a great ceiling, but 4.5 is just too low for a guy who can get a strikeout per inning getting 90 pitches. I hate doing this because of the matchup, but when the DEMON projection is this close to our 4.3 projection, I will have some exposure.

David Peterson LESS Than 17.5 Outs

Consult the pick ‘em tool for the best standard projections to attack with our DEMONs, but David Peterson for LESS than 17.5 outs might fly under the radar because Miami is a great place to hit and the Marlins suck against lefties. But Peterson is low-key boom-busty because he isn’t controlling his pitch count. He went 6 IP against the Nats in his last start, but it took him 102 pitches to get there. He only went 4.1 in Pittsburgh the start before and took 103 pitches to get through 4.1 against the Yankees in Citi Field 4 starts ago. Peterson can throw a quality start, but he can also get in his own way, so we have him projected for just 15.7 outs — 10.3% below his PrizePicks projection.

All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.

We covered a lot of DEMONs because I think this is a good day for high volume, so we’ll need to high quantity of DEMONs to sprinkle around for juice.

Image Credit: Getty Images

About the Author