SPORTSWAGERS
MLB
Pittsburgh @ ARIZONA
Pittsburgh -1½ -104 over ARIZONA
(Risking 2.08 units - To Win: 2.00)
With Paul Goldschmidt on the DL, the D-Backs are a team in big trouble. As valuable to the Diamondbacks as any player is to his own team, Goldschmidt leads Arizona in virtually every major category. Precious few can boast that they lead their club in both OPS and stolen bases. He also leads the major leagues in runs and is second in most times getting on base and extra-base hits. The Diamondbacks don't have anyone who approaches his level of production, and Pacheco, Goldschmidt's fill-in, is on the other end of that spectrum. The Diamondbacks have been outscored in the first two games of this series, 17-7. Most of the Pirates 17 runs came in the late innings, as Arizona’s bullpen is a complete and utter mess. Now the Pirates get to take their shots at an awful starter and that aforementioned pathetic bullpen. Trevor Cahill has made just seven starts this season. He began the season in the Diamondbacks rotation but was out after three disaster starts in his first four, prompting a move to the bullpen and ultimately off the roster in early June. Presumably returning to Arizona as a starter, Cahill labored through his six starts at AAA-Reno and was beset with the same lack of command that plagued him in Arizona. All told, for the D-backs and their affiliates in 2014, Cahill has logged 82 innings and has allowed 130 base-runners, 45 of them via walks. He’s 0-5 at Chase Field with a 7.20 ERA, where he’s walked 17 batters in 30 innings. He’ll now face a Pirates team that hits righties hard and that has been swinging some hot bats since the All-Star break with a .746 OPS and averaging nearly 5½ runs per game.
Francisco Liriano has just three wins in 18 starts, which makes him one of the most undervalued pitchers in the game. Liriano has some of the nastiest stuff in the game and he’s found his groove again. Over his last three starts covering 19 innings, Liriano has allowed 11 hits, two earned runs and struck out 23. All he’s done this entire year is rendered RH batters helpless and has notched a career-best swing and miss rate of 14%. Furthermore, Liriano’s groundball rate of 53% is also the highest mark of his career so while the wins have been difficult to come by, his skills say he’s in for a big second half, With Liriano on the hill (or anyone for that matter) this is a great time and venue to be spotting runs against the Snakes.
Seattle @ BALTIMORE
Seattle -1 +115 over BALTIMORE
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.30)
A couple of days ago we put the Orioles high on our fade list and nothing has changed. What they have accomplished this year with a brutal starting pitching staff and one of the worst offenses in baseball goes beyond remarkable. A correction in their W/L record is the closest thing to inevitable as you’ll find among the 30 teams in the majors. The Orioles have five runs in their last three games. Over the past 20 games they are dead last in the majors with a team batting average of .202. Over that same span they have struck out 180 times, which is also the worst mark in the majors. They live and die by the long ball and if you take away that, this is one of the worst teams in all of baseball. Chris Tillman on the hill does not make them better, he actually makes them worse. Tillman has a horrible BB/K split of 52/89 in 136 innings. His struggles are not due to aberrant hit% or strand%; in fact, xERA says he’s been over-performing his skills. One of Tillman’s issues is that he’s not inducing many swinging strikes. His K rate has dropped sharply; combined with more walks, it’s not surprising that he’s struggled. Tillman’s 24%/24% dominant start disaster start split pretty much sums it up—not many dominating outings with just as many disasters and without the run support his chances of losing are far greater than winning.
Hisashi Iwakuma has walked nine batters in 118 innings. Over his last five starts covering 37 innings, he has walked one batter and struck out 32. Iwakuma is in the #2 slot in the Seattle rotation behind Felix Hernandez, but he'd be a #1 on most squads. Iwakuma's sparkling command, his 11% swing and miss rate, his 0.99 WHIP and his solid groundball tilt of 50% form a solid base that is so much more appealing than Chris Tillman’s ugly profile.
Chicago @ LOS ANGELES
Chicago +173 over LOS ANGELES
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 3.46)
Edwin Jackson’s 5.79 ERA is a direct result of one of the unluckiest profiles in the game. His 64% strand rate after 22 starts will attest to that. Over his last five starts that strand rate is even lower at an unprecedented 51%! Truth be told, Jackson was one of the NL's most skilled starters in May and he’s been nearly as good in July. In fact, Jackson’s 13% swing and miss rate this year is the highest mark of his career and his swing and miss rate in his last game was 17%. Edwin Jackson is in line for an ERA correction in the final two months. Pay little attention to his surface stats, as they do not tell the real story of a pitcher that has been dealing it but that has been besieged by extreme poor fortune.
The Cubbies have played the Dodgers tough in the first two games of this series with an 8-2 victory on Friday followed by yesterday’s 5-2 loss in extra frames. Chicago is a live pooch again today against Josh Beckett and it sure doesn’t hurt that the Dodgers have the Angels on deck for four games (two at home, two in Anaheim) beginning tomorrow. Beckett is not in good form with all of his skills trending the wrong way. His groundball rate is way down from his April to June rate of 44% to 38% since. In his last start against Atlanta, Beckett needed 105 pitches to get through 4.1 innings. Over his last four starts, Beckett has failed to pitch past the fifth inning. Over his last three starts, his BB/K split is 7/8. He’s also allowed four jacks over his last eight innings. Beckett had a strong first half on the surface but it came with under the hood issues. Overall this year, Beckett has been the beneficiary of the most increased hit% and strand% help between 2013 and 2014 in MLB. His hit% dipped from 34% to 25%, while his strand% jumped from 70% to 85%. Beckett is not a 2.94 ERA pitcher and it sure looks like his tank is running very low. Beckett is laboring badly and that provides us with a great opportunity to cash in against a big favorite.
Kansas City @ OAKLAND
Kansas City +155 over OAKLAND
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 3.10)
Oakland scored eight times in the fifth inning yesterday and defeated the Royals 8-3. Take away that one inning and the A’s have scored three runs over their past 26 innings. Indeed the A’s beefed up their starting pitching but they paid a big offensive price in the process. After facing Jason Vargas, Jeremy Guthrie and Danny Keuchel over the past three days, the A’s take a step up in class against James Shields. With extra motivation in his contract year (money does that to people) Shields’ is pitching well. When he moved to the pitcher’s park of Kauffman Stadium in 2013, Shields responded with solid results. While the numbers aren’t as good in 2014, Shields is setting himself up to be one of the top starters on the free agent market next off-season. Despite some regression, buyers will like what they see. Shields’ ERA is up from 2013, but xERA shows he’s doing about the same. He’s walking fewer hitters than usual. While his K rate is down a tick, his improved control gets his command back up to its usual lofty level. Shields hasn’t been able to replicate the high groundball% he posted in 2012, but he still does a good job of keeping the ball on the ground with a 46% rate this year. His 52%/10% dominant start/disaster start split isn’t as good as the past three years (67/9, 70/6, 71/9) but it still demonstrates that he’s an elite starter. At 32, Shields is in line for one more big contract so he’s going to want to show well over the next couple of months and this is as good a place as any for that to occur. James Shields taking back a tag like this one is true value.
We’ll start with the obvious – Scott Kazmir’s 2.56 ERA is far below his 3.59 xERA, hinting that a correction, perhaps a major one in the final two months is coming. While we could seemingly always argue why pitcher A should outperform his xERA and pitcher B should underperform his because of X, Y, and Z, the vast majority of pitchers will eventually regress toward what their underlying peripherals suggest. So yeah, it’s true that the Athletics have an above average defense and play in a pitcher-friendly home park but it’s simply not enough to prevent Kazmir’s ERA from rising.
Last year, we were all amazed that Kazmir was all of a sudden averaging over 92 mph with his fastball again. This was the same guy who averaged just 86.5 mph in his 1.2 innings in 2011 and not above 92 since 2007. Since he did throw this hard when he first debuted in the majors, it wasn’t too outrageous to believe that a healthy, mechanically-tweaked Kazmir could sustain this velocity jump. But it wasn’t to be. Kazmir is barely reaching 90 MPH on his fastball over his last 10 starts. Maybe he’s becoming more of a pitcher than a thrower you say? Look at his walk rate. He has displayed pinpoint control and has perhaps given up some velocity for better command. This is the standard response when looking at a pitcher who has combined a velocity and walk rate decline with a better ERA. The problem with that theory in Kazmir’s case is that he’s not actually throwing more strikes than last year. In fact, his strike percentage has dropped from 66.3% to 65.2%. It’s not a significant drop, but it’s there. In actuality, the primary driver of his improved walk rate aside from good sequencing is the fact that more balls are being put into play. Obviously, a hitter can’t walk if he puts the ball in play so although Kazmir’s control has genuinely improved immensely since his younger days, it’s not really this good, and he’s certainly not sacrificing velocity for control. The remaining elephant in the room is Kazmir’s durability. He only pitched 158 innings last year and he hasn’t thrown more than 165 innings since 2007. He dealt with triceps tightness during spring training. He was removed from a start in mid-April with a sore triceps and he's already thrown 130 innings this year. Now there are signs he’s tiring. Kazmir’s groundball rate has dipped from 46% from April to June to 37% over the past month. His line-drive rate has risen from 17% to 24% over that same stretch. His last start his swing and miss rate was 4%. Finally, Kazmir’s strand rate this season is 81% and 88% over his past three starts. Kazmir’s value is seemingly at a peak. His ERA is well below 3.00, his WHIP barely above 1.00, he has a 12-3 record and he plays for the American League West division leader. There won’t be a better time to sell high and that’s precisely what we’ll do here.
NFL
We will certainly have some NFL preseason picks upcoming in the next month but we'll pass on tonight's Hall of Fame game between the Bills and Giants.
