Editor’s Note: Joe Stunardi is our resident guy-who-knows-numbers. He’d downplay how good this is, but over a sample size of 237 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), his picks published here and back at All Things NIT have had an average return on investment of 2% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high), meaning he’s about as successful as a bettor who wins 53% of their straight bets.
As always, use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose following Joe’s picks. At the same time, though, you’re also responsible for any money you win.
Similarly, if you have a gambling problem, or even think you might have a gambling problem, get help. If you need help getting help, reach out to us at allthingsnit@gmail.com.
Three picks for today’s games.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written.
- FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, and Spotrac are all great.
- The writeups for each pick aren’t justifications. The justification for each is that the numbers I’m using indicate its expected payout is positive by more than a standard deviation or two. The writeups are just words about the teams playing the games.
Oakland @ Detroit
Spencer Turnbull was not expected to be this good.
Far from a top 100 prospect, the Tigers’ homegrown starter limped to a 6.06 ERA over a sixteen-ish inning cup of coffee last year. But below that lurked a 2.85 FIP, indicating an oversized dose of bad luck had visited the former second-round pick.
Eight starts into 2019, Turnbull is pitching about as well as anyone in the AL Central, putting up a 2.42 ERA with a still-impressive 3.62 FIP. His outings aren’t always the longest (he’s only lasted six innings in half of them), but for a rookie, that’s an area of small concern. Early in his professional career, Turnbull is showing he could be something special.
Pick: Detroit to win +140. Low confidence.
Chicago (NL) @ Cincinnati
It’s May, and Luis Castillo looks really freaking good. The third-year, 26-year-old righty is anchoring the Reds rotation with an eye-popping 2.75 FIP, and an even more astounding 1.76 ERA. In his “worst” start of the year (by the method of Game Score used on FanGraphs), he allowed two runs over five innings against the Dodgers.
More impressively, this isn’t that far off his career average. While his ERA did wind up at 4.30 last year, it was 3.12 in half a season in 2017, and his FIP has averaged out at 3.87. Does he appear poised to regress? Sure. But even with some regression, he might find himself in the Cy Young race when all is said and done.
Pick: Chicago (NL) to win +125. Low confidence.
Pittsburgh @ San Diego
The third man in today’s unintentional good-young-pitcher series is Pirates’ starter Trevor Williams. Williams entered the league in 2016, but first got a meaningful quantity of innings in 2017. His performance last year was impressive: 170+ innings, 3.11 ERA, 3.86 FIP.
He doesn’t strike many guys out (6.82 K/9 IP over his career), but he gets results, and his 3.12 FIP so far in 2019 points to a blossoming starter.
Pick: Pittsburgh to win +118. Low confidence.
