Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 528 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 3% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. It would not be a great annual ROI for an investor. But it’s not too shabby on a daily basis.
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One pick 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 and predictions from FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Chicago (AL) @ Minnesota
In a reasonable degree of context, Ross Detwiler’s career has gone pretty well. The sixth overall pick from the 2007 draft is still in the MLB, which is more than half that draft’s top ten can say. He’s got a 4.57 career ERA. He won a playoff game back in 2012 (with six innings of shutout ball). He hasn’t been an all-star, but he’s made a nice living playing baseball professionally.
This year, though. Woof.
Of the 317 pitchers with 50 or more innings on the season, Detwiler’s 6.79 ERA is the twelfth worst. His 6.95 FIP is the third worst. He’s allowed home runs at the fifth-worst rate per inning in that sample, yielding at least one in each of his first eight starts (he broke the streak two weeks ago, walking six and allowing four hits in two and two-thirds innings before getting pulled). Among the 412 pitchers who’ve participated in 150 or more plate appearances, his xwOBA’s the seventh worst, as he’s turned the average hitter into Anthony Rizzo by contact quality and frequency.
Not signed beyond the end of the season, this month might be the end of the line for Detwiler. Which means that, given the White Sox are not playoff-bound and bullpen games are socially acceptable, tonight could be the last start Ross Detwiler ever makes on a major league mound. It hasn’t been the career he foresaw. At times, it’s likely been pure frustration. But twelve years after he was drafted, he’s still out there. That counts for something.
Pick: Minnesota to win (-200). Low confidence.
