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 Thursday, June 25.
MLB Picks, Predictions Today
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- Giants (F5) -124, 1.24u (Bet to -140)
- Nationals (F5) +158, 1u (Bet to +125)
- Rangers +129, 1u (Bet to +115)
- Cardinals Over 4.5 Team Total -105, 0.53u (Bet to -120)
Athletics @ Giants Picks
Jeffrey Springs should be able to skirt some of the damage he’d normally incur in Sacramento in a move to San Francisco on Thursday afternoon, but the underlying metrics still tell a disappointing story, even if they’re an improvement on his 5.55 ERA.
The obvious issue is a 17.8 HR/FB, generating a 5.72 FIP. Springs has already allowed a stunning 21 home runs on 26 barrels, but the lack of ground balls (34.1%) has resulted in 10.1% Barrels/BBE even with just a 35.8 HardHit%.
Only striking out 20.1% of batters faced means a lot of barrels, and that number drops to 15.9% on the road, though in just six starts away from Sacramento.
Even with a normal rate of barrels leaving the park, Springs produces a 4.52 xERA that’s very much smack in the middle of his remaining non-FIP indicator range (4.32 Bot ERA/98 Pitching+ – 4.76 dERA).
It gets even worse over his last six starts, where Springs has allowed 13 home runs on 12 barrels (13%). Maybe you can blame the Wrigley winds for one of those starts, but his other road start during this stretch was in San Diego.
He has an 8.26 FIP and .381 xwOBA allowed over the last 30 days.
In comparison, Landon Roupp has been significantly better with every one of his estimators below his 4.15 ERA (65.7 LOB%).
Roupp has allowed exactly four runs in four of his last nine starts and also eight in Milwaukee, but we learned after that start that he had some back issues, and he still has a solid 16.4 K-BB% during this span, even though he walked five Brewers and struck out just four.
That matches his season 16.6 K-BB%, which, when combined with his elite 29.9 HardHit%, results in a 3.29 xERA that isn’t too far below his 3.37 xFIP.
The 3.7% Barrels/BBE are probably not sustainable, but Roupp has been too far under the radar this year. He’s having a good season.
The A’s also lose quite a bit of offense once they leave Sacramento (87 wRC+ on the road), while their projected lineup’s 117 wRC+ over the last 30 days and 111 wRC+ against RHIP this year are a bit lower than San Francisco’s 138 over the last month and 112 against southpaws.
Both defenses are below average, with the A’s being worse. Projected lineups would give the Giants a small 7 FRV (Fielding Run Value edge).
The San Francisco bullpen is a mess that I want no part of. Its inclusion puts me in line with the market on the full game price (-130), but I project the Giants having every edge for the first half of the game and make them substantially larger favorites than FanDuel’s current price of -124.
Picks: Giants (F5) -124, 1.24u (Bet to -140)
Phillies @ Nationals Picks
I have been siding with the Nationals quite a bit this season. And their bullpen has blown every one of those games.
But on a more serious note, I knew I would be on Washington in this series because the market is still both over-valuing the Philadelphia offense (75 wRC+ on the road, 95 vs RHP) and under-valuing the Washington one (107 wRC+ at home, 122 vs LHP).
There’s absolutely no way to compare Cristopher Sanchez and Cade Cavalli and call it close. Especially considering the latter’s 4.22 SIERA and .351 xwOBA allowed over the last month.
One is a top-three Cy Young contender, and the other is an average pitcher. I rate Sanchez more than a run and a quarter better, and it appears BARTOLO agrees.
The Phillies also have a massive bullpen edge, nearly a run and a half by L30 day estimator average (FIP, xFIP, SIERA), and with a 27 team gap via BARTOLO on the season. It doesn’t get much wider.
However, in addition to their overrated offense, the Phillies also have an atrocious defense (27th with -14 Runs Prevented and -18 OAA) with their standard lineup against RHIP weighing in at -17 FRV.
That’s another area where the Nationals have improved (20th with -4 Runs Prevented and -8 OAA) with their standard lineup against LHP at 7 FRV.
Fielding Run Value is a counting stat and doesn’t accurately account for sample sizes, but a 24 FRV difference is still quite generous.
Add in the fact that Kyle Schwarber’s back has been acting up this week after carrying this offense all season, and the offensive gap may grow even larger.
Let’s face it, this is a three-man offense right now with Schwarber (166 wRC+ L30 days, 150 vs RHP), Bryce Harper (145, 180), and Brandon Marsh (151, 147) bearing the burden. Nobody else exceeds a 100 wRC+ in either category.
The projected Philadelphia lineup averages a 96 wRC+ both over the last month and against RHP.
The Washington projected lineup has a 112 wRC+ over the last 30 days and a 113 mark against LHP this year.
Considering we can filter out one large Philadelphia edge, and maybe even the more significant one, by avoiding the bullpen, I believe the F5 offering is far too large and has dropped from +162 to +158 at FanDuel even as I was writing this paragraph.
If you don’t like F5S and would try your luck with the bullpens, I have that rated strongly as well, just not as strongly.
Picks: Nationals (F5) +158, 1u (Bet to +125)
Rangers @ Blue Jays Picks
It took me a minute to figure out why this game popped. Then I realized three things.
First and most glaringly, the Blue Jays have been surprisingly awful against LHP (83 wRC+).
At first, I considered this was the result of injuries, and they’re about as healthy as they’ve been all season now, but no, the projected lineup still has a 95 wRC+ against LHP this season.
I don’t think Alejandro Kirk is going to sustain a negative wRC+ with the platoon advantage, and Davis Schneider’s drop to 80 is quite surprising, but George Springer (138 wRC+) and Vlad Jr. (141) are the only Jays smoking LHP this year, and the latter has slumped to a 77 wRC+ over the last 30 days.
The Rangers, once you get them away from Globe Life Field, are quite ordinary (104 wRC+ on the road, 100 vs RHP).
I know they’re without Corey Seager and Evan Carter, but the projected/standard lineup against RHP still has a 105 wRC+ against RHP this season and 113 wRC+ over the last month.
The second thing was that Kevin Gausman hasn’t been as good as I’d thought this year.
I’m not talking about the 4.04 ERA, but even with an 18.9 K-BB%, his best since 2023, the 3.41 Bot ERA/104 Pitching+ to 3.73 dERA estimator range is more good than great. I have him just one-third of a run ahead of MacKenzie Gore, whose non-FIP estimator range (4.02 SIERA – 4.25 Bot ERA/99 Pitching+) befits his 4.07 ERA.
Finally, the defense.
That great Toronto defense? It’s merely middle of the league this year (-2 Runs Prevented, -1 OAA).
Again, maybe that’s injuries, but Schneider (-4 FRV), Kazuma Okamoto (-2), and Ernie Clement (-2) have been bad.
Both teams project -1 FRV on Thursday, though the Texas team defense is much higher up the chain (+10 Runs Prevented, +12 OAA).
The Blue Jays do have the superior bullpen. BARTOLO ranks them best in the league with a 3.25 wFIP against Texas’s 4.06 (18th), but over the last 30 days, the Toronto bullpen has 4.50 FIP, 4.44 xFIP, and 4.32 SIERA compared to the Rangers’ 4.64 FIP, 4.23 xFIP, and 3.76 SIERA.
All this to say that I barely have Toronto favored in this matchup.
Picks: Rangers +129, 1u (Bet to +115)
Diamondbacks @ Cardinals Picks
Zac Gallen’s basically-qualifying-offer deal has been a complete disaster.
Since the start of May, Gallen has allowed 44 runs over just 51 innings.
The underlying indicators may not be 7.76 ERA bad (.352 BABIP, 58.5 LOB%), but they’re not nearly good (7.0 K-BB%, 9.1% Barrels/BBE).
If he didn’t have five seasons of an 18.8 K-BB% to fall back on prior to last year, Gallen might not be pitching in this league anymore.
In fact, this is three straight seasons of decline in his K-BB (probably the most important stat for pitchers) from a career high of 20.4% in 2023 to 7.4% this year.
Pitch modeling still likes this guy for some reason (3.96 Bot ERA, 100 Pitching+), but that’s mostly due to command grades (59 botCmd, 110 Location+) over stuff (47 botStf, 87 Stuff+). In other words, he’s throwing a garage on the edges of the plate, and it’s not stopping anybody from hammering it.
RHBs have a .352 wOBA against him this year, and LHBs are at .400 on the nose, and these numbers are more or less confirmed by complementing Statcast expected values of .325 and .399. A few points of improvement against RHBs aren’t going to change much.
Gallen’s best non-pitch modeling estimator? A 4.71 xFIP. His 5.66 xERA is within a half-run margin of error of his 6.10 ERA.
The St. Louis offense has been far better than expected, with a 102 wRC+ at home and 107 against RHIP, but now at full health, the projected lineup has an even better 118 wRC+ over the last 30 days and 119 against RHP in 2026.
Driveline should make Jordan Walker their poster boy.
Gallen will eventually, and possibly sooner than later, turn it over to an Arizona bullpen that ranks a modest 13th via BARTOLO (3.83 wFIP).
However, that unit has a 4.41 FIP, 4.35 xFIP, and 4.09 SIERA over the last month, and if things go our way, they’ll be employing more middle and multi-inning relievers like Drew Jameson (4.88 wFIP) and Taylor Clarke (4.35 wFIP) than high-leverage ones, at least until it’s too late and doesn’t matter anymore.
Current Statcast rolling three-year park factors have St Louis suppressing run scoring by 6%, and weather isn’t expected to impact that much one way or another, but scheduled umpire Carlos Torres generally gives about half of that back.
Still, the slightly negative run environment will keep us at 0.5 units on this one.
Picks: Cardinals Over 4.5 Team Total -105, 0.53u (Bet to -120)
Trollo's MLB Picks and Predictions for Thursday, June 25
Follow me in the Action Network App for additional bet notifications.
- Giants (F5) -124, 1.24u (Bet to -140)
- Nationals (F5) +158, 1u (Bet to +125)
- Rangers +129, 1u (Bet to +115)
- Cardinals Over 4.5 Team Total -105, 0.53u (Bet to -120)
