It’s Friday, we’ve got all 30 teams playing, but the picks board is pretty light. Two HR plays and no Tier 1 fades, which is what you get when half the slate is sluggers stepping in against pitchers the market has already correctly priced. The two we do like are both contrarian-flavored: a below-average power hitter with a great track record against tonight’s starter, and a righty quietly heating back up in a hitter-friendly park.
Yesterday went 1-1 with Michael Harris II cashing the morning lock at +650 against Connelly Early. Joc Pederson came in on the afternoon top-up and didn’t hit. Net +5.5 units on flat sizing, which we’ll take given how thin the board was. Of course yesterday was the day we broke our cold streak, since I didn’t write up the picks given the small slate and lots of model improvements being shipped out. Those who checked the live model on the site cashed a winner.
Those aformenentioned model improvements are all live, and are based on weeks of data from our shadow trackers; we are constantly testing at HeatRadar and have made a variety of fixes to the logic based on winners we would have hit under different circumstances. Most notably, we removed a BANG/PA floor that was filtering out a cohort of picks that turned out to be quietly profitable, and we added a multiplier for hitters who’ve gone deep multiple times in their prior week. Both of those tweaks are why Liam Hicks is on the board tonight.
Best home run bets today
Picks below all cleared our +175 edge filter at this morning’s commit. Best lines listed are the prices to shop for across Caesars, BetRivers, Hard Rock, Pinnacle, and the regional prop-shops we trust.
Liam Hicks (MIA): +750
Hicks faced Freddy Peralta six days ago and went off, hitting two homers in four at-bats off the lefty Mets starter. He gets the rematch tonight at Citi Field. There aren’t many cleaner “bet by recent precedent” spots than facing a guy you’ve taken deep twice in the same game less than a week ago.
Now, Hicks isn’t your prototypical HR pick. His BANG/PA on the season is 5.5, which sits below the 7 we’d typically call average. His last week has actually been quiet outside the Peralta outburst, with an L7 BANG of 2.6, dragged down by mostly soft contact in his other games. On most days he wouldn’t be a pick at all, but two things stack up enough that the model is willing to call it.
First, the BvP history. Two HRs in six career PAs vs Peralta is the strongest BvP signal on the entire board tonight, and our model bumps Hicks 30% on that history alone.
Second, the matchup actually works against the platoon-split narrative. Peralta has been a reverse-platoon arm in 2026. He’s been more vulnerable to lefties (4.1% HR rate against LHBs this year, well above league average) than to righties (1.1%). The conventional wisdom of “Hicks is a lefty facing a lefty, fade him” gets the wrong answer here. Hicks is exactly the kind of LHB Peralta has had trouble with, and his BvP track record proves it.
Add a decent night in Queens with neutral wind, and the model lands at 17% vs the market’s 12% implied. That’s a +275 edge, comfortable in our pick range.
Hicks cashed for us several times earlier in the season, but he’s been very quiet at the plate over the last month. This is a contrarian bet on a contrarian profile. If you don’t trust BvP history, you fade. We trust it.
Josh Jung (TEX): +800
Different flavor entirely. No BvP history with Stephen Kolek, no dramatic streak. Just a quiet “everything points slightly up” pick.
Jung went deep last night at Globe Life for a 424-foot moonshot, his second HR of the L15 stretch and his hardest-hit ball in two weeks. The max exit velocity has been creeping back up too: 100+ MPH in four of his last seven games. His BANG/PA over the last 15 is 6.9, up from a sluggish 6.7 on the season. Small but real movement in the right direction.
The matchup tonight is favorable but not gift-wrapped. Stephen Kolek is a journeyman righty for Kansas City, sitting around league average overall, but his small sample of RHB encounters this year (29 PAs) tells a different story: he’s given up HRs at a 6.9% clip in that subset, which works out to roughly every 14 RHB at-bats. Jung is one of those at-bats.
There’s no platoon advantage to bank on (both are righties), but Globe Life leans slightly hitter-friendly tonight (1.05 park multiplier) and the wind is pushing out to right. Jung also gets the recent-HR boost in our model for going deep yesterday. The edge here is +196, just clearing the +175 floor. Not a layup, but +800 in a hitter-friendly environment on a guy quietly trending up is fine business.
I’ll be in attendance at Globe Life Field in Dallas tonight, so hopefully I’ll get to see a winner in person. If you see me, say hi.
Tonight’s top BvP matchups to watch
If you’re shopping non-prop bets (team totals, NRFI/YRFI, outright moneylines) or other props that aren’t home runs, the Today’s BvP matchups page ranks every batter-vs-pitcher matchup on tonight’s slate by combined BANG. A few standouts:
- Michael Harris II (ATL) vs Chris Paddack: combined BANG 9.6 (Harris 12.7, Paddack allowing 6.6). Harris cashed for us yesterday and gets another LHB-friendly RHP tonight.
- Yordan Alvarez (HOU) vs Coleman Crow: combined BANG 9.1 (Alvarez 12.7, Crow allowing 5.4).
- Matt Olson (ATL) vs Chris Paddack: combined BANG 8.9 (Olson 11.3, Paddack allowing 6.6).
For the full slate with weather, park factor, and the per-game matchup grid, Today’s Slate. For per-pitcher hittability rankings, Today’s Pitchers sorts every starter by BANG-against, easiest to hit at the top.
Batters with multiple home runs against starter today:
vs Grant Holmes (ATL)
- Eugenio Suárez (CIN): 3 HR / 6 PA
- TJ Friedl (CIN): 2 HR / 5 PA
vs Chris Paddack (CIN)
- Mike Yastrzemski (ATL): 3 HR / 27 PA
vs Andre Pallante (STL)
- Michael Busch (CHC): 2 HR / 4 PA
vs Zack Wheeler (PHI)
- Teoscar Hernández (LAD): 2 HR / 11 PA
- Miguel Rojas (LAD): 2 HR / 33 PA
vs Zac Gallen (AZ)
- Mitch Garver (SEA): 2 HR / 8 PA
vs Luis Severino (ATH)
- Jazz Chisholm Jr. (NYY): 2 HR / 14 PA
vs Freddy Peralta (NYM)
- Liam Hicks (MIA): 2 HR / 6 PA
Bet responsibly. Never more than you can lose. Good luck!