Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 367 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 6% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high), meaning he’s been good enough to consistently make the people money.
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Four picks today.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, and ESPN is often used and/or cited.
- The writeups often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. This is because in general, picks are being made because the numbers I’m using indicate the pick is beyond a certain confidence threshold, and I’m not coming across enough red flags to pass on it.
Colorado @ Washington – Game 1
It’s a bountiful time for shortstops, with Manny Machado, Javy Báez, Francisco Lindor, Xander Bogaerts, Paul DeJong, and Marcus Semien all 28 or younger and consistently bringing about exciting moments.
Trevor Story’s always been a little different, though.
While Story’s glove is certainly above average, the big story with him has always been his power numbers. He broke into the league with a memorable barrage of home runs, and he has by far a higher ISO than any of the above hitters. He struggled in his second big-league season, striking out in over a third of plate appearances, a Joey Gallo-like rate.
Still, he’s right there with the biggest names in the bumper crop. He finished fifth among shortstops in fWAR in 2018, and he enters today in the same place in the metric. He’s on the same service time track as Lindor and Báez, and while he has yet to find himself in an MVP race like those two have, when the time comes for him to hit the market, he might be at a better point in his career than either, given how power ages better than quickness.
The question is whether he’ll still be a shortstop when that time comes.
Pick: Colorado to win (+115). Low confidence.
Cincinnati @ Milwaukee
The Brewers defied expectations in 2018, finishing the 162-game regular season with 95 wins after many projections (including those of FanGraphs) pegged them to have a losing record.
But they did it in a conventional way, finishing with a run differential of +93, good for a Pythagorean Win-Loss Record around 90-72. They were five wins better than their run differential suggested, which isn’t nothing, but that run differential still had them measured as a playoff team.
This year’s Brewers are different.
While projections again weren’t too high on them (FanGraphs had them going 81-81), the Brewers thus far have again exceeded those projections (consistently holding a playoff spot for much of the year), and the Brewers have once again outdone their run differential (by three games as of now, which translates to about five, again, over the course of the season), that run differential is much worse.
It’s negative.
By 13 runs.
On top of that, Milwaukee got some bad news recently when Brandon Woodruff, their ace, went on the IL with an oblique injury expected to sideline him for six weeks.
The Brewers are only a game and a half behind the Cardinals for the NL’s second wild card spot, and two games back of the Cubs for the division lead, but the necessity for action at the trade deadline is clear.
And if the rest of this week goes as badly as the first two nights have gone, that action might involve more selling than buying.
Pick: Cincinnati to win (+140). Low confidence.
Cleveland @ Toronto
There are two marquee pitching matchups today in the American League. Down in Tampa, Charlie Morton squares off against David Price. Up in Toronto, Marcus Stroman opposes Shane Bieber.
Morton’s inclusion in this depiction is surprising, but not stunning. His ERA and FIP were both under 3.65 in both of his seasons with the Astros, though he was overshadowed by bigger-name arms. But Shane Bieber’s status is a bona fide breakout. Bieber only turned 24 at the end of May. He wasn’t a top-100 prospect, and he didn’t come with an established pedigree, though he did help pitch the UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos to the 2016 College World Series. Yet he enters tonight tenth in the MLB in fWAR, fractions behind Zack Greinke, and a fifth of a win ahead of Chris Sale.
Bieber’s excellence centers around his ability to control the three true outcomes. He’s in the top ten among qualified starters in strikeouts per inning, the top twenty in walks per inning, and at the median in home runs per inning. None of these numbers are particularly striking in their own right, but as a combination, they translate to a highly effective starting pitcher, especially when the pitcher in question is on pace for nearly 200 innings.
Bieber’s innings count might concern some, but it isn’t outlandish, and he’s thrown 175 and 195 innings respectively over his first two full professional seasons. Of course, injuries and downturns in performance lurk around the corner for all pitchers, but Bieber’s about as good a bet as you can find in a 24-year-old.
Pick: Under 8.5 (+100). Low confidence.
Kansas City @ Atlanta
Second-year Royal Hunter Dozier is enjoying a breakout year, slashing .288/.373/.542 and placing among baseball’s top half of third basemen in fWAR.
Last year, Dozier wasn’t much good. Over 388 plate appearances, he compiled a measly 80 wRC+, acceptable for a strong defensive middle infielder, but bad for someone on the corners. By the looks of it, he needed some plate discipline, and he found it.
Dozier’s O-Swing% (swing rate on pitches out of the zone) has dropped from 34.5% to 28.2%. And even on pitches inside the zone, he’s swinging less often, 59.0% of the time compared to 67.2% last year. The result has been a walk rate that’s nearly doubled, going from 6.2% last season to 11.4% over the current campaign, and a strikeout rate 20% lower, down from 28.1% to 22.6%. Meanwhile, his average exit velocity’s climbed from 89.5 mph to 92.0, which ranks in the MLB’s top seven percent.
Pick: Kansas City to win (+165). Low confidence.
