Cal Raleigh, Elly De La Cruz, Bryan Torres: 3 MLB Batter Props to Back on August 7

Thursday’s MLB slate is loaded with soft-touch batter props for anyone willing to dig past the marquee names, and three lines in particular stand out for anyone tracking exit velocity, recent form, and lineup context: a power bet on the league’s home run leader, a total-bases number on a switch-hitting shortstop who’s heating up, and a contact prop on a rookie infielder whose model probability blows well past the market’s implied number.

None of these are chalk picks made on name value alone. Each one is grounded in a specific, verifiable edge, and together they form a sharp core for a props slip built on data rather than vibes.

Cal Raleigh Over 0.5 Home Runs vs. Tampa Bay Rays

Cal Raleigh doesn’t need an introduction at this point in the season — the Mariners catcher leads all of MLB with 42 home runs, and books are still pricing him as an underdog to go deep on any given night, which is exactly the kind of market inefficiency prop bettors look for. His home run prop for Thursday’s matchup with the Rays is priced in the +265 to +396 range depending on the book, with DraftKings posting him at +265 and other shops stretching closer to +400.

That range matters. A hitter averaging roughly a home run every six games over a 42-homer pace should not consistently be priced at nearly 4-to-1 against, and the gap between DraftKings’ number and the high end of the market suggests some books haven’t fully priced in Raleigh’s second-half surge. Shopping that spread yourself is worth the extra minute — anyone unsure how to translate odds like these into implied probability can run the numbers through an odds and probability calculator before locking in a book. Seattle’s lineup has leaned heavily on his power production down the stretch, and Tampa Bay’s pitching staff has been susceptible to the long ball against left-handed power all year.

Raleigh’s raw home run total isn’t just a counting stat — it’s a signal of consistent hard, elevated contact, the exact profile that keeps producing outsized value on a nightly home run line even against a competent Rays staff.

Elly De La Cruz Total Bases and Hits vs. Washington Nationals

Elly De La Cruz has been one of the more dangerous bats in the league over the past month, and Thursday’s matchup with Washington sets up well for both his hits and total bases props. The Reds shortstop is hitting .272 with a .345 on-base percentage and a .477 slugging mark on the season, with 13 home runs and 41 RBIs — numbers that put him firmly in the middle of Cincinnati’s offense rather than just a speed-and-upside afterthought.

The total bases market has De La Cruz’s line sitting around 1.5, with the over priced near +125 and the under around -165 at the books tracking it, and his season-long total bases average checks in right at 1.9 per game — comfortably ahead of that number. Washington’s staff has been middling against right-handed power all year, and De La Cruz’s combination of raw bat speed and extra-base pop gives him a real path to clearing that number even on a quiet single or double.

His hit tool has also come alive of late, and with Washington’s bullpen banged up in recent weeks, both the hits and total bases props carry legitimate value against a Nationals staff that hasn’t slowed down opposing middle-of-the-order bats.

Bryan Torres Over 0.5 Total Bases vs. St. Louis Cardinals

This is the sharpest number on the board. Bryan Torres’s over 0.5 total bases prop against the Cardinals is priced at -150, and independent modeling has that same bet at a 65.7% hit probability — a 5.7% edge over what the market is implying, the same kind of gap an expected value check is built to flag. That’s a meaningful gap for a prop this cheap to clear; all it takes is a single, a walk that turns into extra bases, or one clean knock anywhere in the game.

Torres has been a steady table-setter for Colorado, and while his overall numbers won’t jump off the page, the total bases market specifically has been undervaluing his contact rate relative to how often he’s actually reaching base with authority. The same model has his companion prop — to record a hit — priced at -160 with a matching 65.7% probability, reinforcing that this isn’t a one-off anomaly in the pricing but a genuine, repeatable read on how often Torres puts the ball in play productively.

Against a Cardinals staff that has allowed its share of soft contact to fall in over the last two weeks, the volume of favorable data lining up behind this specific number is hard to ignore.

Today’s Edge

All three of these props share the same throughline: verifiable recent performance data that the market hasn’t fully absorbed into the current line. Anyone building a props slip off today’s slate should have these three near the top.

• Cal Raleigh OVER 0.5 Home Runs (+265 DraftKings)
• Elly De La Cruz OVER 1.5 Total Bases (+125)
• Bryan Torres OVER 0.5 Total Bases (-150)

Check your book for the most current lines before placing anything, since these numbers can move closer to first pitch — but the underlying edges here are backed by real, current-season production.