SPORTSWAGERS
MLB
San Fran @ CHICAGO
San Fran/CHICAGO over 8½ -120
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 1.67)
John Danks is 3-2 at U.S Cellular Field with an ERA of 2.96. How can that be? This is an extreme hitter’s park but Danks has somehow found a way to keep his ERA under 3. It can’t last. Back in the day, you could count on Danks for double-digit wins and an ERA under 4.00. Unfortunately, he last met those benchmarks in 2010. More recently, Danks missed a year with a shoulder injury, and hasn’t pitched well when he’s been on the mound.Danks is not the same pitcher he was before the injury. After struggling in his abbreviated 2012 season, his control returned to normal but even that is trending the wrong way this season. Unfortunately, his strikeout rate did not. He used to dominate LH hitters, but that hasn’t been the case the past 2+ years. Danks has yet to recover his pre-injury velocity; while his average fastball was 91.7 mph in those days, he was at 89.3 last year and is at 88 MPH this year. In 82 frames, Danks has an awful BB/K split of 32/58. Danks 1.32 WHIP, 40% groundball rate, low K rate and increasing walk rate is not the profile of a pitcher with an ERA under 3. Regression in Danks’ ERA is inevitable.
Matt Cain is very similar in that he, too, could be counted on for consistently and double-digit wins. This season Cain has experienced a steep skills erosion. Cain has walked 23 batters and struck out 46 in 59 innings. In his last start, Cain walked five and struck out four. His swing and miss rate has never been lower and now sits at 7%. In 10 starts this season, Cain has just three pure quality starts. What’s even more troubling is that a tiny 19% hit rate with runners on base has prevented further damage. Don't expect him to be able to sustain a sub-4 ERA. In the end, we have two recognizable pitchers with misleading ERA’s. Both starters are showing no signs of turning things around and both these teams are very capable of putting up crooked numbers. The venue, the starters, the bullpen and the weather conditions all favor the over and that’s the way we’re playing it.
Minnesota @ BOSTON
Minnesota +142 over BOSTON
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.84)
Jon Lester is 7-7 with an ERA of 3.33 after 14 starts. His surface stats are rather decent but his under the hood stats are showing signs of a collapse. Lester’s WHIP is 1.27, which is worse than the league average and his WHIP over his last five starts is much worse at 1.60. Lester’s cutter is no longer a reliable pitch (batters are mashing a 1.056 OPS against it) and the result is a declining batted ball profile of 40% groundballs, 24% line-drives and 36% fly-balls. Lester has thrown a lot of innings and a lot of pitches this season. His K rate is higher but it comes at the expense of more pitches per batter. Lester’s pitch counts in his first seven games were 104, 108, 113, 112, 118, 122 and 119. In his last start against the Tribe he threw 109 pitches and two starts ago he threw 112. Lester is being left in there a little too long and the fatigue and wear and tear on his arm is beginning to show. Pitching for a struggling Red Sox offense that scored one run on Kevin Correia last night and that has scored two runs or less in six of their last eight games, Lester and the Red Sox are way overpriced in this one.
The Phil Hughes narrative this past offseason was one of cautious optimism—not just that moving out of Yankee Stadium (and the AL East) would benefit him, but that his new home, Target Field, was ideally suited to his skill set. Is his 2014 improvement really that simple, or is there more to it?It doesn't take a deep dive into the world of advanced metrics to figure out what is driving Hughes' improvement this year. First, he has solved his gopheritis problem, while spiking his already-strong command into the stratosphere. The season-long numbers are impressive, but the scope of the improvement might be best represented in his game log. His first start of the season, in homer-friendly Chicago, looked like the same old Hughes: great command but done in by the HR ball. Not to venture too deep into psycho-analysis, but you can almost read the game log from there and imagine what Hughes experienced over the next few weeks. From Chicago, he went home to spacious Target Field for the first time and didn't allow a HR in either of his first two starts there. Armed with that confidence boost, he ventured to also-spacious Kansas City, and got his first win in a blowout. (Note: the HR he allowed that night was to Alcides Escobar, in the bottom of the 7th inning when Hughes had an 8-1 lead. As HR’s go, this one was about as inconsequential as you'll find.)
At that point, it looked like Hughes finally realized that he wasn't pitching in Yankee Stadium or the AL East anymore. In his six subsequent starts after Kansas City, Hughes pitched at home four times, at Petco (SD) and Comerica (Det) Parks once apiece. All pitcher-friendly venues to be sure, but venue alone can't account for all of his transformation. He has turned into a strike-throwing, hitter-challenging machine. And he's been consistently winning those challenges.Hughes has swapped his slider for more four-seam fastballs and cutters. His four-seam fastball has generated a high 11% swing and miss rate, the highest swinging strike rate against that pitch at any time in his career. Hughes is throwing all of his pitches effectively, he’s changing speeds and most importantly, he has his confidence back. In 13 starts covering 82.1 frames, Hughes has a remarkable BB/K split of 8/72. He has not walked a single batter in eight of his last nine starts and he’s surrendered three runs or less in nine of his past 10 starts. It’s now time to ditch your previous frustrations with Hughes and get on board because the dramatic improvement in his skills is not luck driven.
Kansas City @ DETROIT
Kansas City +138 over DETROIT
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.76)
Yordano Ventura is 4-5 with a 3.20 ERA after 12 starts and 70 innings. Ventura is a little guy with a big arm (fastball touches 100 mph) with secondary offerings that are still something of a work-in-progress. No question he has top-of-rotation potential and if he really is figuring out control as quickly as his numbers suggest, he could get there quickly. Ventura has an elite groundball rate of 52% and his xERA of 3.45 is right in line with his actual ERA. That said, this one is more about riding the red-hot Royals.
After scoring 11 times last night, Kansas City has scored 56 runs over their nine-game winning streak. Six of the eight runs the Royals allowed last night came in the ninth inning when they took an 11-2 lead into the final frame and sent out mop-up man Donnie Joseph to mop it up. The Royals are hitting everyone and everything and we’ll put that to the test again against Max Scherzer. Scherzer is almost always in the price range of an elite pitcher after his breakout in 2013. He has posted outstanding skills in consecutive seasons and his command trend over the last four years has been excellent. That said, there are reasons not to back him when he’s a high price. He has never thrown 200+ IP in consecutive seasons. His fly-ball trend is heading in the wrong direction and that can be seen in his fly-ball rates in 2012, 2013 and 2014 of 39%, 41%, and now 45% this season. It gets worse too. Over his last five starts, Scherzer has one of the worst groundball/fly-ball splits of any starter in baseball (27%/54% - GB%/FB%). Over that span he has an ERA of 5.09 and an xERA of 4.42. Yes, he’s striking out a lot of batters but the Royals strike out the least often in the league. We can't expect that his previous mechanical problems won't sabotage his results again. Scherzer has struggled with maintaining a consistent arm slot in the past and while he was able to overcome that in 2013, it is risky to assume that he has put those issues behind him. He’s good, but there are some warning signs and the Royals are playing too well to ignore taking back a tag like the one offered here.
MLB
San Fran @ CHICAGO
San Fran/CHICAGO over 8½ -120
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 1.67)
John Danks is 3-2 at U.S Cellular Field with an ERA of 2.96. How can that be? This is an extreme hitter’s park but Danks has somehow found a way to keep his ERA under 3. It can’t last. Back in the day, you could count on Danks for double-digit wins and an ERA under 4.00. Unfortunately, he last met those benchmarks in 2010. More recently, Danks missed a year with a shoulder injury, and hasn’t pitched well when he’s been on the mound.Danks is not the same pitcher he was before the injury. After struggling in his abbreviated 2012 season, his control returned to normal but even that is trending the wrong way this season. Unfortunately, his strikeout rate did not. He used to dominate LH hitters, but that hasn’t been the case the past 2+ years. Danks has yet to recover his pre-injury velocity; while his average fastball was 91.7 mph in those days, he was at 89.3 last year and is at 88 MPH this year. In 82 frames, Danks has an awful BB/K split of 32/58. Danks 1.32 WHIP, 40% groundball rate, low K rate and increasing walk rate is not the profile of a pitcher with an ERA under 3. Regression in Danks’ ERA is inevitable.
Matt Cain is very similar in that he, too, could be counted on for consistently and double-digit wins. This season Cain has experienced a steep skills erosion. Cain has walked 23 batters and struck out 46 in 59 innings. In his last start, Cain walked five and struck out four. His swing and miss rate has never been lower and now sits at 7%. In 10 starts this season, Cain has just three pure quality starts. What’s even more troubling is that a tiny 19% hit rate with runners on base has prevented further damage. Don't expect him to be able to sustain a sub-4 ERA. In the end, we have two recognizable pitchers with misleading ERA’s. Both starters are showing no signs of turning things around and both these teams are very capable of putting up crooked numbers. The venue, the starters, the bullpen and the weather conditions all favor the over and that’s the way we’re playing it.
Minnesota @ BOSTON
Minnesota +142 over BOSTON
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.84)
Jon Lester is 7-7 with an ERA of 3.33 after 14 starts. His surface stats are rather decent but his under the hood stats are showing signs of a collapse. Lester’s WHIP is 1.27, which is worse than the league average and his WHIP over his last five starts is much worse at 1.60. Lester’s cutter is no longer a reliable pitch (batters are mashing a 1.056 OPS against it) and the result is a declining batted ball profile of 40% groundballs, 24% line-drives and 36% fly-balls. Lester has thrown a lot of innings and a lot of pitches this season. His K rate is higher but it comes at the expense of more pitches per batter. Lester’s pitch counts in his first seven games were 104, 108, 113, 112, 118, 122 and 119. In his last start against the Tribe he threw 109 pitches and two starts ago he threw 112. Lester is being left in there a little too long and the fatigue and wear and tear on his arm is beginning to show. Pitching for a struggling Red Sox offense that scored one run on Kevin Correia last night and that has scored two runs or less in six of their last eight games, Lester and the Red Sox are way overpriced in this one.
The Phil Hughes narrative this past offseason was one of cautious optimism—not just that moving out of Yankee Stadium (and the AL East) would benefit him, but that his new home, Target Field, was ideally suited to his skill set. Is his 2014 improvement really that simple, or is there more to it?It doesn't take a deep dive into the world of advanced metrics to figure out what is driving Hughes' improvement this year. First, he has solved his gopheritis problem, while spiking his already-strong command into the stratosphere. The season-long numbers are impressive, but the scope of the improvement might be best represented in his game log. His first start of the season, in homer-friendly Chicago, looked like the same old Hughes: great command but done in by the HR ball. Not to venture too deep into psycho-analysis, but you can almost read the game log from there and imagine what Hughes experienced over the next few weeks. From Chicago, he went home to spacious Target Field for the first time and didn't allow a HR in either of his first two starts there. Armed with that confidence boost, he ventured to also-spacious Kansas City, and got his first win in a blowout. (Note: the HR he allowed that night was to Alcides Escobar, in the bottom of the 7th inning when Hughes had an 8-1 lead. As HR’s go, this one was about as inconsequential as you'll find.)
At that point, it looked like Hughes finally realized that he wasn't pitching in Yankee Stadium or the AL East anymore. In his six subsequent starts after Kansas City, Hughes pitched at home four times, at Petco (SD) and Comerica (Det) Parks once apiece. All pitcher-friendly venues to be sure, but venue alone can't account for all of his transformation. He has turned into a strike-throwing, hitter-challenging machine. And he's been consistently winning those challenges.Hughes has swapped his slider for more four-seam fastballs and cutters. His four-seam fastball has generated a high 11% swing and miss rate, the highest swinging strike rate against that pitch at any time in his career. Hughes is throwing all of his pitches effectively, he’s changing speeds and most importantly, he has his confidence back. In 13 starts covering 82.1 frames, Hughes has a remarkable BB/K split of 8/72. He has not walked a single batter in eight of his last nine starts and he’s surrendered three runs or less in nine of his past 10 starts. It’s now time to ditch your previous frustrations with Hughes and get on board because the dramatic improvement in his skills is not luck driven.
Kansas City @ DETROIT
Kansas City +138 over DETROIT
(Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.76)
Yordano Ventura is 4-5 with a 3.20 ERA after 12 starts and 70 innings. Ventura is a little guy with a big arm (fastball touches 100 mph) with secondary offerings that are still something of a work-in-progress. No question he has top-of-rotation potential and if he really is figuring out control as quickly as his numbers suggest, he could get there quickly. Ventura has an elite groundball rate of 52% and his xERA of 3.45 is right in line with his actual ERA. That said, this one is more about riding the red-hot Royals.
After scoring 11 times last night, Kansas City has scored 56 runs over their nine-game winning streak. Six of the eight runs the Royals allowed last night came in the ninth inning when they took an 11-2 lead into the final frame and sent out mop-up man Donnie Joseph to mop it up. The Royals are hitting everyone and everything and we’ll put that to the test again against Max Scherzer. Scherzer is almost always in the price range of an elite pitcher after his breakout in 2013. He has posted outstanding skills in consecutive seasons and his command trend over the last four years has been excellent. That said, there are reasons not to back him when he’s a high price. He has never thrown 200+ IP in consecutive seasons. His fly-ball trend is heading in the wrong direction and that can be seen in his fly-ball rates in 2012, 2013 and 2014 of 39%, 41%, and now 45% this season. It gets worse too. Over his last five starts, Scherzer has one of the worst groundball/fly-ball splits of any starter in baseball (27%/54% - GB%/FB%). Over that span he has an ERA of 5.09 and an xERA of 4.42. Yes, he’s striking out a lot of batters but the Royals strike out the least often in the league. We can't expect that his previous mechanical problems won't sabotage his results again. Scherzer has struggled with maintaining a consistent arm slot in the past and while he was able to overcome that in 2013, it is risky to assume that he has put those issues behind him. He’s good, but there are some warning signs and the Royals are playing too well to ignore taking back a tag like the one offered here.
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