The Quick Answer
Kalshi opened a home run board for Monday night's Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs MLB game (7:40 p.m. ET, Wrigley Field) on Sunday evening, and it traded about 353,000 contracts in its first 13 hours. This page is information, not a picks column: the full 14-market board, and the matchup facts the prices are leaning on. The favorite is Pete Crow-Armstrong at 23¢ bid / 24¢ ask to homer, and the strangest thing about that price is the pitcher: Brewers lefty Kyle Harrison has allowed 14 home runs this season, and 13 of them went to right-handed hitters. Crow-Armstrong bats left. The full board, why the crowd is comfortable anyway, and the settlement rule that matters for tonight's lineup card are all below.
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One Board, Two Very Different Baseball Games
Kalshi lists this event as "Milwaukee vs Chicago C: Home Runs" under the ticker KXMLBHR-26AUG311940MILCHC, and it works like the exchange's other per-player home run boards: seven hitters, each with a yes/no contract on hitting one or more home runs, plus a longshot tier for two or more. Fourteen markets in all. The exchange has been running this same-day single-event playbook across sports all month, from La Liga correct scores to tennis, and the baseball version has found real volume fast.
Here is the thesis the rest of this page argues: this looks like one question, "who homers at Wrigley tonight," but the board is actually pricing two different games. MLB's probable pitchers split it cleanly. The four Cubs bats face Kyle Harrison, a good left-hander with one very specific leak. The three Brewers bats face Clay Holmes, a right-hander who has spent 2026 making home runs nearly extinct. The crowd has noticed: of the roughly 353,000 contracts traded by 9:54 a.m. ET Monday, about 264,000, three-quarters of the board, sit on Cubs hitters. The real argument on this board isn't Brewers versus Cubs. It's which Cub, and the answer the money picked comes with a platoon wrinkle worth unpacking.
One more thing before the board: Kalshi's settlement rules for these player markets contain a wrinkle that surprises sportsbook bettors, and with lineups not posted until late afternoon, it matters more tonight than any stat below. Hold that thought for one section.
How Kalshi's Home Run Markets Settle, And The Scratch Rule
Each contract is binary. Take the favorite's: if Pete Crow-Armstrong records 1+ home runs in the Brewers-Cubs game, the market resolves to Yes at $1.00; otherwise it goes to zero. A price in cents is the crowd's stated probability, so a 24¢ ask is a stated 24% chance. If price-as-probability is new to you, our primer on how prediction markets work covers the mechanics, and the guide to betting sports on Kalshi walks through placing an order. Settlement is expected shortly after the game, around 10:40 p.m. ET, with a Sept. 3 backstop close in case of postponement.
Now the wrinkle. At a sportsbook, a scratched hitter usually means a void or a refund, with the exact rule varying by book and by whether the player records a plate appearance. Kalshi does something different.
Kalshi's rule, verbatim: "If [the player] is scratched or not included in the starting lineup, the market will resolve to the fair market price." Same if he starts but never records a plate appearance — and pinch-hit at-bats don't count for a player who enters mid-game.
In plain English: you don't get your money back on a scratch. Instead, the contract settles at what it was worth, as judged by where it was trading. It's a meaningfully different risk than a sportsbook prop carries, and it is why the fine print on a 7:40 p.m. lineup card is part of the price of every contract bought before roughly 4 p.m. Chicago time.
That rule is also why the board below should be read as a live document. Every number in it was captured at 9:54 a.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 31, hours before lineups.
The Board: 14 Home Run Markets, Snapshot 9:54 A.m. ET
| Market | Team | Bid | Ask | Last | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pete Crow-Armstrong 1+ HR | Cubs | 23¢ | 24¢ | 24¢ | 51,616 |
| Seiya Suzuki 1+ HR | Cubs | 19¢ | 20¢ | 20¢ | 44,848 |
| Jackson Chourio 1+ HR | Brewers | 17¢ | 18¢ | 18¢ | 32,269 |
| Alex Bregman 1+ HR | Cubs | 15¢ | 16¢ | 16¢ | 50,604 |
| Michael Busch 1+ HR | Cubs | 14¢ | 15¢ | 15¢ | 54,625 |
| William Contreras 1+ HR | Brewers | 14¢ | 15¢ | 14¢ | 42,711 |
| Brice Turang 1+ HR | Brewers | 10¢ | 11¢ | 11¢ | 11,145 |
| Pete Crow-Armstrong 2+ HR | Cubs | 2¢ | 4¢ | 4¢ | 46,187 |
| Seiya Suzuki 2+ HR | Cubs | 2¢ | 3¢ | 2¢ | 15,479 |
| Jackson Chourio 2+ HR | Brewers | 0¢ | 2¢ | 2¢ | 1,399 |
| Alex Bregman 2+ HR | Cubs | 0¢ | 2¢ | 2¢ | 1,087 |
| Brice Turang 2+ HR | Brewers | 0¢ | 2¢ | 1¢ | 519 |
| William Contreras 2+ HR | Brewers | 0¢ | 2¢ | 2¢ | 372 |
| Michael Busch 2+ HR | Cubs | 0¢ | 2¢ | 2¢ | 31 |
The row I keep coming back to isn't the favorite. It's Pete Crow-Armstrong 2+, a two-homer lottery ticket quoted at 2¢/4¢ that has traded 46,187 contracts, more than Seiya Suzuki's entire 1+ market and within 11% of Crow-Armstrong's own 1+ line. About one in every eight contracts on this board is a bet that a 24% proposition happens twice in one night. This isn't handicapping; it's a fan base pricing its favorite player's ceiling. Volume also explains the odd shape of the top of the board: Michael Busch's 1+ market is the most-traded on the entire event at 54,625 contracts despite sitting fifth by price, which says the 15¢ area, not the 24¢ favorite, is where the crowd has actually been doing its arguing.
The Cubs Side: Kyle Harrison's 13-To-1 Split
The reason three-quarters of the money lives on the Cubs half starts with the Brewers' starter. Kyle Harrison has had a genuinely good season, a 2.79 ERA with 127 strikeouts across 103.1 innings, but home runs are the one bill he keeps paying: 14 allowed, a 1.22 HR/9 rate. And the direction of that leak is extreme. Right-handed hitters have taken him deep 13 times in 277 at-bats this season. Left-handed hitters, once in 115, while slugging just .330 against him. Same-handed hitters see him barely; opposite-handed hitters see everything.
Run the four Cubs through that filter and the board starts to explain itself. Seiya Suzuki and Alex Bregman are the right-handed bats, and Suzuki's case is the cleanest on the entire board: 23 home runs this season, and against left-handed pitching specifically he's hitting for a .547 slugging percentage with 7 homers in 117 at-bats, a .958 OPS. Right-handed power bat, facing the exact hand Harrison's 13 homers went to, in the only direction the leak points. That full-picture chain, hitter's split plus pitcher's split plus matchup direction, is what a complete home run case looks like, and at 20¢ Suzuki carries it quietly while the board's attention sits elsewhere.
Bregman's 16¢ is the price that leans hardest on reputation. The résumé says 20 home runs this season and a long history of handling lefties, and he does own an .804 OPS against them this year. But the quality-of-contact layer is thin: a 5.2% barrel rate and a .372 expected slugging, the weakest Statcast profile among the board's top tier, with 5 homers in 126 at-bats against lefties. His price is carrying the name and the 20 homers; the batted-ball data is less enthusiastic.
Which brings us back to the favorite and the split in this article's title. Pete Crow-Armstrong bats left-handed, meaning he's on the wrong side of the 13-to-1 ledger, the side Harrison has allowed one homer to all year. So why is he 24¢ anyway? Because Crow-Armstrong is having the kind of season that erases platoon logic: 38 home runs, a .577 slugging percentage, a 13.2% barrel rate, and, the number that matters here, a .580 slugging percentage against left-handed pitching, actually higher than his mark against righties, with 11 of his homers coming off lefties in 169 at-bats. The textbook says lefty-versus-lefty is a downgrade. The book on Crow-Armstrong's 2026 says he doesn't have a weak side. Both facts are real; the price is the market's attempt to net them out, a hitter without a platoon problem against a pitcher who has been a platoon fortress. Michael Busch, the other lefty, gets no such override: 17 homers with a solid 9.3% barrel rate, and he has actually slugged slightly better against lefties than righties this year, but nothing in his profile suspends the Harrison rule the way Crow-Armstrong's raw power does. That is the whole gap between 15¢ and 24¢.
The Brewers Side: Clay Holmes Is Where Home Runs Go Quiet
Now flip the board and the volume drought makes sense too. The three Brewers bats face Clay Holmes, and Holmes has been one of the hardest pitchers in baseball to homer against in 2026: 4 home runs allowed all season across 75.2 innings between the Mets and the Cubs, a 0.48 HR/9. Since arriving from New York midseason he's been even stingier, one homer in 23 innings with a 1.96 ERA. The contact-quality data backs the results, a 5.4% barrel rate allowed, and he does it with a below-average strikeout rate (55 in 75.2 innings), which tells you how he works: ground balls, weak contact, nothing in the air. A fly-ball lefty on one mound, a contact-killing sinkerballer on the other. Same game, opposite home run environments.
The Brewers prices read like the market did this exact homework. Jackson Chourio has real thump, 20 homers and a 13.1% barrel rate that nearly matches Crow-Armstrong's, and his 18¢ is the crowd refusing to fully punish a talented right-handed bat for the matchup. William Contreras at 15¢ is thinner than it looks: a 7.9% barrel rate and a .131 isolated power against right-handed pitching this season, with 10 homers in 352 at-bats against them. And Brice Turang, the board's cheapest contract at 11¢, is the mirror image of the Crow-Armstrong problem: his split fits beautifully, 16 of his 17 home runs and a .500 slugging percentage have come against right-handed pitching, but the specific right-hander he's facing has allowed one home run to anybody in a Cubs uniform's worth of innings. A hitter's split can check its box while the pitcher's box stays firmly unchecked. Holmes has allowed just 1 homer to right-handed bats in 107 at-bats this year, and 3 to lefties in 167.
Put the two halves side by side and the whole board fits on one ledger — the hitter's 2026 power against tonight's hand, next to what tonight's starter has actually given that hand:
| Hitter | Bats | 2026 vs tonight's hand (HR / AB, SLG) | Starter's HR allowed to that side |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pete Crow-Armstrong | L | 11 / 169, .580 vs LHP | Harrison: 1 in 115 AB to LHB |
| Seiya Suzuki | R | 7 / 117, .547 vs LHP | Harrison: 13 in 277 AB to RHB |
| Alex Bregman | R | 5 / 126, .421 vs LHP | Harrison: 13 in 277 AB to RHB |
| Michael Busch | L | 6 / 151, .404 vs LHP | Harrison: 1 in 115 AB to LHB |
| Jackson Chourio | R | 14 / 299, .468 vs RHP | Holmes: 1 in 107 AB to RHB |
| William Contreras | R | 10 / 352, .398 vs RHP | Holmes: 1 in 107 AB to RHB |
| Brice Turang | L | 16 / 348, .500 vs RHP | Holmes: 3 in 167 AB to LHB |
Splits: 2026 season, via MLB's stats API; snapshot Aug. 31.
Read across the Suzuki row and both boxes check; read across Turang's and only the left one does. Only one hitter on this ledger pairs a .500-plus slugging split with a starter who actually leaks homers to his side — and it isn't the 24¢ favorite.
The Wrigley Wildcard: Wind Out, Mid-80s
Every number above meets one variable that can bend all of it: Wrigley Field weather. Historically Wrigley plays close to neutral-plus for home runs, but it is famously the most wind-dependent park in baseball, and the direction of the flags does more to its daily character than any static park factor. Monday evening's forecast calls for upper-80s heat an hour before the game, mid-80s around first pitch, and steady cooling into the upper 70s by the late innings, with a single-digit-to-low-double-digit breeze out of the southwest, which at Wrigley's northeast-facing diamond means blowing out toward center and right. Warm air and an outward flag are the conditions under which this park adds carry rather than taking it away.
To be clear about what that is: context, not an angle. The books and the traders on this exchange can read a forecast too, and an outward wind at Wrigley is about as public as public information gets. It helps explain why seven hitters on a board headlined by two elite pitchers are still priced at 11¢ to 24¢ rather than lower. It is not a reason to believe you know something the price doesn't.
What 24¢ On Crow-Armstrong Actually Buys
A quick worked example, because the mechanics are the product here. One hundred Yes contracts on Pete Crow-Armstrong 1+ HR at the 24¢ ask cost $24 and pay $100 if he homers, a $76 profit. For that to be a good purchase over time, he needs to homer more often than 24 games in 100 against this caliber of pitching, and you carry the scratch rule the whole way: if the lineup card comes out without him, the contract settles at fair market price, not at a refund. The 2¢/4¢ ask on his 2+ market prices a two-homer night at a stated 4%. Cheap lottery tickets are cheap for a reason, and as our guide to winning on Kalshi argues, the sustainable version of this hobby is treating every price as a probability you either believe or don't, not as a scratch-off.
It's worth saying plainly: sportsbooks hang home run props on these same seven names every day, and the prices don't always agree with Kalshi's or with each other. Whatever you think of tonight's board, the only edge a bettor ever really owns is the price they pay. If home run markets are your thing, today's full MLB home run picks board is the sportsbook side of this exact question, with the day's best-priced plays argued case by case.
One legal note: Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, it's 18+, and it isn't available in every state. New York's attorney general sued Kalshi on July 31 alleging it operates as an unlicensed gambling platform, and that fight is pending. We track where prediction markets stand legally; check your state before you trade.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the favorite on Kalshi's Brewers vs Cubs home run board? As of 9:54 a.m. ET Monday, Pete Crow-Armstrong at 23¢ bid / 24¢ ask to hit 1+ home runs. The most-traded market, though, is Michael Busch's 1+ contract at 54,625 contracts, quoted 14¢/15¢.
When does the Brewers vs Cubs home run market settle? The game starts Monday, Aug. 31 at 7:40 p.m. ET at Wrigley Field, and Kalshi expects settlement shortly after it ends, around 10:40 p.m. ET, with a Sept. 3 backstop close if the game is postponed.
What happens to my contract if a hitter is scratched? Kalshi's rules resolve the market at "the fair market price" if a player is scratched, isn't in the starting lineup, or starts without recording a plate appearance. There's no void or refund like many sportsbook props, and pinch-hit at-bats don't count for a player who enters mid-game.
Does the 1+ home run contract pay more for multiple homers? No. Each tier is its own binary market. A 1+ contract pays $1.00 whether the hitter homers once or three times; the separate 2+ contract pays only on a multi-homer game.
Is Kalshi legal and safe to use? Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange and is 18+, but it isn't available in every state and faces active legal challenges, including New York's July 31 lawsuit. Check your own state's status before trading.
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In Summary
Kalshi's Brewers vs Cubs home run board is a platoon exam wearing a price list. Three-quarters of its 353,000 traded contracts sit on the Cubs half, which is the market correctly noticing that tonight's two starters offer opposite home run climates: Kyle Harrison, whose 14 homers allowed have gone 13-to-1 to right-handed bats, and Clay Holmes, who has allowed 4 all season. The prices inside that split mostly follow the data, Suzuki's clean right-on-left case at 20¢, Turang's right-split-wrong-pitcher problem at 11¢, with two exceptions that make the board interesting: a favorite whose 38-homer season asks the market to ignore the one split that argues against him, and a 16¢ Bregman running on reputation more than batted-ball data. Over all of it, a warm night and an outward flag at Wrigley Field, the one variable no split can price until the game starts. The board reopens the argument late this afternoon, when the lineup cards land; until then, every price here is just a probability waiting to be disagreed with.
