Sportswagers
Milwaukee @ TORONTO
Milwaukee +104 over TORONTO
BEST LINE: Pinnacle +104
The Blue Jays defeated the Brewers by a score of 4-1 in yesterday’s opener but so what. Toronto scored just two runs of Marco Estrada in six innings and Estrada is an extreme fly-ball pitcher that owns the worst skills profile in the game the second and third time through the order. The rumors prior to his start yesterday was that Estrada’s days in the Milwaukee rotation are numbered with strong prospect Jimmy Nelson lurking in Triple-A and Mike Fiers in their bullpen. Prior to yesterday, the Jays scored seven runs combined in three straight home losses to the White Sox. Yesterday was just the Jays fifth win in their past 14 games after losing a lot of winnable games to the South Side, Yanks, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Baltimore. Now J.A. Happ is favored over Milwaukee and Wily Peralta? That should not be. Happ is a fly-ball pitcher in a park that is unkind to those types. He has a 3.65 ERA at home but don’t buy it, as he’s been taken deep seven times in 37 home innings and his xERA at home matches his road ERA at 5.35. Happ comes into this start with a WHIP of 1.46 and an oppBA of .276. That’s not the profile of a winning pitcher.
Wily Peralta has an elite groundball rate of 54%. The Brewers have won each of his last five starts and that includes a 7.2-inning gem he threw at Coors Field. Peralta has been lights out against lefties, his 95 MPH four-seamer is wickedly good and the Brewers are 11-5 overall when he starts. We get a tag here on the much better offense, the much better starter and the team with the best road record in the NL and second best in all of MLB.
Tampa Bay @ N.Y. YANKEES
N.Y. YANKEES +105 over Tampa Bay
BEST LINE: Pinnacle +105
1:05 PM EST. Vidal Nuno does not have pretty numbers. He’s 1-3 at Yankee Stadium with an ERA of 6.20 and overall, Nuno is just 2-4 with a 5.42 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. However, his xERA over his last five starts is a very respectable 3.95. Nuno has been hurt by a low 67% strand rate and he’s also allowed two earned runs or fewer in five of his last 10 starts. What makes Nuno so interesting is his fabulous minor league numbers, which boast a better than 5 K/BB ratio, a 1.10 WHIP and an 8.6 K/9 over 428 innings. Last year, he was positively sparkling over five Triple-A starts and pitched well in three big league starts. Inflated but misleading numbers has Nuno’s stock low and that makes us buyers.
Jake Odorizzi 1.53 ERA over his last three starts has this former top prospect way overvalued. Odorizzi has 97 K's in 83 innings and that makes him very appealing against the Yankees but his strikeouts make no sense because he does not throw hard and his secondary pitches are average. Odorizzi’s fastball, at least by velocity, is unimpressive, as it averages just 90.5 mph. He complements that with both a slider and curve ball, as well as a splitter/changeup, depending on which source you check. A quick look at his swinging strike rate reveals some surprising information — all of his secondary pitches induce swings and misses at a worse than league average rate for that pitch type. So with just average ability to generate swings and misses, where the heck are all those strikeouts coming from? The final strike rate type percentage is that of fouls. Finally, a somewhat clearer picture emerges. His 33.6% mark is significantly above the league average that sits around 27% and ranks second among all starters in baseball. Foul strikes have the lowest impact on a pitcher’s strikeout rate for obvious reasons. Although a foul could add a strike to the count to eventually lead to a strikeout, foul balls themselves rarely result in a strikeout. So Odorizzi’s high strikeout rate is driven primarily by a massive rate of foul strikes. That’s simply not the type of skill one wants to rely on continuing. Odorizzi is also a fly ball pitcher and his control is just mediocre, so his value is entirely dependent on those strikeouts continuing to pile up and everything suggests that they won’t. Jake Odorizzi has been nothing but pure luck and should be put on your radar as pure fade material. This isn't Chris Archer or David Price that the Yanks will face here.
Seattle @ HOUSTON
Seattle/HOUSTON over 8½ -105
BEST LINE: Pinnacle over 8½ -105
2:10 PM EST. These two have combined for 29 runs in the first two games of this series with the Mariners scoring 23 of them. That was against Jared Cosart and Collin McHugh and those two rank higher than today’s starter, Brad Peacock. Peacock has walked 10 batters and struck out 11 over his past four starts covering just 22 frames. He has posted an ERA of 2.91 over that span but it was due to a ridiculous 81% strand rate and a 100% strand rate in his last start. Peacock has an ugly groundball/line-drive/fly-ball profile of 34%/22%/43% over his last seven starts and that does not bode well at all at this park against the hot-hitting Mariners.
Chris Young is worse. Those of you new to the game may be wondering about that tall starting pitcher who’s gone 7-4 for the Mariners with an ERA of 3.15 and an ERA over his last three starts of 1.00. That’s not some rookie hot-shot; that’s 35-year old Chris Young. Young totaled only 44 IP in 2010/11 due to shoulder issues and missed most of 2013 due to thoracic outlet syndrome. That lovely ERA is unsustainable, as he’s living off of hit% and strand % luck. Young’s 5.32 xERA shows what to expect and it is the biggest discrepancy between actual ERA and xERA of any pitcher in the league with at least 10 starts. Despite his 6’10” height, Young isn’t a power pitcher. His fastball is generally in the 84 mph range and he’s never piled up big strikeout numbers. With a swinging strike rate so low this year (5%) he’s hardly registering any Ks and now has 47 in 91 innings. His BB/K split of 35/47 is a ratio no pitcher wants to own. Young’s groundball/fly-ball rate is also one of the ugliest in the league at 25%/57%. While that doesn’t kill him when he’s pitching in Safeco, any upward turn of hr/f will be disastrous. Young is one of the worst pitchers in baseball and that includes relievers. If there is a sure bet the rest of the way for an ERA correction, it is Young. Two misleading ERA’s have a very beatable total posted here and we’re on it.
Milwaukee @ TORONTO
Milwaukee +104 over TORONTO
BEST LINE: Pinnacle +104
The Blue Jays defeated the Brewers by a score of 4-1 in yesterday’s opener but so what. Toronto scored just two runs of Marco Estrada in six innings and Estrada is an extreme fly-ball pitcher that owns the worst skills profile in the game the second and third time through the order. The rumors prior to his start yesterday was that Estrada’s days in the Milwaukee rotation are numbered with strong prospect Jimmy Nelson lurking in Triple-A and Mike Fiers in their bullpen. Prior to yesterday, the Jays scored seven runs combined in three straight home losses to the White Sox. Yesterday was just the Jays fifth win in their past 14 games after losing a lot of winnable games to the South Side, Yanks, Cincinnati, Minnesota and Baltimore. Now J.A. Happ is favored over Milwaukee and Wily Peralta? That should not be. Happ is a fly-ball pitcher in a park that is unkind to those types. He has a 3.65 ERA at home but don’t buy it, as he’s been taken deep seven times in 37 home innings and his xERA at home matches his road ERA at 5.35. Happ comes into this start with a WHIP of 1.46 and an oppBA of .276. That’s not the profile of a winning pitcher.
Wily Peralta has an elite groundball rate of 54%. The Brewers have won each of his last five starts and that includes a 7.2-inning gem he threw at Coors Field. Peralta has been lights out against lefties, his 95 MPH four-seamer is wickedly good and the Brewers are 11-5 overall when he starts. We get a tag here on the much better offense, the much better starter and the team with the best road record in the NL and second best in all of MLB.
Tampa Bay @ N.Y. YANKEES
N.Y. YANKEES +105 over Tampa Bay
BEST LINE: Pinnacle +105
1:05 PM EST. Vidal Nuno does not have pretty numbers. He’s 1-3 at Yankee Stadium with an ERA of 6.20 and overall, Nuno is just 2-4 with a 5.42 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. However, his xERA over his last five starts is a very respectable 3.95. Nuno has been hurt by a low 67% strand rate and he’s also allowed two earned runs or fewer in five of his last 10 starts. What makes Nuno so interesting is his fabulous minor league numbers, which boast a better than 5 K/BB ratio, a 1.10 WHIP and an 8.6 K/9 over 428 innings. Last year, he was positively sparkling over five Triple-A starts and pitched well in three big league starts. Inflated but misleading numbers has Nuno’s stock low and that makes us buyers.
Jake Odorizzi 1.53 ERA over his last three starts has this former top prospect way overvalued. Odorizzi has 97 K's in 83 innings and that makes him very appealing against the Yankees but his strikeouts make no sense because he does not throw hard and his secondary pitches are average. Odorizzi’s fastball, at least by velocity, is unimpressive, as it averages just 90.5 mph. He complements that with both a slider and curve ball, as well as a splitter/changeup, depending on which source you check. A quick look at his swinging strike rate reveals some surprising information — all of his secondary pitches induce swings and misses at a worse than league average rate for that pitch type. So with just average ability to generate swings and misses, where the heck are all those strikeouts coming from? The final strike rate type percentage is that of fouls. Finally, a somewhat clearer picture emerges. His 33.6% mark is significantly above the league average that sits around 27% and ranks second among all starters in baseball. Foul strikes have the lowest impact on a pitcher’s strikeout rate for obvious reasons. Although a foul could add a strike to the count to eventually lead to a strikeout, foul balls themselves rarely result in a strikeout. So Odorizzi’s high strikeout rate is driven primarily by a massive rate of foul strikes. That’s simply not the type of skill one wants to rely on continuing. Odorizzi is also a fly ball pitcher and his control is just mediocre, so his value is entirely dependent on those strikeouts continuing to pile up and everything suggests that they won’t. Jake Odorizzi has been nothing but pure luck and should be put on your radar as pure fade material. This isn't Chris Archer or David Price that the Yanks will face here.
Seattle @ HOUSTON
Seattle/HOUSTON over 8½ -105
BEST LINE: Pinnacle over 8½ -105
2:10 PM EST. These two have combined for 29 runs in the first two games of this series with the Mariners scoring 23 of them. That was against Jared Cosart and Collin McHugh and those two rank higher than today’s starter, Brad Peacock. Peacock has walked 10 batters and struck out 11 over his past four starts covering just 22 frames. He has posted an ERA of 2.91 over that span but it was due to a ridiculous 81% strand rate and a 100% strand rate in his last start. Peacock has an ugly groundball/line-drive/fly-ball profile of 34%/22%/43% over his last seven starts and that does not bode well at all at this park against the hot-hitting Mariners.
Chris Young is worse. Those of you new to the game may be wondering about that tall starting pitcher who’s gone 7-4 for the Mariners with an ERA of 3.15 and an ERA over his last three starts of 1.00. That’s not some rookie hot-shot; that’s 35-year old Chris Young. Young totaled only 44 IP in 2010/11 due to shoulder issues and missed most of 2013 due to thoracic outlet syndrome. That lovely ERA is unsustainable, as he’s living off of hit% and strand % luck. Young’s 5.32 xERA shows what to expect and it is the biggest discrepancy between actual ERA and xERA of any pitcher in the league with at least 10 starts. Despite his 6’10” height, Young isn’t a power pitcher. His fastball is generally in the 84 mph range and he’s never piled up big strikeout numbers. With a swinging strike rate so low this year (5%) he’s hardly registering any Ks and now has 47 in 91 innings. His BB/K split of 35/47 is a ratio no pitcher wants to own. Young’s groundball/fly-ball rate is also one of the ugliest in the league at 25%/57%. While that doesn’t kill him when he’s pitching in Safeco, any upward turn of hr/f will be disastrous. Young is one of the worst pitchers in baseball and that includes relievers. If there is a sure bet the rest of the way for an ERA correction, it is Young. Two misleading ERA’s have a very beatable total posted here and we’re on it.
