Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 421 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 5% 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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Three 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. 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.
Atlanta @ Miami
By fWAR, Brian Anderson has been the best player on the Marlins this season, and the eleventh-best position player in the NL East, tied with Bryce Harper. In Miami, and with a rather generic name, it’s understandable why he isn’t more widely known. Still, he finished fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting last season, and he’s producing at the same level at the plate as the last time around (113 wRC+ last year, 112 this year, though his BABIP is worse in the latter despite a similar XBA to the former, implying he might be more unlucky this season).
On the defensive side, Anderson is excelling compared to last year, which matters because as the Marlins figure out their future plans, knowing where to play Anderson is a big deal, and Anderson’s played third base a little more than twice as often as he did last year, relative to time spent in right field.
This defensive shift might be more a reaction than an intentional shift by Miami. Last year, at third base, Anderson was almost perfectly average, with a UZR/150 of -0.1. This year, that number is 11.7, and while his outfield numbers have been about the same over the two seasons, they’re at 7.7 on average. Which means, condensed down, that if Anderson can keep playing as well at third base as he has this year, the Marlins could gain about half a projected win keeping him there instead of in the outfield. Which in turn matters as the Marlins look ahead to the eventual projected arrival of Jazz Chisholm, the shortstop prospect they just traded for who could shake up their infield in a few seasons.
The third base sample size for Anderson isn’t all that meaningful just yet. But Miami would be wise to keep an eye on it.
Pick: Miami to win (+130). Low confidence.
Chicago (NL) @ Cincinnati
Phillip Ervin is not in the Reds’ starting lineup today. This isn’t all that notable. The Reds are facing right-handed Yu Darvish, and while Ervin’s been decent against right-handed pitchers in his career (87 wRC+), his real value comes against lefties (156 wRC+). In 2019, in particular, Ervin’s been ferocious when facing southpaws, with a 258 wRC+ against them. That number is over a very small sample (only 49 PA’s), but it’s had such a large impact that Ervin’s fourth among Reds position players in fWAR, with a 1.1 in the metric that’s almost exclusively come from those 49 plate appearances.
This wide a disparity might not hold up. Ervin only has 424 career PA’s, with 151 of them against lefties. But it’s at the point where even a prolonged lefty-specific slump would leave him with impressive numbers in that split, and the Reds are starting to take notice: in their last eleven games against left-handed starters, dating back to June 15th, Ervin has been in the lineup each time.
Ervin might not get any at-bats tonight. But there’s a good chance he’ll still impact this game, if through no other means than making Joe Maddon tread very carefully when navigating bullpen decisions.
Pick: Over 9 (+100). Low confidence.
Pick: Cincinnati to win (+103). Low confidence.
