MLB Win Totals
If you listen to 3 consecutive podcasts about a team, I congratulate you if your mental estimations of them and their players dont sky-rocket. A podcaster innocently trying to drum-up some excitement for their next episode will have you thinking, “Well sure that guy has hit a combined .199 the last 2 seasons, but if…” A random team reporter will have you excited for a pitcher that was an all-star a half decade ago. If you can listen to back-to-back spring training podcasts of a team without thinking, “Has any team ever gone 162-0 before?” “Will their games count as wins if the other team isnt able to record an out?” then kudos, kudos to you. Lets see what we like.
Yankees – (U 92.5) -122
First of all, this is just a fun bet. But to the rationale…a lot of this would seem to ride on the health and production of Severino and Cole. When 100%, Severino is full-on legit, but he has only been able to throw something like 18-19 total IPs since the end of 2019. Expecting Cole to replicate his numbers from 3-4 years ago is fool’s gold imo. From late last year: “Cole’s stuff and velocity mostly looked fine, but his command was off as it had been on occasion down the stretch of the regular season – 5.13 ERA in Sept” Cole will not be well-served if the sticky stuff police are again on duty this year. I dont think the Yankees, as an organization, have the pitching depth this year to adequately deal with Severino living on IL while Cole is getting sporadically lit-up. Cashman, I believe, fully realized his situation early in the off-season, which is why he throws a huge offer to Verlander. To compound difficulties, this is a team that under-delivered last year offensively. They ranked 13th in combined OPS (.729) and 19th in runs scored despite relatively healthy years for Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, and can you honestly count on that happening again? Would you really trust Hicks to get 300 plate appearances this year or to do anything productive with them if he did? Was going from Rizzo to Voit really just an expensive lateral move? In other words, this is an offense that cannot be counted on to cover the sins of a less than stellar pitching staff. The Yankees would have done well to add one more big arm to deal with the bats in Toronto and Boston, and they didn’t.
Cleveland – (O 76.5) -114
The AL Central is, imo, the most interesting division in baseball this year. This is when baseball really misses old-school divisional races. Imagine how great last year would have been with San Fran and LAD going to the end. At any rate, I personally think this Cleveland number is artificially low because a lot of bettors are going to be hot on the White Sox and Tigers. This is understandable, but those teams certainly are not without flaws. CWS lose Rodon to free agency this off-season and Lance Lynn goes down injured late in spring training, “the same knee that gave Lynn trouble during the second half of the 2021 season.” The Tigers look solid, but are still relying on elder statesman Miguel Cabrera as their primary DH entering the season, not to mention an infant @ 1B. I wound up taking 4 combined team win total over/unders last year and Cleveland under would have been my 5th. There were quotes and reports coming out constantly about the team struggling financially from pandemic stuff; the organization had the vibe of what Oakland is this year. But now things seem to be looking up. Bieber is back. Jose Ramirez is signing extensions. Civale, Plesac, Quantrill and McKenzie are young, fun guns. Emmanuel Clase may be the best closer in baseball already. They are no longer passive-aggressively demeaning a race of humans. Big X-factor(s) for this team? Rosario and Gimenez.
Mariners – (O 84.5) -115
As many of these bets go, this is more an indictment of the teams around them. Oakland and Texas are essentially after-thoughts…Houston has to be weaker. Who the Hell knows what the Angels do. This is a Mariner team way more likely to win 92 games than 75 games imo. So we will take the over.
I wish I had more but thats all for now…
EDIT:
Saying “thats all for now” when gambling…like being at a beer festival and saying “Im all set for the evening” an hour before it ends. Stop it, no one believes you, its sad. We sneak in a last minute under on the aforementioned White Sox. The Lance Lynn injury alone is almost enough in my mind to validate this pick. Not only does that push Keuchel into the #3 role, it may ultimately force Vince Velazquez into the rotation which will almost undoubtedly fail. Lynn inj gets coupled late with a Yoan Moncada IL designation also. Oblique strains can linger, and just think about this infield when Moncada is out. Abreu is now firmly in his mid-30s, as is Josh Harrison @ 2B. Tim Anderson is a stud but he is almost certainly not improving this year. You are getting the same numbers out of him or worse. And then @ 3rd…Burger? Hasnt done anything yet. Leury Garcia? He hit 5 HRs last yr in 126 games. Andrew Vaughn? He hit .235 last year. Add to these points one I made earlier. This division, I believe, will be intriguing and competitive. It would be no surprise to me at all if the winner of this division comes in at a sub-90 win total. I believe the moves made by the Twins, the young talent coming up with the Royals, the potential renaissance happening in Detroit, and Cleveland not going bankrupt ultimately translates to parity. The White Sox probably still have the best overall roster, but the gap is not where you thought it might have been at this point a year or 2 ago. So related to that, I also have action on non-White Sox division winner (+150). We will see how things go.
