3 MLB Best-of-the-Board Props to Back on August 12: Soriano, Waldschmidt, and a Cole Young Longshot

Wednesday’s MLB slate is stacked, but three prop bets stand out above the noise for very different reasons. One is a red-hot ace riding a strikeout-heavy season into a soft matchup. One is a bat that has been nearly impossible to keep off the basepaths for two weeks straight. And one is a total lottery ticket that actually has real juice behind it. Mix and match, tail them all, or just enjoy the chaos — these are our three favorite plays on the board tonight.

Here’s why each one deserves a spot on your slip.

José Soriano Has Turned Into a Strikeout Machine

José Soriano has quietly built one of the better under-the-radar seasons among American League starters, sitting at 9-6 with a 3.24 ERA and 130 strikeouts across 23 starts and 127.2 innings. That strikeout total ranks among the AL’s best, and Soriano has been especially sharp lately, allowing just one earned run over his last 4.2 innings pitched in his most recent turn.

Tonight he gets a Red Sox lineup at 7:07 p.m. ET that has had its swing-and-miss stretches against power arms who work off a heavy fastball-slider mix like Soriano’s. Betting the over on 1.5 earned runs at -152 isn’t about doubting his stuff — it’s about accepting that even good pitchers give up a run or two over a full outing more often than not. Soriano has posted 3+ earned runs in a healthy chunk of his starts this year, and this line is built to cash more often than the short odds suggest.

For bettors who like shopping lines before locking anything in, it’s always worth checking an odds converter to see exactly how -152 translates to implied probability before deciding how much to put behind it.

Ryan Waldschmidt Can’t Stop Getting Hits

Ryan Waldschmidt has been one of the quiet stories of the Diamondbacks’ lineup over the past two weeks, and the numbers back up why the market has him at -143 to get a hit tonight. Over his last six games, Waldschmidt is 7-for-20 (.350), and if you stretch the window to his last 11 games, he’s an absurd 16-for-34 (.471) with six multi-hit efforts in that span. He’s currently hitting .285 to .290 on the season with an OPS pushing .735-.748, numbers that undersell just how locked-in his bat has looked lately.

He’s also hit safely in four straight games and is coming off a two-hit performance in his last start. Facing a Rockies pitching staff that has struggled to miss bats all year, Waldschmidt’s contact skills and current form make -143 look like fair value rather than an overpay. When a hitter is running a .471 average over 11 games, betting against him getting even a single hit is the tougher side of this number.

Cole Young’s Home Run Prop Is the Fun Money Play

This is the one that turns a normal Tuesday slip into something worth screenshotting. Cole Young, Seattle’s No. 2 hitter and everyday second baseman, sits at +560 on FanDuel to hit a home run tonight against the Yankees at 7:05 p.m. ET. Young has already gone deep 14 times this season with a .264 average and .732 OPS, showing legitimate over-the-fence pop for a middle infielder who isn’t typically thought of as a power bat.

Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right field has turned plenty of pull-side contact into souvenirs all season, and Young has shown he can get the ball in the air when he connects. At +560, this isn’t a bet you need to feel great about hitting — it’s a bet you make because the payout dwarfs the risk, and Young has more than enough juice in his swing to make it a live look. Anyone building a broader parlay around this game should check the current MLB odds page before locking in additional legs alongside this one.

Lock These In

Three completely different bets, three completely different reasons to like them. One leans on a pitcher who’s been quietly dominant, one rides a hitter who’s been nearly unstoppable for two weeks, and one is a calculated swing at a big number. Here’s the full board:

• José Soriano OVER 1.5 Earned Runs (-152)
• Ryan Waldschmidt to Get a Hit (-143)
• Cole Young OVER 0.5 Home Runs (+560, FanDuel)

Whether you’re betting these straight, parlaying them together, or just picking your favorite, tonight’s slate has something for every kind of bettor.