PredictionStrike's BCPS First MLB Edition!

Good morning PredictionStrike family, and welcome to a very important rendition of Blue Chips and Penny Stocks!

Today has been circled on the calendar for a lot of us, and the wait is finally over. Grab your peanuts, grab your cracker jacks, and get ready to make that portfolio green all summer long, because today is Opening Day in the MLB! I have been waiting a long time to say that, and you can only begin to imagine how excited I am to finally get some major leaguers in the portfolio.

The lockout earlier this Spring scared us all, but we are primed and ready to roll out the next big money maker in the PredictionStrike arsenal. Now, some of you might be hesitant to invest in baseball players right away because of your limited knowledge of the sport, and that's totally ok! Today’s article will simply be an introduction to some of the players to keep an eye on, and as the season progresses, we can pinpoint some plays like we do for the NFL and NBA. One thing that I have noticed is that baseball will lend itself to a buy and hold strategy much more than NFL or UFC does. I think the longer you hold some of these stocks, the more successful you will be, somewhat like the NBA right now. If you don’t believe me, just check out Dejounte Murray’s (-1%, $10.80) chart. Who will be the equivalent in the MLB? Will it be established All-Stars like Freddie Freeman ($9.12) or Mike Trout ($8.87)? Or will it be up and comers like Juan Soto ($10.39) or Vladdy Guerrero ($9.80)? Or maybe it will be all four, time will tell, so make sure to get those stocks early, and hold them all summer long.

And if you aren’t already away, PredictionStrike is helping us boost that portfolio with a deposit bonus! From now until Sunday the 10th, PredictionStrike will be giving every user a free share of a random athlete for every $25 deposited. So if you deposit $25, you might get a free Bryce Harper ($9.72) share, a $9.70 value. Or maybe you deposit $5,000, and get 200 free shares of Cade Cunningham ($20.54), a $3,726 value, all to celebrate baseball’s Opening Day Weekend! Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me! So who do we buy with this new found riches? Let’s start with the crème de la crème, the Blue Chips!

Juan Soto ($10.39/share)

Many of you know, I am a Washington D.C. area native, and Washington sports run in my blood. One might think it's my bias that drove me to make Juan Soto the first person on the list, but you would be wrong. Yes, of course I love Juan, but it’s his contributions to the game that lands him on this list, not my blind homerism. Soto quite literally might be the best player in the world, and a talent we haven’t seen since Ted Williams. Not only does he have incredible home run power (Ohtani vs Soto home run derby last year was EPIC,) but he also has unparalleled plate discipline. His superpower is getting on base. Any given year, Soto will be in the mix for highest batting average, OBP, slugging, and of course OPS. On-base plus slugging (OPS) is a sabermetric baseball statistic calculated as the sum of a player's on-base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage. Not only does he have that generational power, but he is walked… A lot… No joke, he might record 180+ walks this season. That is peak Barry Bonds level walk percentage. Getting on base can lead to a lot of runs, which can lead to a lot of fantasy points. The Nationals might be in for a disappointing season, but Juan Soto should be anything but. He is the most expensive stock in the MLB right now, but in my opinion, it is well worth the price tag.

Shohei Ohtani ($9.44/share)

The man. The Myth. The Legend. Shohei Ohtani. Here is a guy that lives up to his nickname better than anyone in the major leagues, “Shotime.” That is because every time Ohtani touches the field, he puts on a show. Ohtani was just introduced to us Americans a couple years ago, but this 27 year old phenom has been delighting baseball fans all over the globe for almost the last decade. Ohtani is Japanese, and has played professional ball for The Hokkaidō Nippon-Ham Fighters from 2013 to 2018. He finally made his much anticipated MLB debut back in 2018 in which he won the AL Rookie of the Year Award. Unfortunately for Ohtani, and all baseball fans around the globe, injury got the better of him and he underwent Tommy John surgery. Once he returned from Tommy John, he was almost immediately ruled out again for a patella injury. Enter 2020, and we have the shortened Covid season. We finally get to the 2021 season, and we finally get a full season of Ohtani. We didn’t get an injury free season from Ohtani, but we had a season to remember. In fact, “Sporting News” did an article in December titled, “"The 50 greatest seasons in sports history, ranked." Shohei’s 2021 season ranked number 1 all time, beating out Babe Ruth, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, and every other sports legend. If Ohtani can do even a portion of that in 2022, shareholders will be in for a treat.

Fernando Tatis Jr. ($6.24/share)

We already met one 23 year old phenom in Juan Soto, but let's meet another. Fernando Tatis Jr. “El Nino,” is one of the most exciting baseball players in the league today, and his energy is contagious. For anyone who says baseball is boring, has clearly never seen Tatis on the field. Tatis unfortunately injured his shoulder last year with roughly a quarter of the season to go, ending his season, and unfortunately the Padres’ chances at a playoff run. It’s incredible to think he still had 25 stolen bases, and led the NL in home runs with all that time missed. Think about the possibilities if he was able to complete the season. Like Ohtani, it is not a matter of if he is good or not, it is a matter of if he can stay healthy. When you consider the price for the upper echelon of talent, (Soto, Turner, Guerrero, etc.) Tatis seems like an absolute steal at $6.23 a share. Why is his price so low compared to everyone else? If you guessed injury, you would be right. Tatis has found his way onto the injury report yet again, and is set to miss at least the first two months of the season. Fernando needed wrist surgery in the off season after a motorcycle accident. When reporters asked him when the accident occurred, his response was, “Which one?” That is not what the Padres front office wants to hear, especially right after signing Tatis to a 14 year, 340 million dollar contract… But hey, we saw what he could do last season in a short period of time. I think Tatis’ “discounted price tag is well worth the wait. Expect him to come back with a vengeance, and remind everyone how good he is. Just do us all a favor Fernando, and save the motorcycles for retirement.

The Entire Milwaukee Brewers Pitching Staff

When Max Scherzer ($9.15) signed with the Mets this offseason, I thought they would be the most dominant rotation in the league, and maybe even competing with the 1990s Braves rotations headlined by Maddux and Glavine. Unfortunately there is an old saying in New York, “The Mets gonna Met.” To sum it up nicely, this saying means, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and that includes Jacob DeGrom ($6.17) being injured, again, before the season even starts. This opens the door for the Brewers to take back the throne of best rotation in baseball, headlined by NL CY Young Winner Corbin Burnes ($9.52). When Burnes takes the mound today, he will be headlining a Brewers team that is heavily favored to win the NL Central, and they get to beat up on rebuilding teams like the Pirates, Cardinals, and Cubs all season. When you pitch against a lot of bad teams, you tend to throw a lot of good games. I know, that is next level analysis, but it's true! Corbin Burnes, Brandan Woodruff ($8.81), and Freddy Peralta ($8.17)are going to shove it on a lot of bad teams this season, and the stats that follow should be pretty exceptional. Now, before you go off and max buy all three of these pitchers, it’s important to be measured in our analysis. All three of these pitchers pitched incredibly last season, and that’s why they were all selected for the all-star game, but that means we might be in a regression year. I am not saying they are going to be bad by any means, but it would be foolish if we thought they could just return back to the same production as last season. Saying all that, I expect all three pitchers to play off the charts, especially Woodruff and Burnes. These two guys should flirt with 15 wins, 200 strikeouts, and a sub 3 ERA. If that happens, I can only imagine their stock price will skyrocket.

Ok, we could do this all day… I haven’t even mentioned Trae Turner ($9.41), Ronald Acuña Jr. ($8.69), Mike Trout ($8.87), Carlos Correra ($7.99), Aaron Judge ($8.61), Mookie Betts ($9.34), etc. etc. etc. We have all season to touch on all these players, and then some! Remember, next week we will go over some rookies to stash in your portfolio and hope for that Cade Cunningham type year. And don’t forget, this Saturday is a UFC PayPerView! We are finally going to see Khamzat Chimiev (+7%, $6.00) in the octagon! Believe it or not, this will be the first time he will fight since PredictionStrike included UFC on the platform. I know a lot of you are interested to see how he does, and we will make sure to cover that Saturday morning before the fights begin. Until then, enjoy baseball, enjoy life, and maybe most importantly, enjoy the Masters! Go Tiger!

Happy trading,

Alex True