Editor’s Note: Joe would downplay how successful this is, but over a sample size of 278 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), his picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 2% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high), meaning he’s been good enough to make money.
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Two picks for today’s games.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written.
- Data from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, and ESPN is often used and/or cited.
- The writeups often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. This is because in general, picks are being made because the numbers I’m using indicate the pick is beyond a certain confidence threshold, and I’m not coming across enough red flags to pass on it.
Tampa Bay @ New York (AL)
Masahiro Tanaka has, aside from dings and dents, remained healthy since partially tearing his UCL back in 2014. Still, he’s never enjoyed the success he had that year, in what was his debut season.
He’s been consistent since then, with his FIP always within 0.50 of 4.00, but he’s given up more home runs, walked more batters, and—with the exception of 2017, which was ironically his worst season to-date—notched fewer strikeouts.
When he went down in 2014 he had a 2.77 ERA backed by a 3.04 FIP. His best marks since in both those categories came in 2016, when he posted a 3.07 and 3.51.
That isn’t to say Tanaka’s been bad—a FIP between 3.50 and 4.50 is more than serviceable. But he hasn’t been what he once was, and while the Yankees likely hoped he’d lead the rotation for years to come, he’s instead simply filled its middle ranks.
Pick: New York (AL) to win -135. Low confidence.
Baltimore @ Oakland
In the eight starts Mike Fiers made prior to throwing a no-hitter on May 7th, he posted a 6.81 ERA and 5.62 FIP. In the six starts since that fateful night, he’s posted a 3.53 ERA and a 5.51 FIP.
As always, FIP tends to be more consistent than ERA when it comes to measuring a pitcher’s ability, and while Fiers may seem to be performing better since the no-hitter, he’s likely a fairly similar pitcher: a pitcher who clearly has the ability to be brilliant, but only rarely reaches that reserve.
Pick: Baltimore +1.5 -105. Low confidence.
