MLB Betting Strategies: How to Make Money on Recorded Outs Props

Seemingly lost among the plethora of pitching prop bets is the recorded outs wager. While likely not as popular as a strikeouts prop, the recorded outs wager can offer better odds if you are willing to do a bit of handicapping.

Dimers.com contributor David Miles tells you what to watch for when betting this seldom considered prop.

Outs totals for pitchers often range from 15.5 to as high as 20.5 for standouts like Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros. A fairly common total is 18.5 outs, or just over six innings, which is becoming a typical workload for a starting pitcher nowadays.

If you want to try your hand at recorded outs totals, you will want to consider factors such as a pitcher’s typical pitch count in a game, his opponent, and how religiously his manager obsesses over his pitch count. Other factors to mull over are whether a pitcher is recovering from an injury or what time of the season it is. Managers tend to keep pitchers on a tight pitch count early in the season, give them more leeway as the season progresses, then rein them in again to “save” them for the postseason.

It seems like 100 is the magic number for a pitch count, so I like to consult game logs to see how many pitches a starter typically throws and how many outs he generally records before getting to that magic number of 100. A pitcher’s efficiency is hugely important in making a recorded outs bet.

For example, in a recent game, New York Mets hurler Max Scherzer recorded 18 outs in 93 pitches while his counterpart, Yu Darvish of the San Diego Padres, recorded 21 outs with 99 pitches. Both pitchers had good games, but the difference in three outs often is the difference between a winning and losing bet. 

Here’s how I handicapped an Over and an Under recorded outs prop to turn both of them into winning tickets. For the Over, I chose Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, who surprisingly had +140 odds to record more than 18.5 outs against their lowly local rival, the Los Angeles Angels. I take note any time I can get positive odds on a pitcher as reliable as Kershaw, so this game was no exception.

As alluded to, the Angels are awful this season, while the Dodgers have the best record in the NL, so this was a favorable matchup. Then I started to dig into Kershaw’s game logs and discovered that he recently had been going deeper into games, including recording 21 outs in 98 pitches against the Padres and 23 outs in 102 pitches against the Chicago Cubs. 

This was significant to me because Dodgers manager Dave Roberts slavishly adheres to pitch counts and earlier in the season drew criticism for pulling Kershaw from a bid for a perfect game after throwing just 80 pitches. With Roberts now letting Kershaw go deeper into games, I felt I had a great shot of Kershaw recording at least 19 outs against the Angels. I ended up winning my bet after Kershaw pitched an incredibly efficient game against the Angels, notching 24 outs with just 89 pitches.

Domingo Germán had a rough return in the Yankees' 7-5 loss in the second game of Thursday's doubleheader with the Astros https://t.co/aLxMquvcuL pic.twitter.com/Xl19KGC3eg

— SNY (@SNYtv) July 22, 2022

Now that I had won my first Over bet on the outs prop, I started to look for ways to win with an Under bet, as well. I found it recently when New York Yankees hurler Domingo German made his first start of the season against the Houston Astros. This matchup popped out to me for a number of reasons. Since this was German’s first start of the season coming off a shoulder injury, I could expect him to be rusty and also be shackled with a really low pitch count enforced by his manager. 

German also would face the Astros, who have fared well against the Yankees this season. In addition, German tends to surrender a lot of home runs, and an analysis of his game logs from last season showed he often did not last longer than four innings, even when healthy.

Not surprisingly, German’s out total for his season debut was quite low at 13.5 outs. However, all of the red flags pointed me in the direction of a short outing for German, and I was right. The Astros hit German like a cheap piñata, with Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman kicking off the hit parade with back-to-back homers in the first inning. German gave up five runs before being yanked after just three innings, translating into only nine recorded outs, which was well below his Over/Under line.

Consider adding the recorded outs wager to your arsenal of pitching props. It might not be as glamorous as strikeouts, but with some basic handicapping and attractive odds, you might just hit a home run.