Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 514 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 4% 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 not be a great annual ROI for an investor. But it’s not too shabby on a daily basis.
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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 and predictions from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Spotrac, Sagarin, Massey Ratings, and ESPN is/are 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. I don’t explain the picks 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.
Tampa Bay @ Texas
It’s understandable, since the Rangers aren’t in the playoff picture and his 3.81 ERA is more mildly impressive than the FIP that accompanies it, but Lance Lynn isn’t getting as much attention as he deserves. The burly right-hander has posted a 3.12 FIP, to date, in his first year in Texas, accumulating 5.9 fWAR, tied with Jacob deGrom and trailing only Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole among pitchers.
He’ll get some Cy Young votes. But probably not as many as his performance warrants.
Pick: Texas to win (+125). Low confidence.
Oakland @ Houston
The best thing about the Zack Greinke trade for Houston is, of course, getting Zack Greinke. Year in and year out, he’s one of the best pitchers in the game, and as a third option, he makes a playoff rotation the stuff of dreams.
But one of the other benefits is that Wade Miley is not as important to the Astros’ World Series hopes as he was before Greinke.
Miley, to be sure, has had a good year. His 4.46 FIP is solid, and his 1.9 fWAR is a meaningful contribution. He’s got a shot to make it the second-best season in his career by the latter. But his 3.35 ERA is misleading. Yes, his .269 BABIP might actually hold up (his .234 XBA is actually better than its .236 real-life counterpart, demonstrating Miley’s excellent rates of weak contact). But his 78.6% LOB rate will, in the vast majority of possible scenarios, be lower in the playoffs. It’s just not a sustainable number.
Miley is, to his credit, a pitcher whose ability to induce weak contact makes his FIP misleading. But he’s still not a 3.35 pitcher. As a fourth option, he’s exactly what a team can reasonably want. Which, again, makes Greinke all the more valuable.
Pick: Oakland to win (+150). Low confidence.
Cleveland @ Anaheim
Times aren’t great in Cleveland. José Ramírez is out. The team’s on the outside of the playoffs, looking in. Corey Kluber probably isn’t coming back.
But at least there’s Francisco Lindor.
Lindor is, year in and year out, one of baseball’s best players. He’s also one of its most entertaining players. And his season this year has been no less entertaining than the rest. His production trails his monster 2018, but he’s still at a 122 wRC+, 29 home runs, and 4.5 fWAR. It might not be enough to make the playoffs, but it’s enough to keep things together while Cleveland tries to get there. And if they do make it, with every additional week they play, the probability rises they’ll start getting their guys back.
Pick: Over 9.5 (-115). Low confidence.
