Author: pat
MLB Over/Unders
Another year, another round of Regular Season Win Totals. We are a little over 48 hours out from first pitch in Queens, so these lines are essentially concrete. Now I missed the Dodgers and Padres because of their Korea adventure but Ill see if over the next couple days we can figure something out there. First things first, the numbers…as always, heavy juice noted…
Arizona D’backs – 84.5
Atlanta Braves – 101.5
Baltimore Orioles – 90.5
Boston Red Sox – 77.5
Chicago Cubs – 84.5
Chicago White Sox – 61.5
Cincinnati Reds – 82.5
Cleveland Guardians – 80.5
Colorado Rockies – 60.5
Detroit Tigers – 81.5
Houston Astros – 92.5
KC Royals – 73.5 (O -130)
LA Angels – 71.5
LA Dodgers –
Miami Marlins – 77.5 (U -130)
Milwaukee Brewers – 77.5
Minnesota Twins – 86.5
NY Mets – 81.5
NY Yankees – 92.5
Oakland A’s – 57.5 (O -130)
Philadelphia Phillies – 90.5
Pittsburgh Pirates – 76.5
SD Padres –
SF Giants – 84.5
Seattle Mariners – 87.5
St Louis Cards – 84.5
TB Rays – 85.5
Texas Rangers – 88.5
Toronto Blue Jays – 87.5
Washington Nationals – 66.5
How far we have come…in years past Vegas would pick out a very likely shitty team, boost up its win total by a tick and then throw (U -155) juice at you. But now only a handful of (-130s)…I can tell a lot of my action this year will be NC Central themed. Back in a day or 2 with the picks…
Over/Under # of Over/Under Picks (.5)
And the winner is under…I simply do not love anything this year. But Ill be around…
MLB Over/Unders
A positive year overall on these in ’22. The Yankees under pick was about as bad as it gets, but the AL Central stuff we played came through. Key to the rationale on the Central bets last year was the idea that the White Sox were being seemingly (some would say substantially) overvalued, especially relative to their division rivals. Heading into ’23, preliminary research overwhelmingly and repeatedly wants to lead us down a somewhat similar path. This time, it is the Dodgers looking vulnerable…Buehler out until very late, Lux the entire season. Do Tyler Anderson and Gonsolin have real chances of repeating LYs results? Signing JD Martinez as a DH? Chris Taylor’s ’22? JASON HEYWARD?? BUT, before we start chucking bets around, below, you can see 2 things on the NL West…the Dodgers Under has big juice, while simultaneously, most of their NL West mates have juice on their Over. In other words, folks seem very hip to this sitch.
It was largely assumed last year the CWS would ultimately control a division loaded with crappy franchises. Like LA this year, Chicago had flaws in ’22, but they were subtle enough to miss, or easily ignored given the accepted weakness of their division. The NL West is not giving us a similar narrative gift this Spring Training. The potential Dodger issues are relatively glaring, and teams like the Padres, Giants and D-backs are seen as capable of exploiting them. Indeed, the Dodgers Under may get action from us, but as a loose rule, its really difficult to like “loud” bets, and this is about as loud as these type of bets get. At any rate, we will see how the next few weeks shake-out. Ideally we will land on some plays that are quietly sitting in a corner with their head down. Here are where things stand…heavy juice noted.
ARIZ : 74.5 (O -150)
ATL : 95.5
BALT : 76.5 (O -150)
BOS : 77.5 (O -140)
CHC : 77.5 (O -140)
CWS : 83.5 (U -160)
CIN : 65.5
CLE : 86.5
COL : 65.5
DET : 69.5
HOU : 96.5
KC : 69.5
LAA : 81.5
LAD : 97.5 (U -145)
MIA : 75.5
MIL : 85.5
MINN : 83.5
NYM : 94.5
NYY : 94.5
OAK : 59.5
PHI : 89.5 (U -140)
PITT : 66.5
SD : 93.5 (O -140)
SEA : 87.5
SFG : 80.5 (O -140)
StL : 88.5
TB : 88.5
TEX : 82.5
TOR : 92.5
WAS : 59.5
The Bourne Identity
A Google program has potentially become sentient, causing some to fret over the future of humanity. Are computers becoming aware of themselves and the world around them? This morning I googled Premier League Standings.
Indeed, there is a chance that Google programs are so sentient that they have reached the consciousness level of Arsenal internet troll. If so, that’s a dystopian future I can get behind.
During this period, I generally stick to O/U season points or standings place finish, but those are not ready yet. There are a few points of interest until then. Chelsea and Tottenham are essentially even money to finish 3rd it looks like. Depending on the specific bet they actually flip who is favorite at times.
To Win League: Tott (+1200), Chelsea (+1600) – Tott fave
Winner w/out Man City or L’pool: Chelsea (+175), Tott (+185) – Chelsea fave
Top London Team: Chelsea (+115), Tott (+115) – Tie
Seems a little weird, potentially exploitable. The other interesting one for me involves top goalscorer longshots. Son, despite sharing this title with Salah is only (+1000). Vardy (+3000), though he turns 36 mid-season, scored 15 goals in only 25 games last year. And Mitrovic (+3500) has proven Premier League success and scored a trillion goals last year…Will Haaland (+350) win it? Wouldnt be surprising, but his value at this price isnt great, and the recent examples of Bundesliga imports are poor. Salah (+450) will be sitting during World Cup which helps but he is one of 4 Liverpool players in the top 12 on this odds sheet. If Jesus (+2500) could finish a sandwich he’d be very interesting.
Early Trends
Until further notice, I think it is worth blindly betting LA Dodgers team unders. The catchy tag-line following the Freeman signing went “Dodgers’ Best Line-Up Ever.” This team will certainly hit major grooves at points this year but they seem off at the moment. They needed a dropped fly ball on Sunday just to get multiple runs in Colorado, and only plated 2 runs the game previous. To be fair, Will Smith was out of the lineup for both those games and he’s no slap-hitter, but nevertheless, the team as a whole doesn’t appear locked-in offensively. Combine this with the media-generated expectation inflation, and ‘team total under’ becomes the play in the immediate future.
The same is going to be true for the time being in regards to D-backs team unders. No hit by SPs on back-to-back games to start the season…This team needs to prove itself offensively. Not impressed by 5 runs on Sunday in what turned out to be a BPen game and blowout.
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.
MLB Over/Unders
It is a return to old-times, as team O/Us are back to total wins, as opposed to winning %. We wind up going 3-1 with these last year, with Philadelphia going to the last weekend. We did well taking the Nationals under and Tigers over, but the Phillies W was fortunate. Shout-outs to Bryce Harper and Ranger Suarez, I owe you both a Yuengling. Here are the totals for 2022, we will make our picks a few days before Opening Day.
Arizona – 66.5
Atlanta – 91.5
Baltimore – 62.5
Boston – 85.5
CHC – 75.5
CWS – 91.5
Cincinnati – 74.5
Cleveland – 76.5
Colorado – 68.5
Detroit – 76.5
Houston – 91.5
Kansas City – 75.5
LAA – 84.5
LAD – 97.5
Miami – 76.5
Milwaukee – 90.5
Minnesota – 81.5
NYM – 90.5
NYY – 92.5
Oakland – 70.5
Philadelphia – 85.5
Pittsburgh – 65.5
San Diego – 89.5
SFG – 84.5
Seattle – 84.5
StL – 84.5
Tampa Bay – 88.5
Texas – 73.5
Toronto – 91.5
Washington – 71.5
TTIB (4)
Innings Management
Mike Matheny has a bit of a questionable rap when it comes to in-game decisions. I honestly cant really speak to that but I think we may have something on him now with innings management stuff. This is from an AP article following a strong start a couple weeks ago for Casey Mize in Detroit.
Mize tried to avoid manager A.J. Hinch at the end of the fourth, but it didn’t work.
“I was hoping to stay away from him, because I wanted to go another inning,” he said. “But we’re being careful with innings right now, and I understand that.”
Mize was playing Hide-and-Seek! Now Peralta in Milwaukee. Counsell pulls him mid-shutout last night…
“We’re just trying to conserve innings as we go,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He threw 50-some pitches last time, a little more this time and he’ll be full go next time. We were hoping to be a little shorter today.”
Now lets go to a post-game interview with Matheny after their July 20th game.
“We knew at some point we were going to have to take a break with our young pitchers, for sure,” Matheny said. “Instead of limiting them from the beginning, kind of let’s go, let’s pitch, let’s just see how they feel, and if at any point we need to take a pause, we do it. And this isn’t necessarily a shutdown as much as let’s just make sure that he’s feeling how he should be feeling and watch closely, use the medical team, use sports science, and figure out when it would be best to get him back in there.”
That was a quote on the day one of his promising young arms, Brady Singer, was put on the IL, and 3 days after he was rocked (2 IPs, 7 ERs). Matheny has cred in his dealings with pitchers considering his very successful catching and coaching careers, but his thinking here seems outdated. Hinch and Counsell come across as way more pro-active with limiting workload with their young-ins. Matheny would appear to favor the approach that as long as you swoop in directly after an issue has begun to emerge, thats an acceptable approach to innings management.
Again, the purpose of this series is to pin down things that are true. We honestly dont even know if Singer is legitimately injured, or if KC and Matheny are just creating something to give him a rest after getting shelled. What we can say confidently; of the 3 young pitchers discussed here, the only one that has gone on IL this year is the one with the coach saying “let’s go, let’s pitch, let’s just see how they feel.” The other 2 are humming along.
This Things I Believe (3)
Osaka
Dont know if plagiarize is the right word here…we are going to cite our source. There is a very knowledgeable (seems to me, anyway) guy on youtube named Cam Williams who will often do watch-alongs for tennis matches. He does Osaka’s match today, where she winds up losing to someone named Marketa Vondrousova. My spell check just exploded. I trust this guy for his insights and we are going to transcribe about a minute long quote of his in regards to this match and how it relates to potential Osaka tendencies…
“If youre going ‘what the Hell happened,’ this is what happened. Vondrousova came out here with a game-plan, of being aggressive and making Osaka move. She made her move…thirty-two unforced errors for Osaka…she made Osaka hit 32 errors, and the reason why I say made…she came out here with a game-plan, super aggressive, ultra-aggressive game-plan…and that made Osaka try and go for shots she wasnt comfortable to hit, she was trying to go for winners too early, Osaka, and that just filtered into missing so many shots…and she just made so many errors…errors, errors, errors…Vondrousova made Osaka make those errors. That is the blueprint on how to beat Osaka on a hard-court. A very similar scoreline, we saw Sakkari do that in Miami, Sakkari did the same thing, came out aggressive…Osaka gets a little stressed and goes ‘Hang on, Im supposed to be the dominating player here, why are you hitting winners?’ And then she gets a little stressed and she makes terrible errors…thats what happened today.”
Now the point of this series of blurbs is to try to drill down to true statements. Cam is including some hypothesizing about possible thoughts going through Osaka’s mind and how this affects her play. What we can say for the purpose of this entry, as Cam notes, 2 of Osaka’s most recent losses on hard-court are to players utilizing an ultra-aggressive game-plan. Osaka hits 32 errors vs Vondrousova and 23 vs Sakkari in Miami, losing both matches in straight sets. Is there a correlation between a super-attacking style and Osaka’s high unforced error total and eventual defeats? We cannot say for absolute certain, but recent results would suggest this scouting report/analysis has merit. Considering Osaka has won the last 2 majors on hard-court this is notable.
This Things I Believe (2)
Steelers OLine
We can say with confidence the Steelers OLine is going to look much different this year than from units of the recent past. We are not pointing out anything new by noting the eye-opening collective departures of proven Pro-Bowl talent players DeCastro, Pouncey, and Villanueva, not to mention Ramon Foster retiring before the 2020 season. As a result of this turnover, some folks are predicting rough times for the Steelers offense, which struggled at times last year as it was, especially in the run game. Whoever lines up will obviously be tasked with protecting an aging QB often described as “statuesque.” If you take an important unit that performed poorly last year, and then strip it of essentially all its proven talent, it would seem bad times are almost inevitable. And then the dominoes knock each other over and Steeler short-sellers have Pittsburgh finishing 3rd or 4th in their division. An already subpar OLine is only going to be worse this year. Ben, who has been integral to the success of PIT over the years is going to get his 300 year-old ass bombarded routinely. He will get hurt (or at least be super ineffective), the offense will be a shell of itself, Pittsburgh will be a collective hot mess. All of these things might happen, but what I am looking to point out here is that this argument rests on not 1, but 2 assumptions – that the OLine unit will be inevitably super poor, and ultimately that will be a main factor in a possible Steeler downfall this year. Tomlin recently noted; “(Last year) We were last in the league in rushing. We have nowhere to go but up from certain aspects.” That team finished 12-4…Even if the OLine proves a borderline disaster (which is not a given), there still exists the chance it ultimately just doesnt really matter in the standings.
As I noted yesterday, the idea behind this particular series of blurbs is to stick to statements we can make that are essentially fact. The story line of a low-grade OLine causing the Steelers to plummet in the standings might prove largely accurate…but all we can say for certain is that the PIT OLine will be very different than in years past. The team recently signed former Pro Bowler Trai Turner at OG and I would imagine they will continue to pursue reinforcements.
