Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 409 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.
Texas @ Cleveland
The Rangers are, for all intents and purposes, out of the playoff race. They’re now seven games behind the Rays for the American League’s final wild card spot, and with Joey Gallo sidelined at least a couple weeks more, that seven game gap is larger than it looks.
This isn’t exactly bad news. I mean, it is. But it’s more a letdown than a surprise. Had a Rangers fan been told before the season they might finish above .500, they’d either be pleasantly surprised or poorly informed.
As is often the case when a team outperforms expectations, there are bright spots in Texas, and one of the most notable is Danny Santana.
Santana, who’s split time between the middle infield and the outfield this year, came into the MLB with a bang back in 2014, posting a 132 wRC+ for the Twins. Since then, though, he’s struggled. In 2015 he had only a 38 wRC+, second-worst among all players with 250 or more plate appearances. Injuries to his hamstrings and shoulder followed in 2016, and the Twins designated him for assignment a month into 2017, sending him to the Braves. In Atlanta, things weren’t much better: a bacterial infection, a bad quad strain, a 50 wRC+ for the year when all was said and done. In 2018 he garnered only 32 MLB PA’s, and the best he could get for himself this past offseason was a minor-league contract with the Rangers.
That’s where things got weird. Santana came back. Strong.
After only nine games in AAA, Santana was called up to the major league team, where he’s been even better than he was in that rookie year. A 137 wRC+. 2.4 fWAR. 17 home runs.
Santana’s on the edge of the league’s top ten percent in exit velocity, and his sprint speed is faster than three quarters of MLB players. He’s been mashing the ball, and with his kind of speed, that’s brought back the .400+ BABIP he had as a rookie.
A .400+ BABIP is not sustainable, of course, but his career BABIP, even over all the tumult, is .344, implying Santana really is an outlier in the metric (as you’d expect from a fast man who hits the ball hard).
Chances are Santana won’t be signing a minor-league deal again this offseason.
Pick: Texas to win (+150). Low confidence.
Kansas City @ Boston
Mike Montgomery has now made three starts since joining the Royals. They’ve increased his pitch count (From 45 in his first outing with them to 78 the last time around), and he even made it through five innings against Cleveland a week and a half back.
In his last start, at home against the Blue Jays, Montgomery suffered a .467 opposing BABIP, which was largely responsible for his four earned runs. But he only walked one, and he struck out four, so while his one-start ERA was 8.31, his FIP for the outing was a clean 2.06.
Montgomery still has a long way to go in proving he can be a reliable MLB starter. But his chance is here. And it’s worth noting that ZiPS, Dan Szymborski’s projection system that’s heavily employed by FanGraphs, has the lefty projected to turn in a 4.57 FIP over the rest of the season. Nothing elite, but better than the FIP’s so far of 19 of the 74 qualified pitchers. Serviceable.
Pick: Kansas City +1.5 (+130). Low confidence.
Atlanta @ Minnesota
Mike Soroka is a favorite of this space, presumably because the Braves occasionally pop up in our numbers when he’s starting (he still seems to be underappreciated by the betting public), and because he’s fun to write about.
Soroka’s ERA, entering tonight, is a taut 2.37. His FIP is 3.17. If you expand both to include last year’s five starts, his career ERA is 2.58 and its FIP is 3.11.
Those are really good numbers.
If you draw the line at 110 innings pitched (Soroka’s thrown 114), Soroka’s eleventh in the MLB in FIP. He’s second in ERA. His home run rate is the lowest of all 75 pitchers with that many innings. His walk rate is among the 20 best. Moving over to Statcast, his average exit velocity is lower than that of 89% of pitchers, and his xwOBA is lower than 77% of his fellow pitchers.
Soroka has been, to date, a bona fide ace for the Braves. On a pitching staff that ranks 23rd in fWAR, that’s made a huge difference.
Pick: Atlanta to win (-105). Low confidence.
Pick: Under 10 (-105). Low confidence.
