Welcome to The Leadoff, a daily column featuring our top expert’s MLB picks, predictions, and best bets for today’s slate.
With Sean Zerillo making significant changes to the structure of Opening Pitch, we thought we could use another similar daily piece breaking down a few of our favorite bets on the day’s top games.
Each day, Monday through Sunday, one of our top staff members will provide news, notes, and betting analysis on that day’s group of games.
Matt Trollo has that job for Saturday, May 16.
MLB Predictions, Picks for Saturday, May 16
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- Nationals -120 (F5), 0.6u (Bet to -130)
- Brewers @ Twins Under 8 (-110), 0.55u (Bet to -125)
- Red Sox +125, 1u (Bet to +105)
- Red Sox @ Braves Under 8 (-110), 1u (Bet to 7.5 even)
Orioles vs Nationals Picks
While Chris Bassitt has allowed a single earned run or less in four of his last six outings (behind an opener last time out), a 4.32 Bot ERA is still his only estimator below four and a half.
More importantly, let's turn to his numbers against LHBs:
- .366 wOBA, .349 xwOBA since last year
- .421 wOBA this season
Brady House and Jacob Young are generally the only RHBs who play against LHBs for the Nationals.
Bassitt will likely have to face seven LHBs, five of whom (James Wood, Luis Garcia Jr., C.J. Abrams, Daylen Lile, and Jose Tena) have at least a 120 wRC+ over the last 30 days overall.
Bassitt has also been throwing his sinker 36.6% of the time with a .433 wOBA against the pitch. He's been throwing it to LHBs 29% of the time, which is far too often. The Nationals are the second-best offense against sinkers this season (0.27 wSI/C).
After a rough start to the season, Cade Cavali has had only one poor outing (three walks, two strikeouts, six runs, three earned against the Twins) over his last five starts. Even with that outing included, he has a 21.6 K-BB% over that span.
These offenses are comparable, the defenses have the same -7 Runs Prevented with projected lineups each -4 FRV (Fielding Run Value).
Dodging the Washington bullpen, I’ll take a -120 F5 with the guy I consider the better pitcher by about two-thirds of a run at home against a pitcher on his way out in a terrible situation for his splits.
Pick: Nationals -120 F5, 0.6u (FD) (Bet to -130)
Brewers vs Twins Picks
Here we come to the biggest and most storied rivalry of Rivalry Weekend in Minnesota.
Logan Henderson has yet to allow more than two runs in eight major league starts. True, he only faced nine Royals in his first of this season, but the point stands.
He has a very early career 26.4 K-BB%, and if you look at his minor league records on his Fangraphs page, you won’t find a rate below 20% at any of his stops.
Henderson has allowed 10.1% Barrels/BBE, but when you’re striking out one-third of the batters you face, that’s not that bad. In fact, 30% of his hard contact in the majors has been barrels.
The only thing he doesn’t do well is generate ground balls (22.7%).
Minnesota has somehow become a top-three run environment (108 Park Run Factor in the latest Statcast update), but the home run factor for both right and left-handed batters is just 97. Henderson has also kept batters from either side of the plate below a .300 wOBA and xwOBA, too.
I do have some concerns about his ability to continue to strike out so many batters with an 11.6 SwStr%, but that’s still an above-average swing and miss rate.
Henderson’s 4.09 dERA does match his 4.15 ERA in this year’s three-start sample, but he doesn’t have another indicator reaching even three, and that includes pitch modeling. His 2.63 Bot ERA, 115 Pitching+ are both second best on Saturday’s entire board, behind only deGrom.
Connor Prielipp has been another very impressive young pitcher through his first four major league starts, striking out 26.6% of the batters he’s faced.
He, too, has a questionable 9.7 SwStr% that’s below league average and has also had some issues with ground balls (34.7%) and barrels (12.2%), but Prielipp has solid pitch modeling numbers (3.99 Bot ERA, 104 Pitching+) and prospect pedigree.
Fangraphs ranks him third in the Minnesota organization with a 50 Future Value Grade, which is generally a league average middle of the rotation pitcher.
Prielipp also has strong K-BB% marks through the minors, along with ground-ball rates of 45% or higher.
While the Minnesota offense has been around average at home (100 wRC+) and against RHP (98), the Brewers have just a 77 wRC+ vs LHP this season, and their projected lineup’s 88 mark against southpaws since last season isn’t much better.
Finally, the Milwaukee bullpen also has the best ERA (2.86) and estimators (3.10 FIP/3.33 xFIP/3.16 SIERA) over the last 30 days.
Pick: Under 8 (-110), 055u (FD) (Bet to -125)
Red Sox @ Braves Picks
While Payton Tolle was impressive with a 14.9 K-BB% over 16.1 major league innings in his debut last year, the team seemed to favor Connelly Early both in the postseason and early in the 2026 season.
Tolle simply posted a 24.6 K-BB% in three AAA starts (15 IP) and forced his way into the conversation after a couple of injuries, which may have been the best thing to happen to these Red Sox this year because he has carried a 24.1 K-BB% over to four major league starts since (22.2 IP).
The biggest improvement was cutting his walk rate from 10.9% to 6.9%. It’s a problem he never had in the minors.
Tolle doesn’t generate a lot of ground balls (below 40%), but he’s also kept his hard hit rates below 40% and generated tons of popups (7% of his major league contact so far).
Initially throwing 64.1% four-seamers in his cup of coffee in 2025, Tolle has picked up a sinker (it’s the Boston way) this season (23.7%) and cut his four-seam usage to 44.6%. It’s not as strong a pitch via pitch modeling, but it does give opponents, especially LHBs (37%), a fourth pitch which he throws at least 10% of the time.
Everything else he has been throwing to RHBs has worked plenty well enough in his short career (.286 wOBA, .285 xwOBA).
The Braves have mashed at home (118 wRC+) and also have a team 111 wRC+ vs LHP, but with Acuna IL’d, the projected lineup has just an 83 wRC+ against southpaws since last season, along with a mere .143 ISO.
Whether we want to admit it or not, Bryce Elder has improved as well.
Oh, pitch modeling still hates him plenty (4.81 Bot ERA, 90 Pitching+), even more than last year (4.68, 99), but he doesn’t have another estimator reaching four.
Elder’s K-BB against RHBs has increased by more than half from 13.1% in 2025 to 20.3% this year.
It’s still sinker/slider almost all the time against same-handed batters, but the latter has increased both vertical and horizontal break this year.
LHBs have a brand new cutter he’s using 17% of the time against them. While the K-BB% has only increased 2.2 points to 12.6% against them, the wOBA has dropped 75 points to .237.
We’ll see if he’s able to retain all of that or if pitch modeling is right. The 3.5% Barrels/BBE he’s allowed is likely unsustainable, but his hard hit rate has dropped below 40% for the first time since his rookie year (2022).
I still have Tolle as the better pitcher by nearly two-thirds of a run, but Elder probably has the better matchup against a Boston offense with a putrid 79 wRC+ against RHP. The projected lineup, though, at least has a 99 mark since last season.
We also have two of the top four defenses by Runs Prevented and OAA. The projected Atlanta defense’s 11 FRV is nearly doubled by Boston’s projected 21. The Red Sox also have a five BRR edge on the base paths.
Lastly, the Braves rank 13th in bullpen estimators over the last 30 days, while Boston ranks sixth.
Both teams needed their closer in a close game on Friday night, Iglesias for 20 pitches, which could affect his availability for Saturday night, but Chapman for only 10.
We’re going to double dip in Atlanta on Saturday night.
Pick: Red Sox +125, 1u (B365) (Bet to +105) & Under 8 (-110), 1u (B365) (Bet to 7.5 even)
Matt Trollo's MLB Picks and Predictions for Saturday, May 16
Follow me in the Action Network App for additional bet notifications.
- Nationals -120 (F5), 0.6u (Bet to -130)
- Brewers @ Twins Under 8 (-110), 0.55u (Bet to -125)
- Red Sox +125, 1u (Bet to +105)
- Red Sox @ Braves Under 8 (-110), 1u (Bet to 7.5 even)
