Best Bet for BetMGM $50,000 Grand Slam Jackpot on Friday, July 26: Will Witt Torch the Cubs?

Welcome to Jackpot Friday! BetMGM offers an exciting promotion every Friday where you bet one player (min $10) to hit a home run and if they hit a grand slam, you’ll win a share of $50,000 in bonus bets. Grand Slams are nearly impossible to predict, so we’ll be looking at the same factors of a player to just hit a home run.

Generally, with home runs I’m looking at a few factors: Weather conditions, opposing pitcher, and rolling barrel rate/ wRC+ for the batter. Unlike Fanduel’s Dinger Tuesday promotion, we’re less focused on games that will produce a lot of home runs and more focused on an individual matchup.

We’ll be tracking our progress on this promo on EWB and hopefully cash in on our share of $50K this season! Let's get to today's pick!

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Best Bet for Friday, July 5th: Bobby Witt Jr.(+450)

Brandon Lowe came through for us last week hitting a solo home run off Gerrit Cole in what turned out to be the only run for the Rays. Today, we’ll look to make it a streak with Bobby Witt Jr.

What is in the water in Kansas City? Bobby Witt has put up absurd numbers at home this season, batting .414 with a 224 wRC+ and 1.206 OPS! Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City looks like Coors Field to Witt, and we’ll look to capitalize on this trend this week. The Royals host the Chicago Cubs who’ll be throwing Kyle Hendricks out there tonight.

To say Hendricks has fallen off year to year would be an understatement as he’s put up an abysmal start to 2024. He’s sitting at 2-8 with a 6.69 ERA and a -1.3 WAR. Hendricks lacks a swing and miss element to his game at just a 15.8% K-rate. Mix that with a career high 7.3% BB-rate and you’re left with a 8.5% K-BB which simply cannot get it done at the major league level, even for a game built on contact.

Hendricks relies on generating soft contact, which he still does in terms of average exit velocity, but his barrel rate and hard hit % are up while his ground ball % is down. Hendricks has never been a hard thrower, so velocity isn’t really the answer to his struggles. His sinker/changeup combination has just been especially poor in 2024 and isn’t showing any signs of improving.

Hendricks struggles against batters on both sides of the plate but is slightly worse to lefties and has given up more home runs to those batters. Despite this, Bobby Witt’s numbers in Kauffman Stadium are way too impressive to fade and we’ll be rolling with him in this one. BetMGM has this priced at +450 which is higher than most other books in the market in the mid 300’s. I love the additional value here from BetMGM. We’ll be rooting for the Royals to load them up against Hendricks to give us a shot at the jackpot!