Chalk of the Day, August 26: Schwarber to homer at +240
The chalkiest home run prop on the Wednesday board, checked against 5,000 play-by-play simulations of the Phillies at the Mariners. The +240 price implies 29.4%. The simulations say 32.9%. Positive EV at about +12%; it stays a play down to +204.
Written by Jesse, NegativeEV. Last updated 26 August 2026.
- Sample: 5,000 pitch-by-pitch simulations of one game
- Window: 26 August 2026 slate
- Priced at: +240 at Bovada, as quoted off the board at publication
- Measured: 2026-08-26
The bet
The check:
| Selection | Kyle Schwarber over 0.5 home runs, Phillies at Mariners |
|---|---|
| Price | +240 at Bovada, as quoted off the board at publication |
| The price implies | 29.4% |
| The simulations say | 32.9% |
| Verdict | Positive EV, +12% at +240 |
| Stops being a play below | +204 |
This is the most-bet home run prop on Wednesday's board, and the simulations make it better than the price on offer. 15 games had odds, 19 of the chalkiest selections were graded against the sims, and the verdicts came back 8 Negative EV, 6 Roughly Fair, 5 Positive EV. Nobody here is picking anything. This is a price the public is already taking, checked.
The board ran from +205 to +276 on this prop across 5 books at the time of the check, against the +204 this needs to break even.
This prop is quoted over-only, so there is no two-sided market to strip the book's rake out of. The honest comparison is the simulated number against what the quoted price implies, and some of that gap is the rake itself.
What the simulations did
Across 5,000 simulations Schwarber's average is 0.39 home runs and the median is 0. The most common outcome by a distance is none at all.
The shape of 5,000 simulations:
| No home run | 67 in 100 |
|---|---|
| Exactly one | 28 in 100 |
| Two or more | 5 in 100 |
The anytime line pays the same for all of the multi-homer games, and there are 5.2 in every 100 of them.
At 5,000 simulations that 32.9% carries a standard error of 0.66 points, so 95 runs in 100 would land between 31.6% and 34.2%. The gap to the price is about 3 points, roughly 5 times that error bar. Said narrowly, and it should be said narrowly: that means only that re-running the simulator would not move the number far enough to reach the price. It is not a claim that we are right and the book is wrong. A number that is systematically off is off to as many standard errors as you like.
How many cracks he gets
Schwarber bats on the away side, which is the cleanest thing working for him: he is guaranteed all nine innings, and there is no scenario where his side is up after eight and he loses a turn. Across the runs he comes up 4.65 times on average, at-bats plus walks, and the home run number moves with that count.
Trips to the plate, and what each one is worth:
| 4 trips | 25 in 100 | happens in 38 of every 100 simulations |
|---|---|---|
| 5 trips | 37 in 100 | happens in 56 of every 100 simulations |
| 6 trips | 43 in 100 | happens in 5 of every 100 simulations |
Pooled across every simulation he goes deep on 8.3% of his trips, so whether he bats one more time or one fewer is worth more here than any read on his swing. That extra trip is not his to take either. It depends on the eight hitters around him keeping the order moving, and in the simulations they do not always do it.
What works for him
Two arms clear their own noise on this side, and together they are the story.
- His own career profile, who he is as a hitter, props the number up by about 12.6 points. Neutralize it and 32.9% becomes 20.2%. HR rate .095, 3 of 314 hitters, top 10%. BABIP .255, 296 of 314 hitters, bottom 10%. K rate .297, 287 of 314 hitters, bottom 10%. Exit velo 93.2, 7 of 314 hitters, top 10%. Launch angle 18.6, 284 of 314 hitters.
- Playing on the road props the number up by about 1.1 points. Neutralize it and 32.9% becomes 31.7%. He is guaranteed all nine innings, whatever the score after eight.
The pitcher
A right-hander, 2,118 pitches into the season and ranked against the 574 pitchers with enough of them to compare. He releases from a low three-quarters slot, 4.99 feet up (8th percentile) and 1.56 feet across (37th), with 6.41 feet of extension (47th percentile).
The ballpark
T-Mobile Park ranks 8th of 30 for home runs, with a park factor of 1.16 where 1.00 is neutral. It is one of the friendlier parks to hit one in. In the 2026 data home runs land on 4.8 of every 100 balls in play in the Mariners' home games against 4.1 in their road games, 2,591 batted balls at home, 2,961 away, the same club on both sides of the split, so what is left is the park. Retractable roof, grass, 331 feet to left, 405 to centre, 327 to right, 10 feet of elevation. Tonight it is 73 degrees with a 6 mph wind blowing out to centre.
Kyle Schwarber, recent against season:
| last 20 PA | last 100 | season | career | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| hits per PA | .150 | - | .203 | .190 |
| BABIP | .220 | .280 | .288 | .255 |
| strikeout rate | .200 | - | .334 | .297 |
| walk rate | .100 | - | .147 | .155 |
| contact rate | .650 | - | .664 | .687 |
| exit velo (mph) | - | 87.6 | 92.6 | 93.2 |
| launch angle (deg) | - | 21.2 | 21.0 | 18.6 |
- usual lineup spot: 2nd (over 124 games)
- plate appearances this season: 551
- plate appearances in the recent window: 20
Those are the inputs the simulator was served, not a separate stat source.
The rest of his night
The home run does not arrive alone. Split across the 5,000 simulations on whether it lands:
:
| when it lands | when it doesn't | |
|---|---|---|
| hits | 1.64 | 0.60 |
| total bases | 5.29 | 0.76 |
| runs | 1.41 | 0.31 |
| RBI | 1.74 | 0.14 |
| his team's runs | 5.27 | 3.66 |
The game itself averages 7.15 total runs. His side scores 5.27 when the homer lands against 3.66 when it does not, so this is not an isolated event - it travels with the whole offence.
What this does and does not say
It says that at +240 the price is asking for less than the simulations produce. It does not say he will homer. He does not in 67 of every 100 simulated games, which is what a price this long is quoting in the first place. Every play is relative to its price, and the two numbers meet at +204.
Method
The game is simulated pitch by pitch 5,000 times from the projected lineups, and the prop is graded on how often it lands. 38 factors were neutralized one at a time, each arm a separate 4,000-simulation re-run, so one-at-a-time swings do not sum to the projection. Those 38 cover everything that could bear on this hitter rather than every factor in the game: the other hitters' own career, season and recent tiers were skipped on purpose, because they are most of the cost and none of the answer for a prop about one man. 14 of the 38 came back with a direction we can stand behind. The price is +240 as quoted at Bovada at publication, and the check is against that quoted price, rake included.
Inside the noise floor
24 of the 38 arms sit inside their own noise, including Bryan Woo's career profile, the pitcher he faces (+1.5), what Bryan Woo has been throwing lately, his pitch mix (+1.4), Bryan Woo's season form (+0.7), the ballpark (+0.7), the rest of the order, the other eight, without him (+0.7), how long Bryan Woo stays in (+0.1), batting 1st today instead of his usual spot (+0.0), his own season form (-0.6), his own recent form (-0.6), the weather (-0.4). Those numbers are real measurements and they are printed rather than dropped, but at this simulation count the arm cannot tell a small real effect from no effect. So none of them does nothing, and none of them can be named the thing driving this.
Written up for readers: https://negativeev.com/about/home-run-props All findings: https://negativeev.com/research