Opening Day 2025: Early Season Trends and Bets
Spring Training camps have wrapped up, and the regular season is upon us. It's time for opening day 2025!
Before we dive into the daily bets, I want to share some information regarding early-season trends that I'll be watching for the first month or two of the year. These are some of the main areas I've noticed a sizeable edge over the books throughout the past three seasons and will be looking to target again in 2025.
Due mainly to the vast amount of data that can be captured in the sport of baseball, and the refined accuracy of statistical projection models that compute player and team performance heading into a year, the betting markets tend to be quite sharp since pro bettors and the books largely use samples of the same information to calculate lines and edges respectively.
However, early in the season, there are a few remaining variables that have yet to be defined, such as where edges can be found in the prop markets based on player readiness and spring training scouting reports.
Starting Pitching
Utilization is a key metric when projecting any game throughout the season; however, as pitchers are still working up to their full strength at the beginning of the year, there is a varying degree of readiness in pitchers around the league. Although this is hard to calculate, much can be speculated about readiness and ultimately effectiveness based on spring training starts.
Throughout the last few seasons, I've generated a net positive ROI when betting for or against starting pitchers in the Over/Under Outs and Over/Under K's market in March and April.
The primary ROI has come from fading pitchers who have not worked up to full strength in spring and therefore may not be used to their full projected potential based on the preseason projection systems.
I use a proprietary projection for my starting pitcher outing throughout the season that inherently scales up over time to reflect what's happening on the field.
Run Environments
Each month there is an assigned value for run scoring based on season long league average. This is simply to reflect the month in which a game is played in and the expected runs (+/- the percent difference).
While I have a benchmark rate to moderate run environments to start the season, I will look to adjust quickly based on results, as we've seen changes in baseball's skew preseason data rates.
Something to keep an eye on, but I will look to use the edges I see in my model based on these rates here to start the year.
Matchups I'm Targeting for Opening Day
- Brewers @ Yankees
- Phillies @ Nationals
- Red Sox @ Rangers
- Mets @ Astros
- Twins @ Cardinals
- Athletics @ Mariners
Brewers vs Yankees
Freddy Peralta vs Carlos Rodon
Opening day baseball in the northeast part of the country means volatile weather that is far different than what players became accustomed to in spring training. The forecast is calling for upper-40-degree temperatures at Yankee Stadium, which is likely to be a rude awakening to most of these players.
Apart from the weather, there's reason to believe this interleague matchup will be a low-scoring affair, with each team modeling as above-average defensive units. Each team will trot out their top pitcher and turn to a fully healthy bullpen at the first sign of fatigue, where each pen is rated in the top 10 in baseball to start the year.
I've also been leading the charge on the idea that New York will take a sizeable step back offensively with the loss of Juan Soto. His presence in the order propped up everyone around him, especially Aaron Judge, whom teams couldn't help but pitch to in high-leverage situations. They will attempt to fill the Soto void with Cody Bellinger and an aging Paul Goldschmidt, both of whom I have concerns about. This isn't your typical Bronx Bomber squad.
My model projects this game at 7.43 runs, lending value to the listed total at Under 8.
Phillies vs Nationals
Zack Wheeler vs Mackenzie Gore
As mentioned in the intro of this blog, I want to target early-season pitcher prop unders for guys who are not fully worked up to strength at the start of the season. In this matchup, I'm targeting both starting pitchers' K prop unders based on their expected workload.
Along with taking a position on each of these starters' K props, my model suggests there's correlated value in taking a position on the game total going over 7 runs. With each starter expected to pitch around 5 innings, that means more work for the bullpens, which are not projected to be as effective per inning as the respective starter.
This is especially the case for the Nationals' bullpen, which projects to be one of the worst in baseball. Given this expected game script and the low total, I'm investing in the following correlated bets:
Zack Wheeler Under 6.5 K's, Mackenzie Gore Under 5.5 K's, and Over 7 Runs.
Red Sox vs Rangers
Garret Crochet vs Nathan Eovaldi
Garret Crochet
Crochet's baseball savant page is off the charts. He was dominant in nearly every aspect a pitcher can be in 2024, and that was with a White Sox team that broke the record for most losses in baseball history. Now on a contending team, there's no telling what new heights he could reach as he continues to solidify himself as one of the top pitchers in baseball.
In 5 spring training starts, it's clear Crochet has picked up right where he left off in 2024, pitching to the tune of a 0.57 ERA and a 17.23 K/9 rate–dominance is an understatement. Given his performance level coming into opening day, it's hard not to want to back him and the upstart Red Sox on the road on opening day.
The model agrees, as I see value in backing Crochet and Boston in both the first 5 innings and full game lines at the time of writing.
Picks: Red Sox F5 -120, Red Sox Full Game -110
Mets vs Astros
Clay Holmes vs Framber Valdez
Both teams should struggle to hit homers early as Framber Valdez (62.5% career ground-ball rate, 0.73 HR/9) and Clay Holmes (66.3% career GB%, 0.53 HR/9) both keep the ball on the ground.
Holmes could immediately be one of the more effective starting pitchers in the National League, adding a kick-change to his arsenal that should help to neutralize left-handed hitters (career 2.9 xFIP vs. righties, 4.3 vs. lefties). He struck out 23 of the 72 hitters he's faced this spring, good for a 32% strikeout rate.
While that's a limited sample, strikeout rate does stabilize much more quickly than other datapoints, and if Holmes maintains that rate through April, he's going to be an incredibly valuable signing by David Stearns.
After Holmes ramped up to 88 pitches in his final spring outing, I'm ready to jump the market and make some money on his early-season, potentially league-storming success.
Picks: Full game total Under 8 Runs (-110), Clay Holmes Over 4.5 K's (+125)
Twins vs Cardinals
Pablo Lopez vs Sonny Gray
Sonny Gray
Going into last season, you probably looked at this pitching matchup and calculated Pablo Lopez as the superior arm. However, the season results proved to be a different story as Gray's Pitching+ increased by five points (from 100 to 105) as his K-BB% increased to a career best 24.4% (+7.4% over 2023) while Lopez saw his pitch modeling metrics dip from 100 Stuff+ and 113 Pitching+ to 94 and 107, respectively.
Coming into this matchup, I believe there is plenty of negative public sentiment surrounding the Cardinals, who are not expected to compete for a playoff spot this season, compared to the Twins, who are projected to win the AL Central in many popular models. This is lending value to Gray and his Cardinals hitters on opening day.
Pick: Cardinals -105
Athletics vs Mariners
Luis Severino vs Logan Gilbert
Last season, Luis Severino revamped his career with the Mets by pitching to contact more often, incorporating a sinker nearly 25% of the time, leading to a 46% ground-ball rate. However, the increased sinker usage led to a reduced strikeout rate (21.2%) — roughly 6-8% below his peak seasons with the Yankees, which is worth about 50 fewer strikeouts over a full season of starts.
After signing a multi-year deal and maxing out at 79 pitches in spring, the A's aren't likely going to push Severino past 90 pitches on Thursday.
If you read my season awards blog, you know I bet on Logan Gilbert to win the AL Cy Young after he made three adjustments since last season:
- Changing his arm slot and delivery, leading to an uptick in fastball velocity (+0.9 mph);
- Modifying his pitch mix, decreasing his four-seam fastball usage down near 30% — less than half the usage rate from his rookie year (60.9%);
- Doubling the usage of his newfound sweeper from 7.6% in the first half to 16.4% in the second half.
Gilbert led the AL in K-BB% (27.7%) over the second half of last season and has worked on two new offerings this spring.
My model has the Mariners at a -192 favorite in the first half of this game, largely due to Gilbert's projection; so I'm comfortable betting Seattle's F5 moneyline at -170.
Picks: Luis Severino Under 5.5 K's (-125), Seattle F5 -170.