Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 387 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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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 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.
Houston @ Cleveland
After finishing third in the American League last year in fWAR, much was expected of José Ramírez in 2019.
Instead, his value has had to come from baserunning and defense, as his offense is hardly above replacement-level.
Ramírez enters tonight with a 90 wRC+, down from matching 146’s the past two years. His walks are down from a career-high 15.2% in 2018 to 10.0% this year, right around his career average. He’s only slashing .245/.321/.423.
There are positive signs, though.
From May 1st to now, his wRC+ is 107. From June 1st to now, it’s 117. And from July 1st to now, it’s 174. Ramírez has homered in four straight games and recorded multiple hits in six of his last eight. He’s on fire, and with Cleveland suddenly only two games back in the division, it’s the perfect time.
Pick: Cleveland to win (+125). Low confidence.
Chicago (NL) @ St. Louis
Yu Darvish came out of the All-Star Break with two straight six-inning scoreless starts, in which he struck out a combined 15 while walking only one and allowing no home runs. His ERA’s down to 4.54 on the year. And even in his third post-Break start, he threw six innings of four-run ball in which his FIP was 3.90.
But a very good start to the second half doesn’t change that Darvish’s first half of 2019 was worse than par. While he certainly may have turned a corner, three starts isn’t a sufficient sample size to make such a judgment, especially given they all came against teams in the bottom half of the MLB in wRC+. A better guess as to his performance the rest of the way is that he’ll be something close to the 4.85-FIP pitcher he’s been so far over the entirety of 2019. Not bad for a fifth starter, but still not what the Cubs want out of him.
Pick: St. Louis to win (+110). Low confidence.
Milwaukee @ Oakland
With their starting rotation in flux, the Brewers send Adrian Houser to the mound tonight.
Houser’s made ten starts in 2019: four in AAA and six at the MLB level. In AAA, he’s been good: a 1.27 ERA, a 3.84 FIP. But at the MLB level, those starts haven’t gone well at all.
In 23 innings as a starter, Houser’s FIP is 6.23, more than double that of his as an MLB reliever this year. It’s not a huge sample, and it could be completely meaningless, but it isn’t nothing, and it’d take about four very good starts to even halve his starter/reliever gap.
Pick: Oakland to win (-120). Low confidence.
Detroit @ Anaheim
Drew VerHagen was called back up to the Tigers’ big-league roster last week after almost three months in the minors. His return didn’t go so well, as he walked four and allowed a home run en route to six earned runs over four innings.
VerHagen’s walk numbers at the MLB level this year are bad: 14 in only ten innings. But in AAA, he’s walked only 13 over 53 innings, suggesting a possible small-sample size anomaly. It’s possible there’s something real going on, but even something real shouldn’t produce that big of a number.
Pick: Detroit +1.5 (+125). Low confidence.
