Editor’s Note: Joe Stunardi is our resident guy-who-knows-numbers. He’d say this isn’t all that great, but over a sample size of 191 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 1% 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.
Nine (!) picks today.
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.
New York (AL) @ Arizona
Merrill Kelly makes the start tonight for the Diamondbacks, and if you’re unfamiliar with this particular rookie’s path to the majors, you might enjoy knowing it:
Drafted by the Rays out of Arizona State in 2010, Kelly worked his way through the Tampa Bay system, reaching AAA in 2013. Solid, but never excellent, Kelly wasn’t added to the Rays’ 40-man roster after the 2014, and when the Rule 5 draft came and went without a call, Kelly entered play in the Dominican Winter League uncertain of his future.
That future, as it turned out, was not limited to the Western Hemisphere.
While pitching in the Winter League, Kelly was approached by the SK Wyverns, a team in South Korea’s KBO. Over the next four seasons, Kelly transformed from a competent pitcher whose success was predicated on keeping the ball in the park to a hard-throwing comeback story worthy of another look back stateside.
Now, Kelly is a 30 year-old rookie serving as the Diamondbacks’ fifth starter, and things (3.94 ERA, nearly six IP per start) are going rather well.
Pick: New York (AL) to win -108. Low confidence.
Baltimore @ Chicago (AL) – Game 1 of Doubleheader
Carlos Rodon, the former third overall pick, is 26 years old. No longer a rookie (he threw nearly 70 innings in 2017 at the major league level, and over 120 last season), he’s at the stage where the White Sox need him to produce, and his performance so far has been a mixed bag, lowlighted by a three-inning outing last week against the Tigers in which he allowed eight runs on three walks and nine hits (including three home runs).
Still, there’s reason to be optimistic.
Even with last week’s debacle, his FIP sits below 4.00, and while his ERA is just shy of 5.00, he’s almost certainly poised for some positive regression. His LOB% (percentage of runners stranded on base) is a woeful 65.1% so far, which would have placed him as the second-worst in the majors in 2018 at working out of trouble. Sure, LOB% may not be a completely random statistic (maybe a guy throws better out of the stretch, maybe a guy gives up a lot of home runs, maybe a guy really does get rattled by having runners on base, maybe a guy’s exploitable through stolen bases and bunts, etc.), but even if Rodon returned to last year’s 72.0% figure (near the league-average), his ERA would, like his FIP, sit under 4.00.
Pick: Chicago (AL) to win -175. Low confidence.
Cleveland @ Miami
Noise is starting to be made about Corey Kluber’s rough start to the year. With an ERA of 5.81 and only two quality starts in six tries, there’s cause for concern. Similarly to Rodon, though (mentioned in the last blurb, if you didn’t read it), Kluber just isn’t stranding a lot of runners on base (his LOB% is 64.1%). And while his problems likely run deeper than timing and luck (his FIP of 4.18 would be his worst ever as a full-time major leaguer should it last the full season), timing and luck aren’t meaningless contributors.
But there may well be deeper problems, and if there are, they’re tied to control. Kluber is walking over three times as many batters per inning as he did last season, and while last year was a career-best for him when it came to free passes, he’s still walking far more batters than every before.
It’s a small sample, but after tonight’s start, over one fifth of Kluber’s 2019 outings will be complete, at the very least. These aren’t meaningless numbers. Cleveland, as an organization, is likely concerned. And Los Angeles (the Dodgers—we refer to the Angels as being from Anaheim or Orange County around these parts, even though we have absolutely no loyalty to LA), is probably breathing a small sigh of relief after trying unsuccessfully to trade for him over the winter.
We’ll see.
Pick: Cleveland to win -130. Low confidence.
Tampa Bay @ Kansas City – Game 2 of Doubleheader
Glenn Sparkman takes the hill tonight for the Royals, and if that doesn’t mean much to you, you’re not alone. Sparkman’s making only his fourth career major league start, with most of his 46 career innings coming as a relief pitcher.
Drafted by the Royals in 2013, Sparkman was a Rule 5 pick for Toronto prior to the 2017 season. He didn’t last long in Canada, getting the dreaded DFA in July of that year, at which point the Royals went and got him back.
It’s unclear what to expect from Sparkman tonight, which is especially concerning because the Royals might need a lot of innings, given this is the second half of a doubleheader. He did throw 74 pitches in relief against the Yankees a couple weeks back, so if he can keep his pitch count down, he might last four or five and give the Royals a chance.
Pick: Kansas City to win +190. Low confidence.
Colorado @ Milwaukee
Josh Hader is probably fine.
A breakthrough sensation in 2018, Hader’s had a rough go of things these last couple weeks, giving up home runs in four of his last five outings.
Beyond the home runs, though, Hader hasn’t allowed much—he did walk two against the Dodgers prior to a particularly damaging dinger, but he’s still only allowed eleven baserunners in nearly 15 innings. Over half of the hits he’s allowed have been home runs.
That seems likely to change, and as it does, Hader’s numbers will probably move back to something closer to last year’s. Good news for the Brewers, bad news for the rest of the NL.
Pick: Colorado to win +135. Low confidence.
St. Louis @ Washington
It’s been a bad time for Miles Mikolas so far in 2019, which is especially disappointing for the Cardinals because aside from Matt Carpenter, he was their most valuable player last year.
His home runs are up, which could be an anomaly, and his walks are up, which is more concerning. His strikeouts are down from their already low status, which makes the home run bit more concerning because it implies he may simply be more hittable.
Still, the Cardinals keep winning, and he’s at least flashed one encouraging glimpse, holding the Mets to six baserunners over eight innings a week and a half ago.
Pick: Washington to win -155. Low confidence.
Houston @ Minnesota
Martin Perez drew a casual mention here sometime recently, but he’s worth revisiting with a touch more depth. Inserted into the rotation halfway through April, Perez has been solid, lasting six innings in each of his three starts and allowing only six runs total across them.
Now, two of those were against the Orioles, and one was against the Blue Jays, but it’s better than having bad starts against those teams.
Pick: Minnesota to win +130. Low confidence.
Cincinnati @ New York (NL)
Jacob deGrom returned Friday night after a brief stint on the IL, and while his performance was, by all outward appearances (five runs in four innings), bad, there were encouraging bits. He struck out seven. All of the damage came in one inning. That inning included two groundball singles with exit velocities below 90 mph. Groundballs with exit velocities below 90 mph don’t usually become hits.
That isn’t to say deGrom is fine, but it is to say that he might be fine.
Pick: New York (NL) to win -180. Low confidence.
Los Angeles @ San Francisco
It’s May, and while Madison Bumgarner might not be posting the mesmerizing numbers he did from 2011 through 2016, he’s eating innings, and his FIP (3.54) belies that his ERA might soon drop from its current 4.30 perch. No, he might not be the same guy who dominated the NL West those six years (not to mention dominated a particular postseason), but he’s looking like a valuable piece, and in the final year of his contract, on a team destined for postseason irrelevancy, that could mean we see the man pitching for a different organization as soon as July. Which would feel unsettling.
Pick: San Francisco to win +130. Low confidence.
