Major League Baseball gives us a two-game appetizer to start the 2025 regular season, as the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers will square off against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo. The action gets started at 6:10 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 18, and can be seen on FOX.
For those new to betting on MLB, please be prepared for some wild swings of momentum. Baseball is a daily grind and it's not for the faint at heart. You must be protective of your bankroll at all times and try your best to not get too high or too low.
2024 was a solid season for our MLB picks, as we ended up going 210-170 for a profit of 25 units. Our main focus on strikeout props has done quite well over the last couple of years. Attacking some overnight moneylines also helped our bottom line last season.
The Dodgers cruised to an easy World Series title in 2024, and they look poised to do the same again this season. The Boys in Blue endured a ton of injuries to their starting rotation, but it didn't slow them down one bit. The additions of former Cy Young winner Blake Snell and the highly touted Roki Sasaki will make this team even more dangerous in 2025.
As you probably already know, Los Angeles's lineup will once again be loaded this season. Stars like Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts should be considered the modern-day version of "Murderers Row".
Role players like Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez also have a knack for coming up big in the clutch moments. Second baseman Tommy Edman came over last year from St. Louis and he's been a defensive piece for this squad.
The North Siders haven't looked too good the last few years, and their 2016 World Series win seems a lot longer than 9 seasons ago. That being said, I love some of the players Chicago added during the off-season.
Kyle Tucker comes over from Houston and he immediately makes this Cubs lineup more feared in the National League. The 28-year-old is one of the best left-handed hitters in baseball and he'll be licking his chops when the wind is blowing out at Wrigley. Ryan Pressly will also give Chicago's bullpen more stability in the closer role.
I bet this a few hours ago at -130 but I still like it at anything under -140. Yoshinobu Yamamoto got lit up here in Tokyo last season in his Dodgers debut. I expect him to have a lot less nerves this time around and I trust him a little bit more than Cubs starter Shota Imanaga.
Yamamoto's K-rate of 28.5% last season was one of the best in the bigs and he should mow down this Chicago lineup quite easily. Imanaga is no slouch, but I can't ignore how powerful this Dodgers lineup is. They had a WRC+ of 121 against lefties last season.
LA will be without Mookie Betts, who is battling the flu. Even still, I think the Dodgers make a statement in the first game of 2025. Let's play Big Blue in the first 5 innings. Good luck, folks. It feels so good to be back!