FanDuel Dinger Tuesday Picks for May 30

Tuesday’s are the best day of the week during the MLB season, thanks to FanDuel’s $5 Dinger Tuesday promotion. This article will break down the promo, show you how to attack it, and give some picks to be profitable!

This year I’ll be tracking my wagers here on eatwatchbet.com. This will include tracking units ($25) won as well as free bet conversions.

How it Works

First, make sure you OPT-IN for the promotion. Then, for every game in which you place a $25 bet on any player to hit a home run, you get a $5 free bet for each home run hit in the game. The free bets pay out regardless of whether your pick hits or not, and you can use this promotion on every single game on the Tuesday slate.

How to Win

We’ll look to pick a player from just about every game. We don’t need to worry about the -EV nature of Fanduel’s home run prices, as the value of the promotion creates an inherently +EV environment for this type of wager.

We are going to look to target games with higher totals, as there is more expected scoring. While we’ll get into more specifics outlined with the picks, in general, you want to look for the perfect storm of hot hitters, poor pitching, high totals, and good weather.

Last Week's Recap

We used $115 in free bets during the week on FanDuel’s boosts, converting the 115 out of 115 bonus bets into $200 putting our annual total at +$22.20.

Keep in mind, you’ll need to use free bets within one week, meaning that these will expire tomorrow if you haven’t used them yet. I’ll post picks at the end of the article or on twitter on a weekly article thread.

Weather Report

We have an interesting split today with variable weather across the country. On the East Coast and Midwest, we have a few stadiums where the wind will be blowing inwards (towards home plate). Most stadiums don’t present conditions that will push us off the game entirely, but we might select more “chalky” prices in those games.

On the other hand, the west coast slate might present more opportunity to go after larger prices. Dodger Stadium, Oracle Park (Giants), and the Oakland Coliseum all project to have 10+ mph winds blowing out from home plate around game time. We’ll be releasing picks early in the day so be sure to do a lineup check before game time.

San Diego Padres vs. Miami Marlins: 6:40 pm EST

As promised, we’re going with chalk for our first play of the day in Jorge Soler of the Marlins. Soler has absolutely crushed left-handed pitching in 2023 and Ryan Weathers looks to be his latest victim. Soler has hit a home run in six of his last eight games.

Soler has an OPS of 1.45 against lefties, with a .630 .ISO and a whopping 277 wRC+. Obviously, these are outlandish numbers that are subject to some regression, but we will continue to strike while the iron is hot with Soler as he’s shown no signs of slowing down. He has a 19% barrel rate and his power output is supported by his .604 xSLG and .394 xwOBA.

For the Padres, Ryan Weathers will have mostly a fastball/changeup combination against right-handed bats, which Soler should be able to handle with ease as one of the better fastball hitters in the game at the moment. To Weathers’ credit, he has done a decent job limiting hard contact as his .310 batting average against the fastball is not supported by a .210 xBAA.

That being said, Weather struggles to put away batters with just a 15% K-Rate in a limited sample size. Weathers is not blowing away batters with any power pitches and his career contact numbers are likely more reflective of his true ability. Despite Sandy Alcantara on the other side of this matchup, I’d expect Weathers to get hit pretty hard and Soler’s numbers pop off the charts against left-handers.

Kansas City Royals at St. Louis Cardinals: 7:45 pm EST

In this interleague matchup between the Royals and Cardinals, we find two pitchers who are seemingly finding ways to get it done despite giving up way too much contact. Both Zach Greinke and Miles Mikolas are sitting at around a 17.5% strikeout rate- but with sub-five walk rates putting their K-BB% at about 14% and 12.5% respectively.

They both have xBA’s around .290 and xSLG at above .465. Both players seem like blow ups are just around the corner and I’ve decided to go with the better offense in the St. Louis Cardinals up against Greinke. Greinke’s 89mph fastball isn’t blowing anyone away, but he’s been able to generate enough ground balls to keep his ERA at a pedestrian 4.50.

Greinke has struggled more against lefties as he’s given up 6 of his 10 home runs allowed to left-handed bats with 30 less plate appearances. Looking at Greinke’s recent stats it looks like he’s pitched well of late, which is why I believe we are getting some inflated prices on high quality Cardinals batters. Greinke pitched five innings with two or less runs earned in four of his five starts in May.

However, I find this to be more of a run of good luck rather than good pitching. Greinke has still given up some hard contact in the midst of this run, with three home runs allowed. For example, in his 5/19 start against the White Sox, Chicago generated 10 hard hits, which resulted in five singles and zero XBH.

Those kinds of hard-hit numbers won’t stay down forever, and I think getting +400 on Nolan Gorman is a steal here. Gorman has arguably been the Cardinals best bat all year, and certainly has been against right-handed pitching. Gorman is susceptible to striking out but should be able to make hard contact against Greinke, who is struggling to generate swings and misses at this stage of his career.

New York Yankees at Seattle Mariners: 9:40 EST

We get a good matchup here between Nestor Cortes Jr. and Logan Gilbert here. Generally, we’re looking for games with higher totals than 7, but I think there’s clear value on the board in going up against Nestor Cortes. Cortes has not been as sharp in 2023 and has especially struggled when facing the lineup a third time around.

Cortes throws a lot of pitches per at bat, as he’s unable to get away with any get-me-over fastballs throwing just 90mph. Cortes needs to execute his pitches perfectly and remain deceptive with his fastball/cutter/slider combo that all come from the same arm angle. Cortes might not be fooling batters the same as he did in 2022 as his chase rate, whiff rate, and swing rate are all down a few points in 2023.

Naturally, this is correlated to a decreased strikeout rate and an increased walk rate. Righties have done well against Cortes, relative to his overall stats, and his hard-hit rate has jumped from 34% in 2022 to 41% in 2023. Cortes has been on a downtrend as well, as he’s seen his ERA balloon to 5.30, giving up four homers in his last 3 starts.

I’ll go with Teoscar Hernandez in this one as he’s consistently hit for power against left-handed pitching, despite poor overall season numbers. Hernandez just missed a home run last night if not for a spectacular catch by Aaron Judge to pull it back from the stands. We’ll look for Hernandez to get a couple extra feet on the ball tonight and cash for us at +360.

See the full list below: