Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 554 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 3% 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 Savant, Spotrac, 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. 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.
St. Louis @ Arizona
Merrill Kelly’s return stateside didn’t get as much attention as, say, that of Miles Mikolas’ in 2018. It impressed, nonetheless.
Kelly, in what became his rookie season at the age of 30, will likely top 180 innings with an ERA under 4.50 and a FIP under 4.75. He may crack 2.0 fWAR. None of these numbers are spectacular, but for a guy who waited across an ocean for four years for his first MLB opportunity, it’s something, and the Diamondbacks are happy to have him for another year.
Pick: Arizona to win (-101). Low confidence.
Milwaukee @ Cincinnati
Just 24 years old, Tyler Mahle already has over 250 career innings under his belt.
The six he threw last Wednesday were still something special.
Mahle’s one-run, one-hit, two-walk start against the Cubs wasn’t spectacular, and will likely be remembered more by frustrated Cubs fans in the future than any particularly excited Reds fans. But it was still one of the five best starts of his career by Tom Tango’s version of Game Score, and it was a reminder of why the young guy with a 4.43 FIP projects to be a strong back end to a noteworthy 2020 rotation in Cincinnati.
Pick: Cincinnati to win (+130). Low confidence.
Boston @ Texas
Kolby Allard was not supposed to be anything too special. Ranked as the 24th-best prospect in a non-noteworthy farm system, his debut would have been met with little attention had he not just joined the franchise via trade, and were beat writers not starved for stories in the midst of what had become a plodding summer in North Texas.
He still might not be anything too special. But having crossed the 40-inning threshold with a 3.74 FIP, it’s fair to start considering him a potentially worthy compliment to Mike Minor and Lance Lynn as the Rangers try to break in their new ballpark with a wild card berth next fall. It’s still more likely than not that he’ll join their cast of spot starters, potentially even bouncing back and forth between AAA, but he’s shown he can pitch at the big-league level. As a first-round pick who was somewhat left for dead in the Atlanta farm system before coming to Texas in the Chris Martin deal, that’s a positive turnaround.
Pick: Texas to win (+130). Low confidence.
