Opening Weekend in Plunderville
April's a learning curve in baseball; Ohtani's a must-pick as we navigate this tricky month!
Quick reminder: This email goes out every morning by 8a (eastern). If you don’t have it by then, something is going on with the service. There were some issues yesterday and that -ish simply can’t happen. I’ll jump to a new service if it happens a couple more times. If anything looks weird on your end, please email me directly at plundertheunder@gmail.com
Couple quick observations as we get rolling into our first weekend, but also in an effort to make this email as easy to read for however you wanna read it (or as little as you wanna read it), you can always scroll right down to the three main sections:
✅ The Top Picks
💰 The Recap
✅ The Premium Tier
One thought so far … April is a real pain in the ass. It simply ends up being a little more of a guessing game and learning process of figuring out the data, plus the markets to attack. For example … there’s several pitchers I would love to attack today like Senzatela, Bellozo, and Falter … but the recent trend data for the batters isn’t there yet, so it really just becomes a dart throw I’d like to avoid.
Like I’ve said and will continue to say … April will be a learning process and we will take it slow. Baseball is a marathon, and the data will be cranking come May/June and beyond.
✅ TOP PICKS ✅
Shohei Ohtani (LAD) vs. Reese Olson [GRADE: A]
I know, I know … just yesterday I’m like “any jackhole can just pick Ohtani,” but the reality is some days smart jackholes gotta pick Ohtani.
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
80-260 | .308 | .478 | 1.190 | .423 | 59.3% |
All sorts of green thingies for the greatest baseball player on earth? Yeah. Time to dive in.
TARGET MARKETS: H+R+R is likely a 2.5 line, so I’m looking elsewhere with TB (1u) and HR (0.5-0.75 depending on boosts and lines), hit parlays
Quick note on the Target Markets section: These are the markets I’m going to be line/promo shopping for when the markets open up. Sometimes I will avoid them if they’re too juicy or the odds are just garbage. Unit recommendation is a general guideline, but could change based on value.
Yordan Alvarez (HOU) vs. Griffin Canning [GRADE: A-]
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
53-209 | .254 | .366 | .876 | .206 | 45.71 |
Those numbers are not ideally where we want them, but at the same time Canning is worse against lefties and Yordan is also batting .539 off him with 2 HRs. This is one of those times where I’d love a month of 2025 trends for Yordan, but I gotta lean on BvP instead.
TARGET MARKETS: H+R+R is likely going to be too juicy so I’m looking TB (0.75) and HR (0.3u), hit parlays
💰 THE RECAP 💰
These are all of our picks from Thursday, March 27. As I’ve mentioned before, recaps will have a one day delay because I have to do work/family/life things and can’t turn around the late games fast enough.
❌ Vlad Guerrero: 0-2, 1 run, 2 BB … one hit from Vlad and our whole day was different.
✅ Ketel Marte: 2-5, 2 runs
❌ William Contreras: 0-4 … hot garbage
❌ Lourdes Gurriel: 0-5 … extra hot garbage
✅ Adley Rutschman: 3-5, 3 runs, 2 HR, 3 RBI … safe to say Adley had a helluva day
✅ Elly De La Cruz: 1-3, 2 runs
❓ Luke Raley: 1-3, 1 run … great if you did H+R+R, but not so great if you did total bases (like me)
❌ Bobby Witt: 1-5, 1 run … not enough going on here
✅ Cody Bellinger: 1-2, 1 RBI … Good for H+R+R but we wanted a dinger ya jerk!
All in all a mixed bag of a day and we were very close to a huge day.
OK friends … this is the part of the email where we move on to the PREMIUM plays. So here comes THE DREADED PAYWALL!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Hey … look at you … you survived the paywall guillotine! Thanks for being awesome!
✅ THE NEXT TIER ✅
Oneil Cruz (PIT) vs. Valente Bellozo [GRADE: B+/A-]
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
77-248 | .310 | .394 | .968 | .206 | 55.19% |
Cruz already hit a HR last night before I even typed this up, so hopefully he can keep the magic going for a second day in a row. ISO a tad down, but not terrible.
TARGET MARKETS: H+R+R/TB (0.5-0.75u), HR (0.25u)
Matt Wallner (MIN) vs. Erick Fedde [GRADE: B+]
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
20-71 | .282 | .416 | 1.004 | .296 | 58.14% |
Good power numbers here. Average a tad bit below what we like, but I think we might be some decent odds on the HRR/TB markets.
TARGET MARKETS: HRR/TB (0.5u), HR (0.25u)
Oneil Cruz (PIT) vs. Connor Gillespie
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
78-255 | .306 | .387 | .946 | .204 | 56.04% |
Solid numbers here. I want H+R+R if the juice isn’t garbage.
TARGET MARKETS: H+R+R (0.75u)
Bobby Witt (KC) vs. Gavin Williams [Grade: B+]
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
105-342 | .307 | .390 | .940 | .228 | 49.45% |
This is another case of having to rely on season numbers, which of course means guys like Witt are gonna keep showing up because he had a kickass season in 2024. That said, he’s very good at baseball.
TARGET MARKETS: TB (up to 0.5u), HR (0.25u), hit parlays
Bryan Reynolds (PIT) vs. Valente Bellozo [GRADE: B+]
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
91-282 | .323 | .399 | .953 | .199 | 47.56 |
He’s already hurting my soul since he’s 0-3 as I type this, but I’m just going to trust the numbers. Especially since Vladdy is having a great night one night after crushing my soul.
TARGET MARKETS: H+R+R/TB (0.5), HR (0.25u)
Freddie Freeman (LAD) vs. Reese Olson [GRADE: B/B+]
H/AB | AVG | wOBA | OPS | ISO | HardHit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
33-102 | .324 | .367 | .871 | .147 | 55.32% |
The man with the giant teeth makes an appearance today. One note on Olson … I do think he’s going to be better in 2025 than he was in 2024 (so yeah … I could do my “stupid April” bitching again but I won’t).
TARGET MARKETS: H+R+R (0.5)
That’s all for today … let’s go get some GREEN!