| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 2 | 1 | 0.00 | +3.78 |
| Last 30 Days | 34 | 50 | 0.00 | -5.94 |
| Season to Date | 178 | 257 | 0.00 | -45.16 |
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All plays are for 2 units withe exception of Yanks and Red Sox, which are to win 2 units
HOME TEAM IN CAPS
N.Y. YANKEES -103 over Toronto
7:05 PM EST. The media suggested that the Bombers waved the white flag at the deadline but we’ve been arguing the opposite ever since. What we see is a bunch of hungry and talented kids ready to step up and make a playoff push. The Yanks are only 4½ games back of a Wild Card spot and they have a massive 25 games left against Toronto, Boston and Baltimore combined. If you watched Chad Green pitch last night, you have to like their chances. That 1-0 score was a flattering one to the Jays, as New York went 2 for18 with RISP while the Jays were swinging at everything and hitting nothing. Toronto’s offense continues to sputter. They are an all or nothing offense meaning that if they’re not going yard, they are not scoring runs. They strike out often (5th most K’s in MLB) and they’ll face another strikeout pitcher here in Michael Pineda
Michael Pineda is 6-10 with a 5.07 ERA after 23 starts. Just like some pitchers are very lucky, others can get unlucky too for an extended period of time and that applies to Pineda. That his ERA is one of the highest among AL starters with 100 innings or more is ludicrous. Michael Pineda continues to be saddled with a trifecta of bad luck with a high 36% hit rate, low 65% strand rate and high 18% hr/f rate. Pineda has filthy stuff. He has 152 K’s in 131 frames with just 38 walks issued. He also has a 16% swing and miss rate, which is in Clayton Kershaw territory. Pineda also owns better skills with runners on base than any starter in MLB not named Kershaw with 10 K’s/9, 0.8 BB’s/9 and 45% groundballs. Again, he has been victimized by a crazy trifecta of terrible luck in that situation with a 38% hit rate and 11% (!) strand rate. With a 3.11 xERA, Pineda is the premier buy-low starting pitcher in baseball. He has Cy Young winner stuff, period but he’s priced like he’s C.C. Sabathia.
Then there’s Marco Estrada, who is the opposite of Pineda in that he has very average stuff with great results. Estrada is extremely unlikely to pitch anywhere close to his current 2.95 ERA over an extended period of time ever again and here’s why: 1) He’s constantly behind in the count with a 55% first-pitch strike rate. That first-pitch strike rate is at 46% over Estrada’s last six starts. 2) His 87 MPH fastball is one of the lowest in velocity in MLB. 3) Estrada also has an ugly groundball/line-drive/fly-ball profile of 34%/25%/41%. 4) Estrada’s low 23% hit rate and high strand percentage of 78% (90% over his last five starts) has been doing the heavy lifting for this stiff for the past two years. Having balls hit to the warning track is not a skill. Having balls scorched off the bat and hit right at people is not a skill either. Estrada’s skill is that he puts good spin on the ball and batters pop it up. That does happen but not enough to make him elite. At the end of the day, what we have in Marco Estrada is a pitcher that is constantly behind in the count, that is constantly getting hit hard (but those balls are being hit right at folks), and that has a very hittable fastball. His xERA of 5.91 tells the real story of a pitcher that is riding a wave of extreme good fortune and has been doing so for almost two full years, which is not unheard of (see Jered Weaver, Kyle Lohse, James Shields, Doyle Alexander, Bartolo Colon, Barry Zito, Dan Haren, Jordan Zimmermann, Colby Lewis, Mark Buehrle and others). Eventually the weak skills that all these pitchers share will catch up to them and Marco Estrada is next up. We get the better starter by a wide margin, the better bullpen by a wide margin, the better offense and the team in better form AND they’re a dog at home. Pencil us in for that.
Oakland +128 over TEXAS
8:05 PM EST. Last week Oakland announced that Andrew Triggs will get starts over Daniel Mengden. Mengden was widely expected to rejoin the major league club but Oakland apparently felt Mengden needed some consolidation of his previous start's control gains. With his three-quarter arm slot, soft-tossing ways, and groundball tendency, Triggs perhaps projects more like a Darren O'Day than a rotation anchor. That’s fine with us. Triggs has a nice BB/K split of 12/38 in 38 innings. He has a strong 53% groundball rate and a strong 12% swing and miss rate. He does bring some risk for sure because he’s raw in terms of major-league experience but Triggs is a 27-year-old rookie that has paid his dues. Triggs was acquired from Baltimore during spring training, and he was sent to Nashville in the Pacific Coast League where he struck out 21 batters in 18 frames. Triggs throws from a low three-quarters arm delivery and gets groundballs almost three times as much as fly-balls. Triggs might not be a very hard thrower (a four-seam fastball that reaches the low-90s mph), but batters do not get much off him, with a minors career batting average against of only .218 and a cumulative WHIP of only 1.03. In addition to his two-seam and four-seam fastballs, he throws a cut fastball, a slider and a changeup. With good control and solid strikeout rates, Triggs could offer up some pretty sweet value down the stretch and we’ll gladly put that to the test here.
Lucas Harrell started the season in…in…..in…..well he didn’t start it in anywhere actually. He ended last season playing in Korea, where he went 10-11 in 30 starts with a 4.93 ERA and ugly 1.65 WHIP. The Tigers invited him to spring training but sent him to Toledo when the season started where he made one start before being sent down to Double-A, Eerie, where he made two starts. The Tigers eventually released him at which point he was picked up by the Braves and signed to a minor-league deal on May 21, 2016. On July 2, the Braves called him up to make a spot start and he would go on to start five games in July before he and RP Dario Alvarez were traded to Texas on July 27 for 2B Travis Demeritte. Prior to pitching in Korea (because no MLB team wanted him), Harrell was riding buses in the minors for the past dozen years or so, where he has close to 1000 minor league innings. Prior to this year, Harrell had pitched a grand total of three MLB innings since 2013. He lost 17 games for the Astros that season (2013) while leading the NL in walks with 88 in 154 innings. He’s walked 15 over his last 28 innings so his control remains awful. Lucas Harrell started the year in the minors again. He’s been rejected by every MLB team not once or twice but a half dozen times or more. He has a career MLB xERA of 5.22 and now he’s priced like he’s Justin Verlander. If the Rangers win here, so be it, but Harrell’s chances of losing are greater than winning, which instantly prompts us to step in. This is a minor-league pitcher spotting a significant tag.
COLORADO +115 over Washington
8:40 PM EST. Gio Gonzalez has consistently been an excellent strikeout source but he's been getting fewer swings and misses over the past month (9%) and his velocity has fallen off, which could certainly be a sign of fatigue. Another sign of fatigue is falling behind in the count and in that regard Gonzalez has been awful lately with a 50% first-pitch strike rate over his past six starts and a 43% rate in his last start. That’s asking for big trouble at this park. Furthermore, and this is key here, Gonzalez is easily rattled. When there’s traffic, he’ll slow the game down to a crawl. He’ll try and nibble instead of being aggressive, which leads to even more trouble. Gio Gonzalez and Coors Field is an awful fit and it sure doesn’t help that Gonzalez is not in good form right now despite what the surface stats say. Gonzalez’s xERA of 4.77 over his last five starts is more than two full runs higher than his actual 2.67 ERA over that same span, making this a great spot to fade him in.
Chad Bettis’s progress has been obscured by misfortune. Bettis’s 5.27 ERA will have most looking elsewhere today but surface stats are not something we put emphasis on. Bettis’s ability to induce groundballs is a key aspect of his game, especially considering his home park. Keeping the ball on the ground has helped him sustain a respectable hr/9 (2015: 0.9; 2016: 1.1). He has been able to get a healthy percentage of swings and misses (11%) but it hasn’t yet translated into the number of strikeouts we might expect. There would appear to be room for a little more K-rate growth, perhaps closer to 8 K’s/9 based on his swing and miss stuff. Bettis has also done a much better job of getting ahead in the count and he has thrown more strikes this year, leading to fewer free passes. An unfortunate hit rate, strand rate and hr/f rate have contributed to an inflated ERA. Note the wide gap between ERA and xERA (3.97). Bettis isn’t going to wow with dynamic stuff. However, his reduced control, healthy groundball rate of 51% and solid swing and miss rate form a fairly interesting collection of skills. Additionally, Bettis is used to the park factor here and won’t get rattled like his mound opponent will. The Rocks are always dangerous at home and now they have a great chance to make life miserable for Gonzalez.
Boston -105 over BALTIMORE
7:05 PM EST. This line is just plain stupid. Eduardo Rodriguez evenly priced against Yovani Gallardo is a wager that must be made because Gallardo should not even be in the majors. The only reason that Gallardo is not counting heads on the bus from the hotel to the park is because the Orioles are paying him 8M per. Gallardo’s continuing decreasing velocity is down to 88 MPH. His swing and miss rate is down to 7%. His walk rate continues to climb and he now has 41 walks issued in 78 frames while whiffing just 57. His fly-ball rate is increasing too. With Camden Yards enhancing LH HR by 37%, that's only asking for trouble. Gallardo comes in with a 1.60 WHIP and a 5.38 xERA. All of his skills and underlying numbers are in free-fall mode. A profile like this is prone to fall off the cliff and when you're an “old” 30 years old with past injuries and seven straight years of 180 + innings, there's no guarantee that even a parachute will provide a soft landing.
Pitching mismatches often have the favorite at -160 or even higher but this pitching mismatch is evenly priced. Forget Eduardo Rodriguez’s 5.38 ERA because he was late to the show this year and has started just 12 games this season. Last year, Rodriguez went 10-6 with a 3.85/3.65 ERA/xERA split in 122 innings for the Red Sox. It was a nice taste at the time for this talented rookie. Rodriguez maintained decent command all year and mid-90s velocity throughout. He finished with four dominant starts in a row to end the year and he’s now rounding into that same form. Over his last 35 frames, Rodriguez has whiffed 32 batters with the support of an elite 14% swing and miss rate. In his last start, Rodriguez went seven full against the Yanks and allowed just three hits and one run. We’re buying his futures now at a low price and you should too.
Pittsburgh +102 over SAN FRAN
The Giants have not won two straight since the end of July. They have lost two in a row, three of four and four of their last six. Despite an ugly 2015 campaign, Jeff Samardzija was able to score a five-year, $90-million contract with SF in hopes he'd return to 2014 form. He hasn’t. Samardzija stopped the bleeding earlier in the year but there are still obstacles and he’s back to the poor form he’s showed often in the past late in the season. Samardzija’s swing and miss rate is down to a mere 7% over his last five starts and was at 5% in his last start. Over his last 29 frames, Samardzija has an ugly BB/K split of 12/17. Samardzija’s pitches lack life. His durability or lack thereof remains an ongoing issue and therefore he becomes too big a risk when asked to spot a tag of any sort.
Meanwhile, the Pirates are finally heating up with four wins in five games and James Taillon has more than held his own. Taillon battled control issues at times in the minors but one wouldn’t know it from his performance thus far in 2016. His ball% and first-pitch strike % hint that his control is likely to rise, but stay well above-average. Taillon does a fine job of using his height (6’5”) to his advantage, getting a strong downward tilt which leads to piles of groundballs. He did a great job of limiting HR in the minors (0.6 hr/9 in 444 IP), but an ill-fated hr/f has inflated his hr/9 (1.4) so far in the majors. That does not figure to be an issue at this park at night.
Taillon lost two years due to April 2014 Tommy John surgery and July 2015 hernia surgery, but he has bounced back nicely in 2016. Armed with a 94 mph fastball that can touch 97 mph (four-seam and two-seam), a good curve and a developing change-up, it’s easy to see why Taillon has created so much excitement. He has a BB/K split of 3/27 over his last 32 innings with a 1.97 ERA. He has shown flashes of his immense upside and so we are going to buy low on him before the prices go up. There is a lot to like here.
