MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Thursday, August 1st
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.
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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 Thursday, August 1st
- Sonny Gray MORE Than 6.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
- Seth Lugo MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON) and MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)
- Charlie Morton MORE Than 6.5 Strikeouts (DEMON) and MORE Than 5.5 Hits Allowed (DEMON)
- Anthony Santander MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
- Max Meyer MORE Than 15.5 Outs (DEMON)
Sonny Gray MORE Than 6.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
Sonny Gray is lighting the lamp this season. He has an 11.12 K/9 with a 24.5% K-BB rate. He can give up some power, but the Cards are really trying to get him through 100 pitches into the 7th inning as much as possible. These Cubs don’t strike out much without Christopher Morel, but their power is diminished without him, too, so they should struggle to knock Gray out of the game. We have Gray projected for 6.5 strikeouts. It’s a benchmark that he can surpass with some ease should he get into the 7th inning. Gray has struck out 7+ in 3 of his last 6 starts, still logging 6 in each of the 3 starts where he didn’t reach 7.
Seth Lugo MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON) and MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)
Seth Lugo is another pitcher who is being used to get nearly 100 pitches through 7 IP on a regular basis. The Tigers projected lineup has just a .285 wOBA and .126 ISO with a 23.8% K% rate against righties. Lugo has logged 18+ outs in 11 of his last 12 starts, so the floor is extremely high on his outs total. And with the volume should come the Ks against these Tigers. We have Lugo projected for 5.4 Ks across 18.0 outs, so this is purely a juice play with a lot of safety attached.
Charlie Morton MORE Than 6.5 Strikeouts (DEMON) and MORE Than 5.5 Hits Allowed (DEMON)
These Marlins don’t strike out a ton, but Charlie Morton is logging 8.75 K/9 and should get some distance against a Marlins projected lineup that has just a .301 wOBA and .124 ISO against righties. Morton’s thrown 94+ pitches in 6 of his last 7 starts with a couple of games over 100, and that should be good to get him into the 7th inning, which should get him the volume for 7 Ks. Morton isn’t great, so the hits should also come with that volume. We have Morton projected for 6.1 Ks and 6.1 hits allowed. This is tight. I don’t want too much exposure to this, but — if playing a higher volume — this is a play to which we should want some exposure.
Anthony Santander MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
There might not be a better hitting projection on the board to attack on this decent pitching slate. Anthony Santander has an 11.6% barrel rate on a 56.4% hard-hit rate and 32.4% fly-ball rate for a .294 ISO against righties and faces a pitcher in Ben Lively, who is allowing 1.45 HR/9 on an 82.2% contact rate. We have Santander projected for 2.1 total bases.
Max Meyer MORE Than 15.5 Outs (DEMON)
I don’t like Max Meyer. He gives up a lot of power, and the Braves have a lot of power, but our projections have him getting into the 6th inning for 16.0 outs. Honestly, I’ll be stacking Braves in DFS, but this projection says that we should have some exposure to Meyer’s outs projection on PrizePicks.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
I don’t love this slate for high volume because there’s little edge in the standard projections, but I love these DEMONs. So I might play a high quantity of contests but keep them cheap, looking to multiply on some DEMONs. We can stack these DEMONs, but I’d suggest a low volume if doing so, as this is a case where we wanna plunk in a little to win a lot.
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