Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 364 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), meaning he’s been good enough to consistently make the people money.
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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 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.
St. Louis @ Pittsburgh
On the surface, Dakota Hudson’s having a very good year for St. Louis. He’s 9-4. He’s got a 3.57 ERA. He’s thrown over 100 innings.
But his 5.15 FIP and 4.09 BB/9 IP are concerning. Those are, respectively, the fifth-worst FIP and eighth-worst walk rate among qualifying starters, and combined with the eleventh-lowest strikeout rate in the same group (6.62/9 IP), they paint a picture of a less effective pitcher than ERA suggests.
A sinker-baller, Hudson does induce a lot of softly hit ground balls, ranking in the bottom quartile of pitchers in Statcast’s average exit velocity, average launch angle, hard hit rate, and expected batting average. But when he gives up fly balls, he gets burned, with a league-high 23.1% home run/fly ball ratio. That ratio does look poised to regress in a positive direction, based on the law of averages if nothing else, but with walk numbers so high implying below-average control, that’s a dangerous line to walk.
Pick: Over 9 (-120). Low confidence.
Boston @ Tampa Bay
After contending for the division lead, or holding it, for much of the season’s first half, the Rays find themselves in a similar boat to the Red Sox: trying to stay afloat in a competitive playoff picture. As the leverage of each game mounts, this week’s series between the rivals is a tense one.
Into this environment, the Rays send Yonny Chirinos and his logic-defying .243 BABIP.
Chirinos is on the edge of the worst quartile in hard hit rate. He’s narrowly on the right side of the mean in expected batting average. Yet only four pitchers outpace him in BABIP, which likely means regression is coming.
When it comes, it won’t be too painful. Chirinos’ FIP is still a respectable 4.19.
But he won’t be this 3.29-ERA pitcher forever.
Pick: Over 7.5 (-120). Low confidence.
Kansas City @ Atlanta
Dallas Keuchel might be fine.
His ERA’s a strong 3.58.
He’s made it through the seventh inning in half his starts.
He’s only allowed more than three earned runs in an outing once.
But the Braves’ midseason acquisition is stranding an inordinate rate of baserunners: 80.3%, compared to a career-average of 73.5%. And on the basis of that and a BABIP that outpaces his career average by a 21-point margin, his FIP of 5.24 portends doom.
Well, maybe not doom, but certainly concern.
Pick: Kansas City +1.5 (+100). Low confidence.
