This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
MLB Bets: MLB Player Totals Props for 2024
Spring is in the air! Real live pre-season major league baseball games begin on February 22nd and the regular season starts a mere month later with the Dodgers-Padres series in South Korea. We have futures and props galore to wager on now, including player totals markets available at DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM.
Here are my favorite bets. Each pick includes the numbers from Ariel Cohen's top-ranked ATC Projections, which you can find here on Rotowire. I default to the DraftKings markets unless otherwise noted and include playing time projections as well. So let's
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2024 Home Run Totals
Shohei Ohtani Under 38.5 (ATC Projection: 38, 139 games): Why not get rolling with the GOAT? The two-way superstar will only bat in 2024 as he recovers from his second major elbow surgery. Shohei played under similar circumstances in 2019 though started late and only ultimately appeared in 104 games. He hit 18 homers on the way to a .352 wOBA, his worst season other than the COVID year. Ohtani's Barrel% of 11.4% compares pretty unfavorably to his 19.3% mark since 2021. ATC pegs him at 139 games, which sounds realistic assuming no major setbacks, but I just do not believe the market here fully factors in a likely reduction in power, most especially early in the season. Bryce Harper came back from TJ in 2023 and finished with a nice season overall, but the pop took some time to return. And that did not include simultaneously rebuilding his pitching arm. Speaking of which….
Bryce Harper Over 29.5 (FD) (ATC Projection: 29, 147 games): The Phillies shocked the world (certainly the Fantasy Baseball corner of the world) when they chose not to begin Harper's season on the 60-day IL. Their faith proved well-founded as Harper never did a minor league rehab tour and debuted on May 2nd. His power however took a minute to come back. Harper had just three homers by the All-Star break, perhaps on account of some poor fortune as his 19 barrels suggest he should have hit about 10 or 11. Still, it was Wheels Up in the second half.
Spencer Torkelson Over 28.5 (ATC Projection: 29, 148 games): Like Harper, Tork went off in the second half of the season, bumping his Barrel% up from 12.2% to 16.4% and his EV from 90.9 to 92.5. He has a bit of a headwind as Comerica Park suppresses righty power as per Todd Zola's numbers. The league as a whole turned 58.6% of their barrels into homers in 2023, but the Tigers as a team did it just 51.2% of the time. Tork, in his first full season, hit 31 bombs on 62 barrels but I will wager on his big-boy strength and his overall improved supporting cast helping him best all of that in 2024.
Max Muncy Under 26.5 (ATC Projection: 26, 129 games): I do not question Muncy's power as it shows no sign of ebbing. He hit 36 homers in 135 games in 2023. Rather, I wonder if the projections fully factor in a likely reduction in playing time this season? ATC has him at 129 games and 546 PA's, down from 579 last year. Muncy may find himself in a strict platoon in his age 33 season as he hit just .155 vs lefties in 2023. What's more, he could lose some late-game at-bats on account of his deteriorating glove as he hasn't had a plus season in the field since 2019.
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2024 Player RBI Totals
Austin Riley Over 106.5 (ATC Projection: 103, 152 games): There is likely no RBI spot in MLB better than batting 3rd on the Braves. Riley projects to hit behind Ronald Acuna and Ozzie Albies and ahead of Matt Olson in a lineup that should turn over more than any other. He rarely misses a game on a team that considers load management a four-letter word. What Riley does not do is hit well with RISP, at least he did not in 2023 as he batted just .199 vs .288 with bases empty. Yet he still knocked in 97. His overall stat line is a model of metronome-like consistency.
Juan Soto Over 103.5 (ATC Projection: 100, 153 games): Soto projects to bat 2nd on the Yankees on a lineup that does not look quite as deep as either the Braves or Dodgers. I love Soto's counting stats to explode here as he moves from a neutral park for lefty power to one with 115 rating as per the Zola numbers. Plus batting in front of Aaron Judge should lower Soto's sky-high walk rates. The counterargument is that Yankee Stadium is actually slightly worse for lefties as a straight hitter's park than Petco, and Soto is not a heavy pull hitter. But will the short porch tempt him to modify his approach a bit at home? Tough to know but it feels like a bit of heads you win, tails you do not lose much as his relatively all-fields approach might result in more hits overall than expected.
Fernando Tatis Jr. Under 102.5 (ATC Projection: 94, 148 games): The Padres lineup still looks good up top with Tatis Jr perhaps hitting 3rd. The bottom though? Not so much, and that will hurt. Tatis finally completed a season, albeit one that started late as he served out his PED suspension. He knocked in 78 runs in his career-high 141 games with a career-low .257 AVG. ATC pegs him at an increased pace this season with 94 RBI in 148 games. I will roll with Ariel's call here and wager on the under.
Mike Trout Under 94.5 (ATC Projection: 82, 126 games): As with Tatis Jr, ATC has this as an under as they only project the aging superstar to knock in 82 runs. If Trout hits the 126-game projection it would mark his highest total since 2019. He could of course always spike a healthy season, even though we have not seen one since pre-Covid. Even then, where will the RBI's come from? The lineup around him now has a Shohei Ohtani-sized hole that will be filled by some combo of the Aaron Hicks', Mike (10,000) Moniak's and Jo Adell's of the world. Trout can go nuts even in an abbreviated season, as he did in 2022 when he popped 40 homers in 119 games. Yet he still had only 85 RBI's in a lineup that did include Ohtani.
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2024 Stolen Bases Totals
Randy Arozarena Under 25.5 (ATC Projection: 25, 148 games): Steals overall might go up this year as MLB plans to better enforce base obstruction rules. Whatever impact that has, it will not approach the turbo charge to the running game thanks to the 2023 rule changes. Yet despite that, Arozarena actually ran less, attempting 32 steals vs 44 in 2022. What's more, he was a very inefficient 22 for 32. Will the Rays, a team that tries to capture every micro-edge in sight, let him keep running at even this lower pace? Perhaps not.
2024 Strikeout Totals
Kevin Gausman Under 226.6 (BetMGM) (ATC Projection: 213, 183 IP); Joe Musgrove Under 175.5 (FD) (ATC Projection: 156, 157 IP): I combine these two because the big attraction here is simply the market. You can get Gausman over 215.5 at FanDuel and Musgrove Over 165.5 at DraftKings. I like the under side better on both. Gausman has developed into a true ace and a horse that rarely misses a start, no question about that. But a peek under the hood shows some warning signs in 2023.
That K% looks great but unsustainable as the SwStr%, his worst since 2018, suggests regression to the high 20's. Further, his Barrel% and HardHit% went to career highs. While they do not speak to his overall K total, it does mean he ran a super high-wire act in 2023 and he may need to sacrifice some strikeouts in order to keep his contact profile under control.
Musgrove pitched great when he made it to the mound in an injury-plagued 2023. He started late after breaking a toe in a weight-training mishap then his season ended in July with a dreaded shoulder injury. Musgrove is good to go in 2024 so this Under really is a bet on the innings, but important to note that he does not have enormous room for error. He K'ed 184 in 30 starts in 2022 and struck out 204 in 31 starts (32 games) in 2021 so he can get there in a full season. But he has gone the opposite of Gausman and trended toward a lower K, softer contact profile and maintained his overall excellence.
Freddy Peralta Under 195.5 (ATC Projection: 194, 161.2 IP): Peralta broke out big time in 2023 with 210 K's in 30 starts encompassing 165.2 innings, all career highs. With Brandon Woodruff sidelined and Corbin Burnes gone, he looks like the lone ace left standing in Milwaukee. Everything looks great, so why the relative pessimism? I really only question the workload; I am just not sure he can spike back-to-back full seasons, not to mention that his 5.5 IP/S is on the very low end for an ace.
Tarik Skubal Over 162.5 (ATC Projection: 177, 155 IP): We have a pretty sizable discrepancy to ATC here. Skubal missed the first half of 2023 then came back and put up ace-level numbers in an 80.1-inning sample against a rather uninspiring slate of opponents. Still, these are all major league hitters, and the numbers jumped off the page with a 32.9% K% backed up by a 14.9% SwStr%. An ERA of 2.80 that actually lagged all ERA estimators. He will surely regress somewhat, but it is really about the workload. He peaked at 149.1 IP in 2021 before two injury-shortened seasons. The ATC estimate of 155 IP hardly looks excessive, and if he gets there, he should blow past his K total. In fact, I would go further and say he is very similar to Peralta right down to their age (they are both 27) and yet they have betting totals 33 K's apart.
Bobby Miller Over 150.5 (ATC Projection: 149, 152 IP): The Dodgers have roughly 27 SP's with ace-level ceilings. Virtually all of them have question marks. Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched weekly in the NPB (as do all NPB SP's), Tyler Glasnow has never gone more than the 120 IP he hurled in 2022, James Paxton has totaled 117 IP's since 2019 and neither Walker Buehler nor Clayton Kershaw will start the season in the rotation. Kershaw may not pitch until August. Throw it all together and the 24-year-old Miller projects as the staff workhorse. He totalled 140 IP in 2023 and ATC pegs him for 152 this season. He could easily end up exceeding that. The Dodgers of course would love to spend the entire regular season lining up their postseason rotation, but someone has to actually get them there.
