Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 521 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 4% 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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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 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.
MLB
Atlanta @ Washington
Mike Soroka has been very, very good this year. Notes have been made about this on this website since May. We are one of the leading Mike Soroka hype machines among neutral parties.
But it’s worth noting that while his 3.50 FIP is great (17th among 68 qualified pitchers), it isn’t as good as his 2.67 ERA (fourth among 68 qualified pitchers). It’s also worth noting that Soroka’s XwOBA is 30 points higher than his wOBA (.304 vs. .274), meaning he’s been getting significantly better results on balls in play than the quality of contact against him suggests, which in turn reinforces FIP’s message that Soroka, while great, has been experiencing unsustainably good luck.
On the flip side, Max Scherzer’s .248 XwOBA is significantly better than his .265 wOBA. Similarly, his 2.31 FIP outpaces his 2.56 ERA (though both are in the top two in the MLB, which is a large part of why Scherzer has a very good chance of completing the comeback in the NL Cy Young race and edging out Hyun-Jin Ryu and Jacob deGrom).
Pick: Washington to win (-154). Low confidence.
Los Angeles @ New York (NL)
From 2011 to 2013, Clayton Kershaw was a workhorse, with his lightest season of work a 227.2-inning year in 2012. In 2014, the injuries started, and they’ve rarely stopped.
Kershaw’s at 159 innings this year, and with three likely starts remaining, it’s possible he’ll pass 175 innings, his highest total since 2015. Over his last four starts, though, things have not gone well. In 22 innings, he’s turned in a 5.73 ERA and an unsightly 7.03 FIP. The sample’s small enough that it might be meaningless, and his velocity has stayed roughly constant, implying he isn’t wearing down, but it’s worth wondering if command might be leaving him, or if he’s changing his approach to deal with fatigue.
The most likely answer to the question of whether or not Kershaw’s wearing down is no. The Dodgers are more keenly aware of Kershaw’s workload than I could ever be, and with the division in the bag, it’s safe to say they’ll prioritize keeping him fresh for October over winning games the rest of the way. With that being said, just because we haven’t heard about an effort to limit his innings the rest of the way doesn’t mean such an effort isn’t happening, or that such concerns as these don’t exist.
Pick: New York (NL) to win (+118). Low confidence.
Miami @ San Francisco
The sorry state of San Francisco starting pitching is even more striking when considering their home games occur in one of the most pitcher-friendly environments in all of baseball.
As a whole, the Giants’ staff has managed just 3.7 fWAR on the year, nearly a full win worse than the next closest teams (the Angels, who use a lot of openers, and the Orioles, who are trying their best). It isn’t unthinkable that the Giants could finish the year with more bullpen fWAR than rotation fWAR, as the former currently sits at 2.8.
Today’s starter, Tyler Beede, sits just a hair below replacement level, with -0.1 fWAR over his 101.1 innings. He’s got a 5.30 FIP that nearly perfectly matches his 5.33 ERA. He’s not necessarily “bad”—being a replacement-level major league starter is an impressive feat for a mortal, and he’s been better by FIP than ten of his fellow 115 pitchers with at least 100 innings on the year. However, his average exit velocity is worse than 97% of his peers, and nearly half the balls hit against him have come off the bat at 95 mph or faster (36.5% is the median, Beede’s at 44.1%).
With Madison Bumgarner hitting free agency this offseason, the Giants have only one starter guaranteed to return who’s eclipsed one fWAR on the year. That’s Jeff Samardzija, and at 34, he and 33-year-old Johnny Cueto aren’t an ideal one-two punch. Don’t be surprised if the Giants use a lot of openers in 2020.
Pick: Miami to win (+143). Low confidence.
College Football
Washington State @ Houston (at NRG Stadium)
Houston’s defense took it on the chin in their last prime time game, watching Jalen Hurts and Oklahoma grab 11.3 yards per offensive play. And while Washington State doesn’t feature the kind of rushing attack that can post 9.6 yards per attempt against a Division I defense, nor the kind of sheer speed and power that make Oklahoma’s offense the top-rated in SP+., the Air Raid’s worked wonders in Pullman, and at least against two cupcake defenses, Gardner Minshew’s replacement—Anthony Gordon—has done well so far (11.9 yards per pass).
At this point in 2016, it looked like Houston might become the first Group of Five team to make the playoff. Times have changed.
Pick: Washington State -9.5. Low confidence.
