One of the most popular promotions in the sports betting community is back: MLB Dinger Tuesday from FanDuel.
The promotion allows a user to bet $25 on one player in every MLB game played that day to hit a home run. Regardless of whether the player you bet on homers, you receive $5 in free bets back for each home run hit in the game, with a max return of $25 for the game.
Many users have been limited by FanDuel this season and are only allowed to receive a maximum $25 back in free bets — essentially five free homers back for the day in free bets. Last season, there were higher limits, usually $50, on the return in free bets for players.
Given the average number of home runs in an MLB game in 2023 was 2.20, you will receive an average of $12 in free bets back for each $25 home run bet you make, without accounting for the loss in expected value on the vig of the home run "yes" prop.
If you aren't limited, you should play as many games as you’re comfortable with because the promo is still plus-EV for most of the board. If you are limited to the maximum return of $25, an average of two to three games will return your $25 maximum in free bets.
Note: It could take just one game to reach the $25 ceiling if there are five homers in that game.
Here are my three favorite MLB home run picks: Dinger Tuesday Picks for June 4.
We definitely want to target the Twins–Yankees game as it leads our projections with a mean total of 3.31 home runs. Yankee stadium is one of the better home run parks in baseball, boosting long balls by about 18% on average, according to MLB Park Factors.
The chalky pick is Aaron Judge, who leads the majors with 21 homers. We have him as the likeliest Yankee to go yard at a bit over 30%. However, +190 odds aren't great, and he'd need a home run more than one-third of the time to pay off that number.
It's a similar story with Juan Soto, who's projecting well, but not quite well enough considering his short odds.
This is where Anthony Rizzo comes into play. He has just seven home runs, but his HR/FB ratio is down nearly 5% from his career mark. Based on our projections, his fair value is +410, making the +560 line a strong value.
I wouldn't fault anyone for taking the shorter odds on Judge, but considering we're expecting to get most of the cost of this bet back as part of the promotion, I prefer taking the longer — and higher EV — player.
- Maximize your Dinger Tuesday action with our FanDuel promo code.
There's a pretty steep drop off after the Twins-Yankees game in mean home runs, with no other contest coming in above three. This one is close, though, with a 2.97 mark despite somewhat strong pitchers squaring off.
The Braves side is obviously the stronger one thanks to the pitching matchups. Max Fried of Atlanta has just a 19% fly-ball rate, while Boston's Kutter Crawford is at 47.6%. He's allowed homers in three straight games after giving up just two in his first nine starts, as his extreme early-season luck starts to run out. However, his HR/FB ratio is still less than half the league average, despite allowing above-average hard hit rates.
The best projection value on Atlanta belongs to leadoff hitter Michael Harris, who is having a bit of a down year across the board — but his underlying numbers look good. He has an excellent hard-hit rate above 40%, but his HR/FB ratio is considerably lower than his career average.
This could be just noise, but Crawford has also allowed 50% more home runs against lefties than righties in his career, despite facing more righties overall. We're also showing a slight projection edge on Matt Olson at +340, if you're interested in a slightly "safer" option.
The first game of this series at Coors Field produced three home runs as part of a 13-run explosion for the Reds. We have it projected a bit short of that tonight, but there's a wide range of outcomes.
We probably don't need a third pick to hit the max $25 free bet bonus — at least based on the projections of the above games — but it's certainly an option if you want to raise your chances of maximizing the promo or just get more action down.
The Reds are favored (and thus implied for more scoring) here, but I actually like the Rockies side of the equation. They're taking on Frankie Montas, who has the higher fly-ball rate of the two starters while allowing a hard-hit rate about 10% above league average.
Montas has also struggled against lefties, with a 1.80 HR/9 mark, compared to just 0.80 against righties.
Which is how I arrived at McMahon. He's the likeliest Rocky to go yard thanks to a hard-hit rate north of 50% and a 13.6% barrel rate, both well above league average. I'm skipping this one myself, but if I had to bet a third hitter, it would be McMahon.
