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 23.
MLB Predictions, Picks for Saturday, May 23
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- Guardians +172, 0.5u (FD) (Bet to +160)
- White Sox +106, 0.5u (FD) (Bet to even)
- White Sox over 3.5 TT -135, 0.68u (Bet 365) (Bet to -150)
- Nationals +165, 1u (Bet 365) (Bet to +147)
- Marlins (F5) -108, 0.54u (FD) (Bet to -115)
- Rangers -132, 0.66u (FD) (Bet to -138)
QS
Guardians @ Phillies Picks
Zack Wheeler has returned from a major injury his same old stellar self through five starts (3.20 SIERA/3.40 xERA/19.2 K-BB%) and was even up to 96.3 mph in his last starts (96.1 mph avg last season).
Meanwhile, Slade Cecconi has also been his normal not so stellar self (4.45 SIERA/4.97 xERA/10 K-BB%).
There’s no question who the far superior starting pitcher is here. I’m questioning the other elements of this game though.
While both offenses maintain a sub-95 wRC+ vs RHP this season, the projected Philly lineup does have a 114 wRC+ against them since last season and has picked it up recently since some sort of event happened in their organization. I can’t remember.
Anyway, the projected nine own a 110 wRC+ over the last 30 days in comparison to Cleveland’s 101 wRC+ both over the last 30 days and against RHP since last season.
That’s about the size of the edge I’m giving the Philadelphia offense too. Subtle and minor. Travis Bazzana (133 wRC+ L30 days) have both significantly improved this offense and turned the Guardians into a formidable lineup. (Though Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan have not been up to par.)
Still, those are two home team edges to start.
Ironically, both DeLauter (-1 Fielding Run Value) and Bazzana (-2) have been defensive deficits, but are also the only negative FRVs in the Cleveland lineup, which projects a sizeable 18 FRV edge over it’s opponent on Saturday.
Lastly, bullpens have been comparable with similar indicators (FIP/xFIP/SIERA) over the last month. In fact, the Phillies boast the fifth best bullpen over the last 30 days by those metrics, while the Guardians are only two spots behind, separated by less than one-tenth of a run.
Neither pen has been worked hard this week and both should have their full compliment of arms available.
When I see a large line, as we have here (CLE +172 full game, +194 F5), I assume that the heavy favorite has at least one massive edge, which the Phillies do here in Zack Wheeler.
However, when they don’t pull away in any other area and the dog also has a significant edge in one of the other aspects (offense, defense, bullpen and to a lesser extent base running), I tend to consider the upset potential.
While I’m very happy to see Wheeler back and pitching tremendously, I don’t expect a pitcher coming back from such an injury and a week away from his 36th birthday to continue pitching the best baseball of his career. In fact, projections are more in the mid-to-lower threes rather than barely three level that his estimators indicate so far (3.03 xFIP/2.37 FIP).
I’m still giving Wheeler a full run edge here, but as the Million Dollar Man used to say, “Everyody’s got a price”, and I believe the Guardians have hit theirs here.
There's also rain in the forecast for Philadelphia on Saturday. Any sort of disruption to the starting pitchers or added variance generally tends to favor the underdog.
It’s not a comfortable bet by any means and you go into it knowing you'll lose more often than you'll win. I have the F5 and full game lines rated at nearly the same edge, Which both seem just a bit too strong. I wouldn’t play F5 past +185 or full game past +160.
Pick: Guardians +172, 0.5u (FD) (Bet to +160)
White Sox @ Giants Picks
We can get the starting pitching out of the way fairly quickly here. Adrian Houser’s 4.12 Bot ERA (102 Pitching+) is the only estimator either of these pitchers have below four and a half.
I have both above five overall with Houser holding less than a quarter of a run advantage. Pretty meaningless. I don’t expect either to escape unscathed.
The rest of this matchup is where the market has me a bit confused.
We know the Giants have been one of the worst offenses in the league (87 wRC+ Home/90 wRC+ v RHP). Their projected and recent lineup vs RHP has a 111 wRC+ against RHP since last season, but just a 97 wRC+ over the last 30 days overall, including four of the bottom five below 70.
Comparatively, the White Sox are at least an average offense on the road (102), against RHP (100), over the last 30 days (proj. LU 123) and against RHIP since last year (proj. LU 112).
Six of nine projected White Sox exceed a 120 wRC+ over the last month with only Jarred Kelenic below 96.
Neither team is a good base running team, but defense also belongs to the White Sox (12 projected FRV edge).
Finally, the Giants also have one of the worst bullpens in the league. Despite their 3.57 ERA over the last 30 days, they have a 4.20 FIP, 5.22 xFIP and 5.16 SIERA. They’re being propped up by a .267 BABIP (defense has allowed .288 this year) and 4.0 HR/FB.
The White Sox haven’t lived up to their 3.49 bullpen ERA over the last month either, but they’ve been more middle of the pack (4.28 FIP/4.09 xFIP/3.71 SIERA).
The White Sox have earned more respect than they’re receiving this year. In this case, even with Erick Fedde on the mound in San Francisco.
And if that scares you, I’m splitting a unit between the White Sox moneyline and team total, which I’ll officially post (o3.5 -135 Bet 365) when it’s available to track.
Pick: White Sox +106, 0.5u (FD) (Bet to even), White Sox over 3.5 TT -135, 0.68u (Bet 365) (Bet to -150)
Nationals @ Braves Picks
On Friday night, the Nationals took a 4-2 lead in the 10th inning as +180 dogs and lost in 12 innings.
The Nationals used six relievers and the Braves used five. Orland Ribalta (4.93 FIP through Thursday) has pitched back to back days for Washington and is probably not available. They also got Clayton Beeter, part of their closer committee, back from the IL this week.
For the Braves, Didier Fuentes threw 27 pitches, while both Robert Suarez and Dylan Lee hit the 20 pitch mark in their second of back to back days. Raisel Iglesias threw just 10 and should be good to go again.
However, the potential absence of two of their top three relievers could close the gap on more than a half run edge for the Atlanta bullpen that’s been middle of the league recently (4.09 FIP/3.75 xFIP/3.37 SIERA L30 days), compared to 24th ranked Washington unit (4.20 FIP/4.55 xFIP/4.20 SIERA).
Slightly more importantly, Jake Irvin (4.00 SIERA/5.58 xERA) and Grant Holmes (4.72 SIERA/4.20 xERA) could be asked to carry more of the load.
I have these pitchers fairly evenly around four and a half overall and while Atlanta has the better team defense, the projected lineups are separated by only four FRV. Ha-Seong Kim has already racked up -4 FRV.
The Braves have been an offensive juggernaut this year (113 wRC+ Home/121 vs RHP), but are missing one of their top pieces in Drake Baldwin, while the Nationals have been more than competent themselves (102 wRC+ Road/102 vs RHP).
The projected Washington lineup actually has an eight point better wRC+ over the last 30 days and only a six point deficit against RHP since last season.
The Braves get the edge here, as they do defensively and in the bullpen, but none of those edges may be very large. The Nationals also project for a minor four Base Running Runs advantage.
Yet, because the Braves are the Braves and the National the Nationals, we’re looking at a nice price on the underdog (+165).
Lastly, I also want to note that Irvin averaged 94.6 mph on his fastball last time out, a game average he has not seen since 2024. Maybe he'll have a little extra for the Braves as well.
Pick: Nationals +165, 1u (Bet 365) (Bet to +147)
Mets @ Marlins Picks
Max Meyer has taken a significant step forward this year. His K-BB% has increased from 10.9% to 16.2% to 18.2% each of the last three years with swinging strike rate improvements from 10.3% to 11.9% to 14.3%.
While suffering a 10 point drop in his ground ball rate, Meyer has already nearly doubled his popups from last year (four to seven) and reduced his hard hit rate from 48% to 42%.
The barrels are still a concern and the drop from a 19.8 HR/FB to 7.4% might not be entirely sustainable, but his BABIP (.328 to .266) and strand rate (71.2% to 78.4%) have straightened themselves out, maybe not to the point where they are entirely sustainable either, but the peripherals are on an upward trend.
His 3.51 xFIP is exactly the same as last season and his only indicator not to improve, but with a 4.73 ERA last year, the Marlins will certainly take that.
In fact, that’s right around where I have Meyer rated overall, matching his pitch modeling (3.49 Bot ERA, 107 Pitching+). While the former has improved from 3.70, the latter remains at it’s 2025 mark (also 107), suggesting that this type of performance was in him all along, nothing that anyone who followed him as a prospect is surprised to see.
Meanwhile, I wouldn’t call Freddy Peralta a disappointment, but his 3.31 ERA is hiding more pedestrian peripherals.
Last year’s 19.1 K-BB% is down to 12.4%, easily a career worst with his velocity (93.9 mph) down a mph from last season (94.8).
The pitch modeling has regressed from a 3.94 Bot ERA and 106 Pitching+ to a more league average 4.26 and 100.
By just about every metric other than ERA, Peralta has been no better than a league average pitcher.
Now, his .253 BABIP is actually five points higher than last year and only 11 points below his career .264 mark, but Freddy has a different and lesser defense behind him this season (though the Brewers have also been below average defensively this year too with some injuries).
There’s no reason Peralta shouldn’t regress a bit more towards the team BABIP of .291 allowed.
The point is, whether it’s by ERA or underlying metrics, Max Meyer has been a half run better than Freddy Peralta this year. Maybe (and hopefully for Mets fans) it won’t end that way, but I don’t think it will be due to a Meyer flop if he remains healthy.
With some of the younger players for both teams coming around this season, I have both offenses rated as average.
As mentioned, the Mets don’t have a good defense, but their projected lineups' -1 FRV is a run ahead of Miami.
The Mets have far superior pen estimators over the last 30 days, which has me finding much more value in an F5 line (-108) that’s the same as the full game number. It’s a small edge that may not even be there in the morning, but it’s present now.
Pick: Marlins -108, 0.54u (FD) (Bet to -115)
Rangers @ Angels Picks
Nathan Eovaldi squashed any injury concerns after missing a start when he returned to throw seven shutout innings, striking out eight in Houston. He struck out just as many in eight innings of one run ball in the Bronx in his previous start.
In fact, Eovaldi also threw seven shutout innings twice more in the four starts preceding that. Those were also against the Yankees and in Sacramento.
That’s one hell of a run and while Eovaldi’s 3.62 ERA this season is two runs higher than last year and in line with his peripherals, that’s still a very good pitcher.
If you count only his last three starts, it’s a 25 K-BB%, so there’s certainly room to reach last year’s career best 21.8% again (22.6% in the pandemic season).
Eovaldi is even throwing a half mph harder than last year (94.6) and the reason I suggest last year’s heights are still within reach is because his swinging strike rate has improved from 12.8% to 15.2% (also a career best by 2.2 points) and his pitch modeling has improved (3.90 Bot ERA from 4.01 and 107 Pitching+ from 105).
It’s safe to say that time has not yet caught up to the 36 year-old A2 to Jacob DeGrom’s A1 on the Texas staff.
On the other side, Walbert Urena’s 2.70 ERA isn’t much lower than his 2.96 xERA through 33.1 innings (six starts, two relief appearances), but only two pitchers with as many innings have a lower hard hit rate than his 29.5% and nobody with at least 200 batted ball events last year was below 31%.
In other words, I don’t think it’s sustainable and I expect him to regress closer to some of his contact neutral estimators closer to four and a half with his 13.1 BB%.
Maybe not all the way, but I don’t expect an above average pitcher. In fact, the projections on his Fangraphs page all exceed four and a half.
The pitch modeling is more conflicting. Pitching Bot sees a potential league average arm (4.13 Bot ERA), but Pitching+ (110) thinks he may have something. Mostly in the changeup he throws 35.6% of the tiem (133), which also receives an elite 67 PB grade, but it's very hard to be a one trick pitcher in this league. There are very few.
Regardless, Eovaldi is the substantially better pitcher and I also give the Rangers (109 wRC+ Road/104 v RHP) a significant offensive edge over the Angels (68 wRC+ Home/87 vs RHP).
Even without Corey Seager, the projected Texas lineup has a 28 point higher wRC+ than the Los Angeles projected starters over the last month.
The Rangers may not be special defensively (proj. -3 FRV) or in the bullpen (3.51 FIP/4.30 xFIP/4.08 SIERA), but are still miles ahead of the Angels (-15 FRV, 5.46 FIP/4.74 xFIP/4.30 SIERA).
It’s a bit perplexing why one of the better proven pitchers in the league is undervalued here (-132 FD), though not by too much, as we end this without only favorite of the day.
Pick: Rangers -132, 0.66u (FD) (Bet to -138)
Matt Trollo's MLB Picks and Predictions for Saturday, May 23
Follow me in the Action Network App for additional bet notifications.
- Guardians +172, 0.5u (FD) (Bet to +160)
- White Sox +106, 0.5u (FD) (Bet to even)
- White Sox over 3.5 TT -135, 0.68u (Bet 365) (Bet to -150)
- Nationals +165, 1u (Bet 365) (Bet to +147)
- Marlins (F5) -108, 0.54u (FD) (Bet to -115)
- Rangers -132, 0.66u (FD) (Bet to -138)
