Welcome to Jackpot Friday! BetMGM offers an exciting promotion every Friday where you bet one player (min $10) to hit a home run and if they hit a grand slam, you’ll win a share of $50,000 in bonus bets. Grand Slams are nearly impossible to predict, so we’ll be looking at the same factors of a player to just hit a home run.
Generally with home runs I’m looking at a few factors:
Weather conditions
Opposing pitcher
Rolling barrel rate/ wRC+ for the batter
Unlike Fanduel’s Dinger Tuesday promotion, we’re less focused on games that will produce a lot of home runs and more focused on an individual matchup. We’ll be tracking our progress on this promo on EWB and hopefully cash in on our share of $50K this season!
Today’s matchup will feature the Nationals hosting the Chicago Cubs this evening on what should be a pleasant evening in DC. We’re not expecting any impact from the weather given temperatures in the mid 70’s and no precipitation. It will be quite humid out, as is common in the Northeast this time of year.
I’m going to oppose Jake Irvin in this one, as we’re starting to see his stats come down to Earth. Coming into the season I’d consider Jake Irvin as a middling starter, eating innings for a young Nationals team. 2024 might have changed that picture as Irvin almost made the all star team this summer.
While Irvin did post incredible results in April and June of this year, we’ve seen a harsh regression with a 5.95 ERA in five starts this month. He’s really been hurt by the long ball, giving up 8 home runs in this stretch. His overall walk rate has come down year over year and while his strikeouts are up a tick, his 14.5% K-BB ratio is pretty average. Irvin relies pretty heavily on his breaking pitches as his fastball rates as a pretty average pitch.
As far as the hitters go this is a really close call between Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ in this one. Both hitters are seeing the ball well, posting ~200 wRC+ in the past two weeks.
Suzuki and Happ are also the top hitters in the Cubs lineup against right handed pitching. Jake Irvin doesn’t have a significant difference in his split stats, so that is also not on the table. I decided to go with Suzuki in this one as he’s hit 3 home runs in the past four games and is the more aggressive hitter.
Happ has slightly higher strikeout and walk rates. That being said, Suzuki has a lower whiff rate and slightly higher average launch angle. Suzuki also edges Happ significantly in the road splits and is the better fastball hitter, which we’ve identified as a weak point for Irvin.
I wouldn’t oppose either option today but BetMGM is offering +500 for Suzuki vs. +425 for Happ. In both cases BetMGM is offering the best in market price. Let’s hope the Cubs can load them up and help us cash in on the Jackpot.