Chalk of the Day, August 29: Schwarber to homer at +180

The chalkiest home run prop on the Saturday board, checked against 5,000 play-by-play simulations of the Phillies at the Angels. The +180 price implies 36.0%. The simulations say 24.8%. Negative EV at about -31%; it becomes a play at +303 or longer.

Written by Jesse, NegativeEV. Last updated 29 August 2026.

• Sample: 5,000 pitch-by-pitch simulations of one game
• Window: 29 August 2026 slate
• Priced at: +180 at Fanatics, as quoted off the board at publication
• Measured: 2026-08-29

The bet

The check:

This is the most-bet home run prop on Saturday's board, and the simulations disagree with the price on it. 14 games had odds, 9 of the chalkiest selections were graded against the sims, and the verdicts came back 6 Negative EV, 2 Roughly Fair, 1 Positive EV. Nobody here is picking anything. This is a price the public is already taking, checked.

The board ran from +176 to +193 on this prop across 4 books at the time of the check. Every one of those prices is short of +303, so where you shop changes how much this costs you, not whether it costs you.

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 0.28 home runs and the median is 0. The most common outcome by a distance is none at all.

The shape of 5,000 simulations:

The anytime line pays the same for all of the multi-homer games, and there are 2.8 in every 100 of them.

At 5,000 simulations that 24.8% carries a standard error of 0.61 points, so 95 runs in 100 would land between 23.6% and 26.0%. The gap to the price is about 11 points, roughly 18 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 4.92 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:

Pooled across every simulation he goes deep on 5.7% 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.

• The weather props the number up by about 2.5 points. Neutralize it and 24.8% becomes 22.3%. That arm neutralizes temperature, wind and conditions at once, so the cause is not separable. It is 86 degrees with a 6 mph wind blowing out to right.
• Playing on the road props the number up by about 1.1 points. Neutralize it and 24.8% becomes 23.7%. He is guaranteed all nine innings, whatever the score after eight.

What works against him

Two arms clear their own noise on this side, and together they are the story.

• The ballpark takes about 3.7 points off. Neutralize it and 24.8% becomes 28.5%. HR park rank 29 of 30, one of the tougher parks to hit one in (factor 0.71, 1.00 = neutral, 2026 season). Park Angel Stadium. Roof Open. LF line 330. Centre 396. RF line 330. Elevation 151.
• Ryan Johnson's season form takes about 3.5 points off. Neutralize it and 24.8% becomes 28.3%. HR rate .054 against .055 for his career, 285 of 286 pitchers, bottom 10%. K rate .169 against .180 for his career, 254 of 286 pitchers, bottom quarter. Hits allowed per batter faced .220 against .243 for his career, 203 of 286 pitchers, middle of the pack. Walk rate .119 against .107 for his career, 224 of 286 pitchers, bottom quarter. Flyballs .208, 237 of 286 pitchers, bottom quarter. Groundballs .194, 218 of 286 pitchers, bottom quarter.

The pitcher

A right-hander, 1,174 pitches into the season and ranked against the 578 pitchers with enough of them to compare. He releases from a three-quarters slot, 5.6 feet up (48th percentile) and 2.62 feet across (89th), with 6.18 feet of extension (24th percentile).

The ballpark

Angel Stadium ranks 29th of 30 for home runs, with a park factor of 0.71 where 1.00 is neutral. It is one of the tougher parks to hit one in. In the 2026 data home runs land on 3.6 of every 100 balls in play in the Angels' home games against 5.1 in their road games, 2,673 batted balls at home, 2,709 away, the same club on both sides of the split, so what is left is the park. Open roof, grass, 330 feet to left, 396 to centre, 330 to right, 151 feet of elevation. Tonight it is 86 degrees with a 6 mph wind blowing out to right.

Kyle Schwarber, recent against season:

• usual lineup spot: 2nd (over 126 games)
• plate appearances this season: 561
• 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:

:

The game itself averages 8.01 total runs. His side scores 6.46 when the homer lands against 4.59 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 +180 the price is asking for more than the simulations produce. It does not say he will not homer. He goes deep in 25 of every 100 simulated games. Every play is relative to its price, and the two numbers meet at +303.

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. 12 of the 38 came back with a direction we can stand behind. The price is +180 as quoted at Fanatics at publication, and the check is against that quoted price, rake included.

Inside the noise floor

26 of the 38 arms sit inside their own noise, including his own season form (+2.5), what Ryan Johnson has been throwing lately, his pitch mix (+2.4), Ryan Johnson's career profile, the pitcher he faces (+1.3), his own recent form (+0.8), the rest of the order, the other eight, without him (+0.2), his own career profile, who he is as a hitter (-0.9), batting 1st today instead of his usual spot (-0.6), how long Ryan Johnson stays in (-0.0). 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.

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