Live With Lindy MLB Picks (8/4): The Post-Deadline Home Run Card
The day after a trade deadline is the strangest board of the MLB season, and Tuesday's Live With Lindy MLB picks show treated it that way. Half the league changed uniforms on Monday: Freddy Peralta (TB) is suddenly a Ray pitching at Coors Field, Tarik Skubal (LAD) is a Dodger facing the Cubs at Wrigley, and Grayson Rodriguez (LAA) gets an immediate revenge start in Baltimore. Books have to re-price all of it at once, and Eric Lindquist's read on the 15-game slate was simple: the mispricings were sitting in the home run market, where hitters with elite launch profiles were posted at long numbers in the best hitting environments of the day. The result was the most home-run-heavy card the show has fired in weeks, plus one bet that looks backwards until you see the math behind it.
Freddy Peralta — one of the featured players on today's slate.
The Quick Answer
Tuesday's card is built on launch: seven home run plays led by Kyle Stowers (MIA) against Grant Holmes (ATL), backed by a Freddy Peralta (TB) under 5.5 strikeouts at Coors, a Jesús Luzardo (PHI) strikeout over at his highest conviction since May, and a Boston Red Sox money line. The full fired card, the leans that stayed leans, and where the de-vigged +EV board found its biggest edges are all below.
In Summary
- The Headliner: Kyle Stowers (MIA) to homer at Atlanta, plus a small two-homer add, because Grant Holmes (ATL) has lost his strikeout stuff and Stowers punishes exactly the pitches Holmes throws.
- The Rest Of The Home Run Card: Kody Clemens (MIN) and Salvador Perez (KC) in the same Kauffman Stadium game, Mickey Moniak (COL) against Peralta at Coors, Miguel Vargas (CWS) at Fenway, and Kyle Tucker (LAD) and Jonah Heim (ATH) fired individually and together as a parlay.
- The Counterintuitive One: Freddy Peralta (TB) under 5.5 strikeouts in Colorado. A later board capture shows it takeable at -125 (DraftKings) against a -146 fair price, a +6.8% edge.
- The Conviction Play: Jesús Luzardo (PHI) over on strikeouts against a Washington lineup missing James Wood (WSH), his highest-conviction tag since May.
- Props And Sides: Boston Red Sox money line, Lawrence Butler (ATH) over 1.5 hits + runs + RBI after the leadoff news broke, Jesús Sánchez (TOR) over 1.5 H+R+RBI in Houston, and Corbin Carroll (ARI) over 1.5 total bases.
- Leans Stayed Leans: Zach Neto (LAA), Mike Trout (LAA), Jackson Holliday (BAL) and Lars Nootbaar (ARI) all got long looks without making the closing recap of official plays.
Watch The Video
The full two-hour research session is below: the launch-profile screens behind each homer, the live lineup reactions, and the Liquidity Tool check near the end. This recap pulls out the fired plays and the read on each.
Tuesday's Fired Card At A Glance
These are the official plays, not the leans. On this show a lean is a number he likes but has not bet; an official play is money down. Prices move fast on a post-deadline board, so confirm the current number on the OddsShopper MLB odds screen before you follow anything.
| Play | Game / Spot | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Kyle Stowers (MIA) HR, Plus A Small 2-HR Add | at Atlanta vs. Grant Holmes | Holmes' strikeout stuff has cratered; Stowers lofts every pitch type Holmes throws |
| Kody Clemens (MIN) HR | at Kansas City vs. Randy Dobnak | Trusting Clemens' lift over Dobnak's ground-ball rate holding for another start |
| Salvador Perez (KC) HR | vs. Joe Ryan (MIN) | Kauffman playing hot, and a lofted-ball bat priced like it never happens |
| Mickey Moniak (COL) HR (Quarter Unit) | vs. Freddy Peralta at Coors | Peralta throws his fastball over half the time; Moniak's best launch comes against fastballs |
| Miguel Vargas (CWS) HR | at Boston vs. Patrick Sandoval | Elite batted-ball profile vs. lefties, humid Fenway, changeup-heavy starter |
| Kyle Tucker (LAD) HR | at Wrigley vs. Javier Assad | Wind out, a fly-ball starter whose improved run looks like a mirage, and a low-strikeout bat that lofts |
| Jonah Heim (ATH) HR | at Cincinnati vs. Brady Singer | Singer leads the slate's starters in homer-per-fly-ball rate in a small park; also parlayed with Tucker |
| Freddy Peralta (TB) Under 5.5 Strikeouts | at Colorado | Faded whiff stuff, two heavy pitch counts in a row, and Coors suppressing swing-and-miss |
| Jesús Luzardo (PHI) Strikeout Over | vs. Washington | His highest-conviction play since May; a thinned-out Nationals lineup lets him pitch deep |
| Boston Red Sox ML | vs. Chicago White Sox | The hottest team in baseball against a Davis Martin (CWS) regression spot |
| Lawrence Butler (ATH) Over 1.5 H+R+RBI | at Cincinnati vs. Singer | Sniped the moment Butler was posted leading off |
| Jesús Sánchez (TOR) Over 1.5 H+R+RBI (Quarter) | at Houston vs. Hayden Wesneski | An all-righty Houston rotation and a lineup slot insulated by right-handed bats |
| Corbin Carroll (ARI) Over 1.5 Total Bases | vs. Randy Vásquez (SD) | Vásquez's ground-ball rate has collapsed while his home-run rate spikes; Chase Field rewards doubles and triples |
Two smaller pieces round it out: a quarter-unit over on Milwaukee rookie starter Logan Henderson (MIL) against Pittsburgh, fired on stream with the exact stat left unspecified on air, and a Masataka Yoshida (BOS) 1.5 hits + runs + RBI square on the pick'em side, where the risk is a late pinch-hit rather than the matchup. The single most interesting row on the card, though, is the one that looks like a typo: a strikeout under on a former All-Star arm. We will get to why it might be the sharpest bet on the page.
The Headliner: Stowers And The Launch Read
The whole card runs on one idea the show hammers constantly: hard contact alone does not hit home runs, launch does. Plenty of hitters post big exit velocities on the ground. The bats worth betting are the ones that put their hardest contact in the air, and books that price homer props mostly off hard-hit rate and name value keep hanging long numbers on exactly those hitters.
Kyle Stowers (MIA) is the cleanest version of the setup. Grant Holmes (ATL) has been giving up loud contact, with an expected wOBA allowed around .380 over his recent stretch, and his strikeout stuff has gone missing; batters have mostly been putting him in play rather than striking out. That matters because Stowers' one weakness is the strikeout, and a starter who cannot get it neutralizes the flaw. Then comes the pitch-mix fit: Holmes lives on a slider and fastball-cutter mix, and the slider is normally the pitch that kills launch for the rest of Miami's bats. Stowers is the exception. His average launch against sliders sits north of 23 degrees with plus power behind it, roughly 93 mph off the bat, and he lofts the fastball and cutter too. The last time the show targeted him in a comparable spot, against Andrew Painter, he hit two home runs. Humid Atlanta air and no meaningful wind resistance finish the case, so the card took the straight homer and a small two-homer sweetener.
Kauffman, Great American And The Rest Of The Homer Card
The same launch filter, run across the day's friendliest parks, produced the rest. In Kansas City it found both sides of one game. Kody Clemens (MIN) faces Randy Dobnak (KC), a ground-ball pitcher the show flatly does not trust to keep getting ground balls, with a soft bullpen behind him; the bet is that Clemens' loft beats Dobnak's worm-killing for one swing. Across the field, Salvador Perez (KC) draws Joe Ryan (MIN), and the case is less about Ryan, who still misses bats, than about Kauffman playing like a launching pad in August heat and Perez being priced as if that context did not exist.
At Coors, Mickey Moniak (COL) gets Freddy Peralta (TB), a starter who leans on his fastball over half the time. Moniak's best swing is a 30-degree launch against exactly that pitch, and the projected lineup slot had him priced lower than where he has actually been hitting. At Fenway, Miguel Vargas (CWS) faces changeup-heavy lefty Patrick Sandoval (BOS) with humidity in the air and one of the best batted-ball profiles against left-handed pitching on the slate. And in the Wrigley game, with the wind blowing out, Kyle Tucker (LAD) gets Javier Assad (CHC), whose improved recent run the show read as a mirage after checking his spin and velocity and finding nothing changed. Tucker has had a disappointing first season on a Dodgers team that keeps winning anyway, but the two things he still does, avoiding strikeouts and lofting the ball, are the only two things this bet needs.
The loudest rant of the stream belonged to Jonah Heim (ATH). Brady Singer (CIN) leads Tuesday's starters in home runs allowed per fly ball, the game is in Great American Ball Park, and Heim is hitting cleanup, yet the opening number was long enough that the show double-checked whether the game had been moved to a canyon. Heim and Tucker were fired individually and stacked together as a two-homer parlay. If you want the full-board version of this exercise beyond one show's card, the daily MLB home run picks hub runs it every slate.
The Bet That Looks Backwards: Peralta Under 5.5 Strikeouts
Here is the payoff of the forward promise. The same fastball-heavy profile that makes Peralta a home run target for Moniak also makes him a strikeout under. His last two starts ran 107 and 92 pitches, a heavy back-to-back workload. His swing-and-miss numbers have faded from his peak years. Coors Field suppresses strikeouts on top of that, and Tampa Bay bought low on him at the deadline precisely because a sharp, analytics-forward organization thinks it can fix him, starting with trimming his fastball usage, and the show does not trust them to fully lengthen him out in start one. The show's tell was the outs prop: books project him at roughly 15.5 outs, and at a strikeout line of 5.5, the over needs roughly 40% of those outs to come by strikeout. For a pitcher trending the wrong way on whiffs, at altitude, that is a lot to ask.
This is also the one fired play where the verified numbers let us show the edge outright. On the OddsShopper board at capture time, Peralta under 5.5 strikeouts was takeable at -125 (DraftKings) against a de-vigged fair price of -146, a +6.8% edge. That is a later board capture, not his stated entry price, but the direction is the point: the market itself, once you strip the vig, agrees with the under.
The rotation's other prop went the opposite direction. Jesús Luzardo (PHI) over on strikeouts earned the show's strongest conviction tag since May, the first play in months he stamped at that level. Washington's lineup lost James Wood (WSH) to injury imaging and traded away pieces at the deadline, and while Wood himself strikes out plenty, the thinner lineup means Luzardo faces more batters and pitches deeper, and volume is what strikeout overs actually run on. He jammed it at a small favorite price and liked it more as the number moved.
Sides: Boston, And A Cleveland Position Already Working
The Boston Red Sox money line is the card's one full-game side: the hottest team in baseball at home against Davis Martin (CWS), whose results the show expects to regress, with Patrick Sandoval steady enough to hold the lead. There is an honest tension here that the stream called out itself: the card also holds the Miguel Vargas homer, a White Sox bat, in the same game. Those two bets can both cash, and pricing each on its own merits rather than forcing a narrative is the point.
The other side was already down before the show started: a Cleveland position against the Mets, bet on Monday's stream on the read that New York's bullpen was gutted at the deadline. The line has since moved well in its favor, which is closing-line value doing what it does, and the show's July was a reminder of the other half of that lesson: CLV kept piling up while the results ran cold, and the month finished down anyway. Beating the close is the process; variance owns any given week. That honesty is also why the staking stays disciplined, per the bankroll rules the show keeps coming back to.
The Leans That Stayed Leans
Four names got long looks without making the closing recap, and the reasons are as instructive as the bets. Zach Neto (LAA) was a live homer target against Cade Povich (BAL), but the starter was unconfirmed when the number was best, and by the time it firmed up the price was gone; missed boats stay missed. Mike Trout (LAA) drew the sharpest price rant of the stream, one book hanging an outlier number he said had to be punished, and he sounded close to firing it in the moment; it never appeared in his closing recap of official adds, though, so we have left it off the card. Jackson Holliday (BAL) looked tempting against Grayson Rodriguez (LAA), a revenge start in the middle of a rough season, but Baltimore's stripped-down post-deadline lineup left Holliday with no protection around him. And Joey Cantillo (CLE) strikeout props got the most Lindy-typical pass of the day: the best available number was identical to the sharpest book on the market even after the Mets' posted lineup got worse for strikeouts, and when a price is holding hands with the sharpest number, there is no edge left to take. Lars Nootbaar (ARI), newly a Diamondback and pending activation for his debut, stays a watch until a lineup spot exists to price.
Where The +EV Board Found Its Edges
Everything above is one sharp process run by hand. The +EV board runs the same comparison across every market at once: de-vig each book, compute the fair price, rank the gaps. At Tuesday's capture, the biggest verified edges clustered on hits unders: the top grade belongs to Arizona's Ryan Waldschmidt (ARI) in the same Diamondbacks-Padres game as the Corbin Carroll play, followed by three Athletics bats in the same Cincinnati game the card attacks for power:
| Market | Best takeable | Fair | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Waldschmidt (ARI) Under 0.5 Hits | +135 (Bet365) | +110 | +11.9% |
| Tommy White (ATH) Under 0.5 Hits | +180 (Bet365) | +151 | +11.6% |
| Tyler Soderstrom (ATH) Under 0.5 Hits | +190 (Bet365) | +160 | +11.5% |
| Jeff McNeil (ATH) Under 0.5 Hits | +195 (Bet365) | +168 | +10.1% |
| Joe Ryan (MIN) Under 17.5 Outs | +155 (Bet365) | +135 | +8.5% |
| Freddy Peralta (TB) Under 5.5 Strikeouts | -125 (DraftKings) | -146 | +6.8% |
| Mookie Betts (LAD) Under 0.5 Hits | +202 (Bet365) | +183 | +6.7% |
The Athletics cluster is the row block worth sitting with, because it looks like it contradicts the card and does not. Great American Ball Park runs hot for home runs and cold for singles, the exact split the show walked through on stream. That one park fact powers both sides: it is why Jonah Heim and Lawrence Butler are power plays there, and simultaneously why the fair math likes Soderstrom, White and McNeil to go hitless. The show independently passed on a Soderstrom pick'em over for the same reason before ever seeing this table. And the Joe Ryan outs under rolls straight into the Kauffman read behind the Salvador Perez homer: a hot park, a starter the market still prices for deep outings.
Most of those prices live at Bet365, with the fired Peralta under sitting at DraftKings, and betting board edges only works if you can actually take the number, which means having accounts where the outlier prices live. If DraftKings is not in your rotation yet, the book's current offer and how to claim it is here, and any signup bonus bets you collect along the way can be turned into withdrawable cash with the free bet converter.
A Worked Example: Pricing The Peralta Under
Take the fired play from the table and run the math. At -125, the implied break-even probability is 125 / 225, or 55.6%. The de-vigged fair price of -146 implies 146 / 246, or 59.3%. That gap is the edge: the market's own no-vig consensus says the under wins about 59 times in 100, and DraftKings is paying you as if it wins 55.6. On a $10 bet returning $8.00 of profit, the expected value is (0.593 x $8.00) minus (0.407 x $10), roughly +$0.68 per $10 risked, which is where the board's +6.8% grade comes from. One important honesty note: that is the implied break-even math on the posted prices, not a promise about tonight's outcome. A 59% bet still loses four times in ten.
Every number in that table came off the OddsShopper screen. OS Pro runs line shopping across every major book and the prediction markets, shows the de-vigged fair price next to the best takeable number, ranks the whole board by edge, and layers in the Liquidity Tool, the same screen the show checked live for sharp resting orders on Tuesday's board. There is a 7-day free trial, and code LINDY25 takes 25% off your first week or month.
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FAQ
What are the Live With Lindy MLB picks for August 4? The fired card: home runs on Kyle Stowers (plus a small two-homer add), Kody Clemens, Salvador Perez, Mickey Moniak, Miguel Vargas, Kyle Tucker and Jonah Heim (Tucker and Heim also parlayed), Freddy Peralta under 5.5 strikeouts, a Jesús Luzardo strikeout over, the Red Sox money line, Lawrence Butler and Jesús Sánchez over 1.5 hits + runs + RBI, and Corbin Carroll over 1.5 total bases.
Why bet a strikeout under on Freddy Peralta? Because everything points the same direction: back-to-back starts of 107 and 92 pitches, fading swing-and-miss numbers, Coors Field suppressing strikeouts, and an outs prop implying far more strikeout-outs than his current stuff supports. The de-vigged board agreed, grading the under a +6.8% edge at -125.
What is the difference between a lean and an official play? A lean is a number the show likes but has not bet. An official play has money on it. Tuesday's leans, like Mike Trout and Jackson Holliday, are named above but never appeared in the closing recap of official plays, so they are not counted as part of the card.
Where did yesterday's card land? Monday's edition, with the original Cleveland-versus-Mets read that has since moved, is here: Live With Lindy MLB picks for August 3.
The Day After The Deadline Rewards The Prepared
Zoom back out. Every play on this card came from the same loop the Peralta bet makes concrete: the market posted -125 on a number its own de-vigged consensus prices at -146, and the card took the gap. The Jonah Heim opener was the same loop from the other side, a price so far off the park-and-pitcher math that the show joked the game must have moved to a canyon. On a board this scrambled by the deadline, the bettors who re-price players faster than the books do are the ones who eat. The tools that automate that loop are the whole pitch.
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