STATSYSTEMS SPORTS MLB REPORT
TUESDAY, JUNE 17TH 2014
INFORMATION WORTH BETTING ON EACH DAY
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***** Tuesday, 6/17/14 MLB Information *****
(ALL RESULTS VS. ML) - Against The Money-Line - and most recent, unless noted otherwise. Each and every day during the 2014 Major League Baseball season we will analyze all of your daily baseball action, featuring on hot and cold pitchers, hot and cold teams, over/unders and home plate umpire trends. We will also highlight some of our Highly-Rated (Situational & Match-up) Power Trends, along with some of our Situational Analysis (Betting Systems) that pertain to some of that days match-ups.
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MLB Betting News and Notes - Week #12
It is time to again examine this past weekend Major League Baseball results from Point Blank range, isolating some of the key edges that can put you far ahead of the game in the days ahead.
•Cubs – On Trying To Come To Terms With Jake Arrieta
It was not easy to anticipate the Arrieta train rolling down the tracks – there was no rumbling of the wheels to be heard, or steam whistles bellowing. If anything, when his time with Baltimore ended LY, the last stage a 4-11/6.38 over 2012-13 combined, it appeared that his MLB ride had gone off the rails. As such, when he was dealt to the Cubs, it was met by the sound of crickets for most serious baseball analysts.
Then something happened. Chicago sent him to AAA Des Moines for seven starts, and while the 2-0/3.56 did not necessarily ring any bells, the 11.6 K’s-per-9 might have been a turning point. Suddenly Arrieta was pitching with a lot more aggression, even if it did lead to an unflattering BB rate. When he was called up to Wrigley it was a respectable 4-2/3.66 over nine starts, for a bad team heading nowhere. But even that improvement did not hint at what we have seen this season.
Through eight starts Arrieta is at 2-1/2.09. Only getting a pair of wins despite that allowance level is a result of the uniform he wears – Chicago has scored three runs or less six times behind him, and there were scoreless outings over 5 1/3 and six IP in which he did not get a decision. Which now begs the question - is this another of these small-sample surges in which baseball’s geometry has paved the way? An xFIP of 2.89 quickly answers “No”. If we drop the IP count to Arrieta’s 43, there are 159 pitchers that make the count, and he checks in at #14. Yet it is still not easy to accept.
Both the pop and command from this arm stand out. His 9.2 K’s-per-9 are far above a career 7.1, while a 2.9 BB-per-9 is well below a 3.9 precedent. You can follow those categories to mark his growing confidence – it has been 16 K’s vs. only one BB over his L2 starts. And when contact has been made, his 52.1 ground-ball rate is also a career-best.
So with Arrieta having allowed one ER or none in 11 of his 17 Chicago starts, why is it still difficult to believe? The 2014 schedule has been favorable (his DBF is #137), and there is that issue of him not being an innings eater, but off of his sparkling win at Philadelphia on Friday the latter might begin to change – the Cubs should begin to have him work deeper into games because they simply do not have a reason not to, especially if they want to elevate him to being trade bait. Maybe then there will be enough evidence to become convinced.
•Braves – Ervin Santana’s “Black Magic” Disappears
One of the keys to being a successful bettor over the long haul is that patience to not force a power rating when you are not comfortable with a team or performer. Hence, not feeling forced to rush something definitive on a guy like Arrieta above. And it can mean avoiding the kind of mistakes that easily could have been made, and indeed were made by many, with Santana a couple of weeks ago.
Atlanta went 5-1 in Santana’s first six starts after he came over to the NL, and his 1.99 allowance, with more K’s (43) than Hits + BB (41), was a hint of something special. There were headlines across the sports mediaverse, and many of the major Fantasy sites had writers going into minute detail to showcase where those improvements came from (run a search and you can enjoy the usual hindsight advantage reading through them). Santana did not make this page, however, because a guy that had never had a single-season ERA of lower than 3.38, and sported a career xFIP of 4.20, was not a prime candidate to “find it” in his 10th MLB season.
A degree of skepticism is a useful tool in this endeavor. This time it paid off. Over Santana’s last six starts the Braves have gone 1-5, getting out-scored by 14 runs, and he has been knocked around to a 6.44 ERA, with 56 Hits + BB vs. only 24 K’s. The irony? Look at how his overall tally through 12 starts appears - a guy that entered the season at 105-90/4.19 over his career, is now 5-3/4.09 for 2014. Or, right about where one would have projected him.
There were a couple of keys to that hot early start. Naturally changing leagues mattered, with hitters lacking both experience and quality scouting reports. But here is what is visible now that wasn’t then – of those first six games, five of the outings were against teams that currently rate #23 or lower in Runs and OPS. Some of that strong showing can be attributed to being in the right place, at the right time. That is why patience is such a bankroll virtue – had you jumped the gun on Santana’s supposed improvements, it would have been an expensive lesson learned (especially with those last six starts also playing Over at a 4-1-1 clip as well).
•A’s – Josh Donaldson’s Bad Week
A slightly different take on the same general theme as the first two items this week – how one incorporates subsets into establishing good power ratings. It is also more emphasis about being patient, because sometimes Baseball is just Baseball. So time to talk about the week that Donaldson just went through.
Donaldson got a single in the fourth inning off of Jose Ramirez on Sunday, driving in a run. It was not a significant moment in the grand scheme of a 10-5 Oakland rout (10-0 into the 6th), but it at least closed one dark chapter of the book that is to be his career – it ended an 0-33 slide by someone that had been one of the best players in the sport since the 2012 All Star break. There were no BB in that span, with 10 K’s, and it was not just a tough week at the plate – he also committed three errors in one game, a loss to the Angels on Monday night.
This came from a player that was #3 in WAR in 2013, having a great year both offensively (.301/.384/.499) and in the field, as he blossomed at 3B after originally coming up as a catcher. He opened 2014 with a .271/.333/.534 April, then a .281/.417/.573 May, to move into the early discussion for MVP (in a league with Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera, it will continue to be an uphill battle). Then starting last weekend in Baltimore, his arc changed course.
Note that the errors in the field were not the only link to possible frustrations driven by the batting slump - he was ejected from Saturday’s game by home-plate umpire Hal Gibson, for questioning the strike zone. That led Bob Melvin to try to take some pressure off by dropping him to 6th in Sunday’s lineup. And while a single off of an unsung middle reliever does not set off fireworks, it ended a run of 25 consecutive balls in play that were turned into outs, dating back to June 4th against the Yankees in the Bronx. That can wear on a player. Because of that there will be a prime focus in following Donaldson closely this week – as good as 2013 was, it was his first full-season in The Show for a late bloomer, and his history of rebounding from bad times is being written now in front of us, instead of being something on the reference shelves that we can review.
•Marlins – Casey (McGehee) At The Bat
McGehee does not bring the career sample-size issues of Donaldson above – he has been around long enough to be recognized for what he is, a journeyman that is playing in his 5th different MLB uniform since coming up in 2008. He returned for an opportunity to resuscitate faded MLB dreams with the Marlins this season, after spending 2013 in Japan (he did help lead the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles to a championship). For Miami, McGehee was cheap veteran fodder to fill out a roster, in what was expected to be a transition year before the team was good enough to compete.
Then we all wake up to begin our processes on June 16th, and find the Marlins just a game out in the NL East, and McGehee #8 in the NL in batting average and #7 in rbi’s. Cue visions of a major movie concept and start lining up the actors to play the lead – a non-descript veteran finds his soul in Japan, and returns to become a star. But this may turn out to be a different Hollywood – not the one near Los Angeles that creates dreams for movie screens, but the one between Miami and Fort Lauderdale that has seen better days. This may only be the short-term magic of Baseball.
When you see a clean-up hitter playing 3B with a lot of rbi’s, there is the natural assumption of power. Except McGehee has hardly produced any – just one HR over 289 PA’s. That is not a misprint – a cleanup hitter has gone to the plate 289 times, and has managed one HR. There are 244 players that have at least 150 PA’s so far, and the only ones with a lower rate than McGehee’s 1.4 percent of HR/FB are J. J. Hardy, Erig Sogard, Conor Gillaspie, James Jones, Adeiny Hechavarria and Norichika Aoki. None of them will be batting clean-up any time soon.
So just what in the hell has happened? The sort of thing that Baseball allows, over a short cycle – McGehee has hit an astonishing .411 with runners in scoring position (RISP), going 30-73 to drive in 37 runs. That is an amazing efficiency. But here is the problem – only four of those hits were doubles, with no triples or HR’s. Batted balls have simply found more geometric room than is available over larger samples, and note the outlier that McGehee’s .362 BABIP is over his career norm of .294. Yes, there will be those that will attempt to call his performances “clutch”, but ignore them in setting your ratings - it has been well-established through the years that batting in high-leverage situations is not a separate skill. Over time, hitters produce in those settings in a manner that closely correlates to their overall skill level.
It has been a fabulous ride for McGehee to this point, but without any real pop coming from his bat, those numbers have only one way to go. As they decline so will the Miami production, given how little margin for error the Marlins bring to the diamond each day, with that team .321 BABIP continuing to flash at us as a warning sign.
•Royals – Revisiting A Coaching Change
Time to shift from individual players to a team here, although it still means staying on the track of sorting through sample sizes to sharpen your ratings. A couple of weeks ago Kansas City became a prime topic here, as yet another change was made at hitting coach. That spot had been a revolving door in recent seasons for the Royals, and because the shuffle coincided at a time in which they brought up several promising young prospects, it may have directly impeded the growth of several of those players.
Fast forward and the story has been profound. Since Dale Sveum took over they have gone on a 12-4 surge, scoring 5.1 runs per game, and because of the Detroit vulnerabilities have climbed to within 1.5 games of first place in the AL Central, heading into this week’s key series. While there is once again the issue of a small sample size, when a handicapper can put some meat behind the performances it is something that can be taken to the betting windows.
One of the issues discussed with Sveum’s promotion was that as a former manager he had plenty of experience in dealing with the psyche of players. When you watch the Kansas City offense now it does not come across as a case of baseball correcting itself, after too many bad early bounces, but instead a looser and more confident lineup at the plate. Winning then reinforces that, and with nine of those 12 victories coming by multiple runs, six by four or more, it makes the momentum even more genuine.
The Royals have played solid defense. The starting rotation is sound, and gets deeper when Bruce Chen returns. Closer Greg Holland is sitting on back-to-back seasons of 1.21 and 1.35 in ERA and 1.68 and 1.75 in xFIP. With those factors added to the mix, you might want to designate everything from May 29 forward as a key subset when rating the Royals – that change at hitting coach may indeed have been a catalyst to turn an under-achieving team around.
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Betting Notes - Tuesday
•Hot Pitchers
-- Cueto is 2-1, 1.96 in his last three starts. Cumpton won his last two starts, but has a 6.75 RA in six starts overall.
-- Kendrick is 2-1, 3.51 in his last four starts.
-- Niese is 1-0, 2.55 in his last five starts.
-- Chacin is 1-0, 2.07 in his last couple starts.
-- Shoemaker is 3-0, 4.44 in five starts this season.
-- Tanaka is 4-0, 1.52 in his last four starts. Rookie Stroman (from Long Island) is 2-1, 2.50 in his first three MLB starts.
-- Scherzer is 2-0, 2.30 in his last couple starts. Ventura is 2-0, 2.08 in his last two outings.
-- Twins won nine of last ten Hughes starts (7-1, 2.41). Lester is 2-1, 3.32 in his last three starts.
-- Gonzalez is 2-1, 2.81 in his last four starts.
-- Milone is 4-0, 2.00 in his last seven starts. Darvish is 3-0, 1.74 in his last four outings.
-- Keuchel is 6-1, 1.39 in his last seven starts. Roark is 2-0, 1.29 in his last two.
-- Danks is 2-1, 1.52 in his last four starts.
•Cold Pitchers
-- Santana is 1-3, 6.69 in his last six starts.
-- Samardzija is 2-2, 7.04 in his last four starts. DeSclafani was 1-1, 5.56 in two starts earlier this season; he is up from AAA again.
-- Wacha is 0-2, 5.73 in his last two starts.
-- Miley is 0-3, 4.78 in his last six starts. Lohse is 0-1, 6.23 in his last two.
-- Greinke is 0-2, 4.74 in his last three starts.
-- Tomlin is 1-2, 5.55 in his last four starts.
-- Bedard is 1-3, 6.38 in his last five starts.
-- Cain is 1-1, 4.50 in two starts since coming off the DL.
-- Elias is 2-2, 5.13 in his last four starts. Stults is 0-5, 7.04 in his last six starts.
•Totals
-- Over is 9-1 in Pittsburgh's last ten home series openers.
-- 14 of last 19 Philly road games went over total.
-- Five of last seven Miami games went over total.
-- Eight of last eleven Met road games went over total.
-- Over is 15-4-1 in last twenty Milwaukee games.
-- Over is 5-0-2 in last seven Colorado games.
-- Under is 7-2-1 in last ten Yankees home games.
-- Four of last five Cleveland games stayed under.
-- Over is 10-3-1 in last fourteen Detroit home games.
-- Nine of last ten games at Fenway Park stayed under.
-- Last five Baltimore road games went over total.
-- Four of last five Texas road games stayed under.
-- Nine of last twelve San Diego games stayed under.
-- Five of last seven Houston games stayed under.
-- Eight of last nine Giant games went over the total.
•Hot Teams
-- Reds won four of its last five games. Pittsburgh won five of last seven.
-- Cubs won three of their last four games.
-- Cardinals won seven of their last eight games.
-- Brewers won six of their last nine games.
-- Rockies won five of their last six games. Los Angeles won three of last four.
-- Blue Jays won eight of its last ten road games.
-- Royals won their last eight games, are half-game out of first place.
-- Red Sox won eight of their last ten home games.
-- Indians won their last ten home games.
-- Rays won four of its last five games.
-- Athletics won five of their last seven home games. Texas won four of their last five games overall.
-- Astros won eight of their last ten road games.
•Cold Teams
-- Philly lost seven of its last nine road games. Atlanta lost six of their last eight home games.
-- Marlins lost seven of its last ten home games.
-- Mets lost ten of last 13 games, including last seven on road.
-- Diamondbacks lost four of its last six games.
-- Yankees lost six of its last eight home games.
-- Angels lost eight of their last ten road games.
-- Tigers lost five of its last eight games.
-- Twins are 8-15 in its last 23 games.
-- Orioles lost three of their last four games.
-- Mariners lost five of its last seven games, but won last two. San Diego lost 11 of their last 14.
-- Nationals lost their last four games.
-- White Sox lost their last four games. San Francisco lost six of their last seven games.
•Umpires Trends
-- Phil-Atl-- Three of last four Gonzalez games stayed under.
-- Chi-Mia-- Seven of last nine Nelson games stayed under.
-- NY-StL-- Favorites won last eight Hoye games.
-- Mil-Az-- Seven of last ten TBarrett games went over.
-- Col-LA-- Five of last seven Wolcott games went over.
-- LA-Clev-- Six of last eight Foster games stayed under.
-- KC-Det-- Four of last five Hallion games stayed under.
-- Min-Bos-- Ten of thirteen Fagan games stayed under total.
-- Blt-TB-- Six of last eight Kulpa games stayed under.
-- Tex-A's-- Under is 7-3-1 in last eleven Fletcher games.
-- SD-Sea-- Four of last five Bucknor games stayed under.
Diamond Trends - Tuesday
•BOSTON is 14-30 (-20.5 Units) against the money line versus an American League team with an on base percentage .330 or worse this season.
The average score was BOSTON 3.8, OPPONENT 4.8.
•LA DODGERS are 20-6 OVER (+13.9 Units) in home games against right-handed starters this season.
The average score was LA DODGERS 4.5, OPPONENT 4.4.
•KANSAS CITY is 14-2 (+13.4 Units) against the run line in road games versus teams whose hitters draw 3 walks or less/game this season.
The average score was KANSAS CITY 5.3, OPPONENT 2.4.
•KYLE LOHSE is 19-2 (+17.1 Units) against the money line versus teams outscored by opponent by 0.5 or more runs/game on the season over the last 3 seasons.
The average score was LOHSE 5.2, OPPONENT 2.4.
•TOM MILONE is 16-2 UNDER (+13.8 Units) versus teams averaging 2.75 or less extra base hits per game over the last 3 seasons.
The average score was MILONE 2.7, OPPONENT 2.9.
•JOHN DANKS is 0-12 (-14.8 Units) against the run line versus poor baserunning teams - averaging 0.5 or less SB's/game over the last 2 seasons.
The average score was DANKS 2.4, OPPONENT 5.0.
Situation Analysis of The Day
•Play Against - Road underdogs with a money line of +150 or more (TORONTO) - with a starting pitcher whose ERA is 3.50 or better on the season (American League) against opponent with a starting pitcher whose throws more than 6.5 innings per start.
(59-9 over the last 5 seasons.) (86.8%, +42.1 units. Rating = 4*)
The average money line posted in these games was: Team favored with a money line of: -187.8
The average score in these games was: Team 5.4, Opponent 2.6 (Average run differential = +2.7)
The situation's record this season is: (5-2, +0.6 units).
Over the last 3 seasons the situation's record is: (28-6, +16.6 units).
Since 1997 the situation's record is: (126-50, +33.9 units).
•Play Against - Road teams against a run line. (+1.5, -130) to (-1.5, +160) (HOUSTON) - poor American League hitting team (AVG <=.260) against a team with a very good bullpen (ERA <=3.33), with a hot starting pitcher- ERA less than 2.50 over his last 5 starts.
(43-16 over the last 5 seasons.) (72.9%, +37.4 units. Rating = 5*)
The straight up record of the team this system pertains to is: (40-19 over the last 5 seasons.)
The average run line posted in these games was: Team favored by 0.2, money line price: +124
The average score in these games was: Team 5.1, Opponent 3.6 (Average run differential = +1.5)
The number of games in which this system covered the run line by 1 or more runs was 27 (45.8% of all games.)
The situation's record this season is: (4-1, +3.6 units).
Over the last 3 seasons the situation's record is: (31-11, +27.8 units).
Since 1997 the situation's record is: (51-30, +30 units).
•Play Under - Road teams where the total is 7 to 8.5 (CINCINNATI) - below average National League hitting team (AVG <=.255) against a team with a very good bullpen (ERA <=3.33), with a starting pitcher whose ERA is 2.70 or better on the season (NL).
(65-29 over the last 5 seasons.) (69.1%, +32.4 units. Rating = 3*)
The average total posted in these games was: 7.4, Money Line=-113.8
The average score in these games was: Team 3, Opponent 3.6 (Total runs scored = 6.5)
The number of games in which this system covered the total by 1 or more runs was 53 (57.6% of all games.)
The situation's record this season is: (14-9, +3.4 units).
Over the last 3 seasons the situation's record is: (45-23, +18.9 units).
Since 1997 the situation's record is: (100-67, +23.1 units).
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w-thumbs!^
