Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 398 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). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. It would be a decent annual ROI for an investor. But instead it’s coming, on average, on each of these picks.
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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 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. You are not required to read these. This is 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.
New York (NL) @ Pittsburgh
The Pirates are, relatively, cold right now. They’ve lost 16 of their 19 games since the All-Star Break, and finished July 8-18 after starting the month with three straight victories. They’ve fallen three and a half games behind the Reds for last place in the Central, and sit only four and a half ahead of the Marlins for last place in the National League.
The Mets are, relatively, hot right now. They’ve won seven in a row, and eight of their last nine. Since the All-Star Break they’re 13-5. They’ve climbed to just two games below .500, and only four games behind the Nationals and Phillies for the NL’s second wild card spot.
Should this change perceptions of either team?
Yes and no.
The Mets came out of the break ten games below .500, with a Pythagorean Win-Loss eight games below .500. In other words, they were performing about as expected given their run differential. Today, their record is identical to their Pythagorean Win-Loss, implying the last few weeks have not been a shift in luck, but rather a shift in performance. They might not be better than they were, but we have a larger sample size with which to measure them now, giving us a clearer picture.
For the Pirates, the story is different. They came out of the break only a game under .500, but their Pythagorean Win-Loss was three games worse, tying them with a handful of teams for the second-largest overperformance compared to run differential in all of baseball, behind only the White Sox. Today, they, like the Mets, have an identical record to their Pythagorean Win-Loss. Some of this is a correction in luck (which isn’t to say they were due for bad luck—they’d just had some good luck and their recent bad luck happened to even things out). But some of it is, similarly to the Mets, a larger sample size now giving us a better idea of how good (well, bad) they are.
Neither of these teams is as good or bad (respectively) as their post-All-Star Break performance has suggested. Both are about as good (or bad) as their season-to-date record implies.
Pick: Pittsburgh to win (+102). Low confidence.
Anaheim @ Cleveland
Cleveland’s rotation remains in flux, as it has been for most of the year. But since resuming starting games in July, Mike Clevinger has shown they have an ace.
In his five starts over the last month, Clevinger posted a 1.74 ERA backed by a 2.41 FIP. He allowed only six earned runs, walked only five batters, and struck out 41, all in 31 innings. This, after a breakout 2018 in which he threw exactly 200 innings and finished with a 3.52 FIP, good for 4.2 fWAR.
It’s looking more and more like Clevinger and the Tribe are playoff-bound. So whether they need a Game 1 starter in the ALDS, or someone to keep them in the wild card game ‘til it makes sense to hand things over to their best-in-the-AL-by-FIP bullpen, they have at least one very good option.
Pick: Under 9.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Cincinnati @ Atlanta
Through the season’s first two months, the Reds were, by run differential, the fourth-best team in the National League. By record, they were the fourth-worst.
Over the two months since, the Reds have changed their tune. Instead of putting up a strong run differential with puzzlingly poor results, they’ve put up a mediocre run differential to accompany those mediocre results. Their Pythagorean Win-Loss still outpaces their true record by six games, but their run differential is only +26 after standing at +39 entering June.
For the Reds, the difference has come primarily from the bullpen. Through May, Cincinnati relievers had accounted for 8.9 fWAR, second only to the Rays, behind a 3.78 FIP. Since then, their 3.9 fWAR is 19th-best in the league, a change that can be traced back to their 4.60 FIP.
The starters had a downturn as well, and the offense has struggled consistently, but the bullpen is the biggest culprit. The Reds aren’t a bad team. Their run differential is tied for sixth-best in the National League. Their insistence on contending next year is not misplaced. But to do so, they’ll either need the guys they have to pitch like they did in April and May, or they’ll need some fresh arms.
Pick: Cincinnati to win (+160). Low confidence.
Detroit @ Texas
Tyler Alexander has, entering tonight, made three starts for the Tigers. He’s thrown about 16 innings. He’s allowed seven earned runs. He’s struck out 14 batters. He’s walked only two. He enters tonight’s outing with a 3.86 ERA and a 3.65 FIP, and encouragingly, his XBA is .242, whereas his opponents’ real batting average is .254.
Alexander should not be expected to continue pitching this well. His FIP at AAA was 5.09, and while scoring has certainly increased in the International League since they started using the MLB ball, that’s the same ball he’s been using in Detroit.
16 innings, in a total-season sample of 101 (across the MLB and AAA), isn’t entirely insignificant. Alexander appears to be better than he showed in Toledo. But how much better remains to be seen.
Pick: Detroit +1.5 (+125). Low confidence.
