MLB Batting Player Props: Best Over/Under Futures Bet for 2026

Well, just over two weeks left until you can watch and bet on actual MLB games!

In the meantime, we have a lot of futures markets to navigate. Today we will look at batting average over/under. Is there any good news on this? These are percentage statistics that are relatively injury-free. Bad news? It can be said exactly based on the skill they show, as it depends a lot on the luck of the hit, but if a well-hit ball goes straight to the defender, it will fail anyway.

Of course, the opposite is also possible, so in theory they should be equal. Anyway, here are my MLB picks. All markets are available on DraftKings and are priced at -110.

Ben Rice OVER .245

I loved this piece so much that I bet on it before I even wrote it. Rice’s 2025 stats page is truly a glorious sea of ​​red.

If you’re not familiar with this, the numbers in the red bar represent the percentile ranking of qualified MLB hitters. Rice was 90+ in everything power-related, such as Barrel%, Avg EV, etc. And he’s also shown elite to above-average batting skills. What a fantastic combination. His actual batting average last year was .255, but his xBA (what he should have been hitting according to his batting profile) was .283. Since he’s 27, there’s no reason to expect his skills to decline, and it’s just a gift to save a man with such skills at such low numbers.

Daylen Lile is over .266.

There is an example of a projection system slowly adapting to a batsman who made great strides last season. Lile was a middling OF prospect for the Nats a year ago, and this time around he had elite players like Dylan Crews, James Wood, and Robert Hassell ahead of him. But he hit .328 in his early years at AAA, got a call-up in late May and hit .299. And he looked pretty good, as he had a near-elite 83.5% Contact% and .302 xBA. And he has a 100th percentile LA Sweet Spot%, making good contact. It’s unclear if Lile will ever hit .300 again, but he’ll hit .266 over//under.

Hunter Goodman Under .257

The Rockies catcher took a big step forward in 2025, batting .272 with 31 home runs and providing a rare bright spot on a poor Rockies team. The power surge looks very real, but his batting average pop may not be much.

He posted a 26.3% K%, which is not surprising. Especially if you’re someone with a 12.2% Barrel%. But that doesn’t really lend itself to a good batting average, especially considering his 16.3% SwSte%. As a loose rule, you can “predict” a decent K% by doubling SwStr%, so Goodman could have the same kind of year in 2026 and see K% inches all the way to the 30% level. His xBA in 2025 was .244. Since he plays his home games at Coors, you can expect the Rockies to “win” xBA often. But .257 still feels high.

Nick Kurtz Under .262

My argument about Kurtz’s batting average is very similar to the one I just made about Goodman. A young hitter with monster power (36 home runs in 489 at-bats, 18.3% barrel percentage) who has performed above average.

Kurtz hit .290 but had an xBA of just .245. He shoots the ball at 92.7 EV but doesn’t make enough contact. His 67.3% was rather poor, as were his 30.9% K% (4th percentile) and 35.5% Whiff% (1st percentile). 50+ seasons with a home run average below .240 wouldn’t be shocking at all.