MLB Best Bets Today: Lindy's Leans, Likes & Locks (6/18)

In Summary (TL;DR)

Eric "Lindy" Lindquist runs the entire MLB board every day for OddsShopper, and his Thursday (June 18) card came off a big Wednesday into a tight nine-game slate where, in his words, every starting pitcher grades out talented. So he kept the fired bets short and priced. The headliners: the Athletics moneyline at -130 against the Angels, the play he sized heaviest, plus two longshot home run swings in the Phillies game against Mets lefty Sean Manaea, Alec Bohm at +610 and J.T. Realmuto at +650. He also flagged a small Toronto Blue Jays moneyline and a few leans he was waiting on lineups to confirm. Read each one as Lindy's bet at the number he posted, never a sure thing, and shop the live price yourself before first pitch. You can watch the full show on YouTube to hear every read in his own words.

Lindy's Card at a Glance

Game	Lindy's Play	Price	Conviction
Angels @ Athletics	Athletics moneyline	-130	Top play (sized heaviest)
Mets @ Phillies	Alec Bohm to homer	+610	Like
Mets @ Phillies	J.T. Realmuto to homer	+650	Like
Blue Jays @ Red Sox	Blue Jays moneyline	shop live (quarter unit)	Like (small)
Twins @ Rangers	Jack Leiter over 5.5 K	wants +110	Lean (not fired)
White Sox @ Yankees	Randal Grichuk to homer	+325	Lean (not fired)
Giants @ Braves	Giants moneyline	shop live	Lean (waiting on lineup)
Orioles @ Mariners	Orioles moneyline	shop live	Lean

Prices and lineups move right up to first pitch, so confirm the live number on every play before you bet.

The Method: Bet the Price, Not the Team

Before the plays, here is how Lindy decides what to bet. The slate changes every day, but the process behind it holds steady.

• Price versus probability, full stop. Lindy bets numbers the books have priced too long, and the players he happens to like rarely enter into it. He called this a hard slate to attack precisely because the pitching was so even (he pegged every one of the 18 starters between roughly a 3.20 and a 4.65 SIERA), so he leaned into the few longshot homers where his own model had a player more likely to go deep than the payout implied, and the one game side where the moneyline looked plain wrong. That discipline does the heavy lifting. Our how to find +EV bets guide breaks down the same idea for any market.
• Closing line value is the real scoreboard, but only in deep markets. When a sharply priced number you beat moves toward your side in a market with real two-way action, that is the market confirming you were early to an edge, a steadier signal than any single win or loss. The catch matters here: home run lines are thin markets, so a small move can be follower money or one book trimming a soft number rather than proof. Lindy made exactly this point on a strikeout prop he passed, warning that chasing closing line value in a thin market can get your account limited and still not mean you had the better of it. For the full breakdown, see our closing line value explainer.
• Home run props are a long game, sized small. Any individual home run bet, Lindy is blunt, is still more likely to lose than win. He keeps each swing tiny, a quarter of a unit or less, and lets a deep sample rather than any one night decide whether the prices were right. Even after a strong Wednesday, he said he was not getting high and mighty and was right back to grinding the next board.
• Batting order and matchup are the edge. His home run reads lean on projected lineup spots and platoon splits: a bat facing a pitcher who bleeds power to that side, in a park and weather that help the ball carry. On strikeout props he targets spots where the books sharpen the number a little less, and he will pass entirely when the over is only a nickel or a dime of value.
• The tools price the slate. All of this runs on OddsShopper Pro. The odds screen scans every book for the best available number, the live liquidity tool shows where sharp money is moving so you can tail it, and the in-game EV tool surfaces value once the first pitch is thrown. That is how one analyst can price a full board this fast, and it is the same workflow we walk through here so you can do it yourself.

Lindy's MLB Best Bets for Thursday, June 18

These are the plays Lindy actually fired, at the prices he posted on the show. Treat them as his reads at those numbers, and confirm the live line before you bet, because home run prices and lineups can shift in the hours before lock.

Athletics Moneyline, -130 (vs. Angels)

This was the play Lindy said he sized heaviest, and he admitted up front it might make you uncomfortable because the Athletics burned him the day before. The matchup is what he is buying. The Angels send right-hander José Soriano, who carries a strong 2.79 RA but sits in the back half of the slate by SIERA, while the Athletics counter with young lefty Gage Jump, whom Lindy is high on after a few sharp recent starts. His core argument is a platoon mismatch the line is ignoring: the Angels have hit left-handed pitching poorly this season, with a 25% strikeout rate that he called the fifth-highest in baseball and a 96 wRC+, while the Athletics against right-handed pitching sit around a 105 wRC+ with a .162 ISO he expects to climb as they play more home games. To Lindy, an Athletics side priced at only -130 in that spot is a number the book got wrong.

Alec Bohm Home Run, +610 (vs. Mets)

The Phillies host the Mets, and Lindy zeroed in on Mets left-hander Sean Manaea pitching into what he called an absolute blender at Citizens Bank Park: 89 degrees with the wind blowing out to right field. His read on Manaea is a flyball profile that plays badly in that weather, with a 185 expected ISO allowed to right-handed bats, a 20.3% strikeout rate, and a heavy share of contact in the air across his fastball and split-change. Against that, Lindy prefers the Phillies' right-handed power, and Bohm at +610 is one of the two he sliced off and bet on its own ticket.

J.T. Realmuto Home Run, +650 (vs. Mets)

The second Phillies swing in the same Manaea matchup, and the same logic carries it: a right-handed bat against a flyball lefty in hot, wind-aided conditions, priced as a true longshot at +650. Lindy bet Bohm and Realmuto as two straight home run tickets rather than pairing them in a same-game parlay, and the reason is correlation, not a knock on parlays. Both bats sit in the same hot, wind-aided, high-offense environment, so their outcomes move together, and a book prices that positive correlation into a same-game parlay. A same-game parlay of two genuinely +EV legs is still +EV, but it only beats two straight bets when the book has mispriced that correlation in your favor; here, taking each homer straight at its full +610 and +650 captures the edge cleanly. As with any homer at this price, it misses far more often than it hits, which is why the stake stays tiny.

Toronto Blue Jays Moneyline, Quarter Unit (vs. Red Sox)

A small early lean Lindy fired as a placeholder while he waited on more numbers. The Blue Jays draw Red Sox right-hander Sonny Gray at Fenway Park, where Lindy is fixated on the wind ripping out toward the Green Monster at roughly 19 mph with a 75-degree first pitch, and a pair of starting pitchers whose talent has both teams' implied run totals north of four. He likes some of Toronto's right-handed bats against Gray more than he likes the Boston side against Blue Jays starter Trey Yesavage, whom he rates highly. He kept it to a quarter unit with the plan of finding a bigger homer number once lineups posted.

A few games he studied did not produce a fired bet. The Joe Ryan and Jack Leiter strikeout overs were each only a thin nickel-to-dime of value, so he passed, though he noted Leiter would be more appealing if it pushed to +110. A San Francisco moneyline lean against Braves starter Landen Roupp stayed on hold until the Giants' lineup posted. And Randal Grichuk's home run at +325, where Grichuk mashes the left-hander he draws and should bat second, sat as a lean rather than a fire: the price had already shortened from +365, leaving the play too close to his own break-even number. Most of the board is a pass; the bets that survive are the ones where the number is clearly on his side.

A Worked Example: Why -130 on the Athletics Is a Bet

Lindy's Athletics play is a clean way to see how "price versus probability" actually works, and you can run the same math on any side. A -130 favorite implies a win probability of 130 / (130 + 100), or about 56.5%. In other words, the book is treating the Athletics as a coin flip tilted only slightly in their favor.

The platoon edge, in his read, should price them higher than that. If his case on the Angels' weakness against left-handed pitching holds, and he puts the Athletics' true chance to win closer to, say, 60%, then the gap between his number and the book's is the entire edge. Even a few points of probability on the right side of a moneyline is worth betting when you find it.

Put real dollars on it: risk 1.3 units to win 1 at -130. If his 60% read is right, the expected value is (0.60 × 1) minus (0.40 × 1.3), which comes out to about +0.08 units on a 1.3-unit risk, roughly a 6% edge on the money you put at stake. It still loses plenty, which is why a single result, like Wednesday burning him, does not change the call. Spot the mispricing, take the best available price, and let the season decide. When you run a slate yourself, the odds screen scans every book for that best number in one place, and OS Pro's Portfolio EV grades each price against the no-vig true odds, so you only stake the spots that clear true value.

Betting Lindy's Card the Smart Way

Following a sharp only works if you bet like one. A few rules that apply to every play above:

1. Shop for the number. Lindy's edge is often the price itself. A homer prop at +610 on one book might be +560 on another, and that difference is the value you are capturing. Line them up on the OddsShopper MLB odds screen and take the best number on the board.
2. Size longshots like longshots. A quarter unit on a +650 home run is not the same wager as a moneyline. These lose far more often than they hit, and Lindy keeps them tiny on purpose. Stake to your bankroll.
3. Check the lineup before first pitch. Home run props live and die on the batting order and pinch-hit risk. A number that looked great the night before can evaporate when the card posts, so confirm the lineup, which is exactly why Lindy left several plays as leans until he saw it.
4. Judge it across a season. Even a well-priced card loses plenty of nights. What grades a bet is the price you locked in, and that takes a full season's sample to show up.

Bet with the tools Lindy uses. New to OddsShopper? It scans every major sportsbook and flags the bets priced in your favor, the exact work Lindy does by hand above, and it is the same OddsShopper Pro suite he builds every card on. Try it free for 7 days, then code BABYLINDY50 takes 50% off your first week or month: Start your free trial.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Lindy? Eric "Lindy" Lindquist is OddsShopper's MLB analyst. His daily show, Lindy's Leans, Likes & Locks, walks the full board game by game with the plays he is making and the price and reasoning behind each one. He also hosts a longer MLB research show daily.

What are Lindy's best bets for today (6/18)? His fired plays were the Athletics moneyline at -130 against the Angels, the one he sized heaviest, plus Alec Bohm to homer (+610) and J.T. Realmuto to homer (+650) against Mets lefty Sean Manaea, and a quarter-unit Toronto Blue Jays moneyline. Prices and lineups move, so confirm the live number before you bet.

Why so many home run props and so few sides? Home run props are smaller markets where Lindy can get ahead of the book on lineup spots and platoon splits, and a longshot price can carry real value. He sizes them tiny because they miss far more than they hit, and he leans on a large sample rather than any one night.

Why did Lindy pass on the strikeout props? He had Joe Ryan and Jack Leiter overs at only a thin nickel-to-dime of value, not enough to fire on an overnight number. He noted Leiter would become a real play closer to +110, which is the discipline of betting the price rather than the matchup.

Where can I follow Lindy's full daily card? Lindy posts his complete card on Tails, where you can follow his plays every day. See his Tails page for the full slate, and watch the Thursday show on YouTube.

The Bottom Line

Thursday is a tight card off a big Wednesday, built on one idea: Lindy only fires when the posted number is longer than the true odds. He leaned heaviest on the Athletics moneyline at -130, a platoon mismatch he thinks the book underpriced, added two longshot Phillies home runs against Sean Manaea's flyball profile in hot, wind-aided Citizens Bank Park, and kept a small Blue Jays moneyline while he waited on lineups. Shop your number, keep the longshots small, watch the lineups, and grade the card across a full season's sample.

Follow Lindy's full MLB card, every day. Get his complete slate of plays on his Tails page. And to bet with the same tools he uses, start a free OddsShopper Pro trial and take 50% off your first week or month with BABYLINDY50: Get OddsShopper Pro.

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