| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 2 | 1 | 0.00 | +2.10 |
| Last 30 Days | 36 | 48 | 0.00 | -8.22 |
| Season to Date | 73 | 89 | 0.00 | -4.89 |
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Listed pitchers must go
Both plays are for 2 units
Baltimore +106 over HOUSTON
We’re not sure how you get shut out by John Danks and the White Sox but that’s exactly what Danks did to the Astros yesterday. It’s just one game but it doesn’t change the fact that the Astros own the lowest home batting average in the league at .222. That’s worse than Philly, San Diego, the White Sox and every other team in the majors. That makes the Astros a significant risk when spotting a tag and while we admire the passion and heart they play with, their record is likely going to start evening out unless they can improve their on base numbers. Furthermore, this isn’t Dallas Keuchel or Colin McHugh that we’re betting against, this is Brett Oberholtzer. Oberholtzer returns from a stint on the disabled list due to a blister on his pitching hand. He was forced to leave his first start of the season on May 13 due to that injury. He struggled with a 5.68 ERA over three starts with AAA-Fresno this season. Last season he went 5-13 with a 4.39 ERA in 144 innings for Houston. Some will note the big jump in command (just 28 walks last year) and perhaps assign some value to him but don’t count us among them. We see that the few walks came without the support of first-pitch strikes (just 56%) and it makes us skeptical. As a fly-ball, soft-tosser with his change-up as his only true K pitch, Oberholtzer’s value is linked heavily with a friendly hr/f, which we can't bet on, especially against a home-run hitting team like the O’s. Oberholtzer owns a 4.40 xERA across 218 big league innings. There’s not much profit in this arm.
Ubaldo Jimenez came damn close to winning a Cy Young in 2010 after posting a 19-8 record with a 2.88 ERA pitching for the Rockies. Subsequently, there was plenty of injuries and time missed in his years with Cleveland before coming to Baltimore last season. In 2012 and 2013, Jimenez walked 95 and 80 batters in 176 and 182 innings respectively. In his first season with the O’s last year, Jimenez rediscovered his poor control in spectacular fashion with 77 walks in 126 innings. He also missed time with a bad ankle but his skills were off all year. His fastball was 2 mph slower, his swinging strike rate was down and his first-pitch strike rate was a mess. This year, things have changed to the good for Jimenez. Jimenez owns a strong 3.14 ERA and 1.18 WHIP after nine starts, and he's posting the best skills of his career thanks to a career-best groundball rate of 52% and 8.5 K’s/9. The biggest improvement however is his control, where he was walked just 14 batters in 52 frames. Jimenez still carries risk because his history says he’s in danger of “losing the plate” at any time but these free swinging Astros figure to help him some. At worst, Baltimore has at least a 50% chance of winning here but we’re more inclined to say 60% based on each starter’s win expectation.
Milwaukee +133 over ST. LOUIS
In two starts since coming off the DL, Jamie Garcia has pitched 13 innings. He’s issued five walks and struck out eight batters. His first-pitch strike rate of 53% combined with his swing and miss rate of 5% says that he’s walking on very thin ice. Garcia has always had decent skills and we must consider that this is a real small sample size compared to the other pitchers that have 10 starts already this year. However, his underlying numbers and 1.38 WHIP are unstable and this is not a pitcher worth spotting this price with. Play the Cardinals here and perhaps you’ll cash your ticket, which wouldn’t surprise anybody. However, if you do play the Cardinals, you are paying a significant premium to do so because Mike Fiers has much more value taking back a tag than Jamie Garcia will ever have spotting one.
Remember Fiers? He came up in the middle of 2012 as a nobody. Prospect lists and evaluators all overlooked him, and for seemingly good reasons: In 55 AAA innings prior to his call-up, he owned a 4.42 ERA as a 26-year-old. He certainly built off that upon arriving at the show, as he finished 2012 with a 3.74/3.47 ERA/xERA split. In 2013, Fiers went astray, as he appeared in just 11 games with just three of those coming as a starter. He posted a 7.25 ERA in that 2013 year in the majors with a WHIP of 1.58 while spending much time in the minors. Last year he bounced back with a vengeance by posting a 2.13 ERA with a WHIP of 0.88. Fiers allowed a measly 46 hits last season in 71.2 innings. The adjustment can clearly be seen in his positioning on the mound. Fiers’ horizontal release point shifted more than a foot from 2012 to 2013. Fiers changed his spot on the rubber fairly drastically in early 2013. (Note the position of his foot with respect to the “C” on the mound, with 2013 on the left and 2014 on the right.)
Who knows why he changed his spot on the rubber after a good 2012 season, but he did. He’s back to the same spot he used when he was effective in 2012 and 2014 and now he just needs his luck to change a bit. Fiers is striking batters out at an even higher rate than a season ago (63 K’s in 51.2 innings this year) and his swinging strike rate of 12% shows he should continue to rack up the strikeouts. It’s important for a right-hander to figure out how to tame lefty batters but it looks like Fiers has the secondary pitches to handle lefties. In order to get righties out better, he had to move closer to them on the mound and improve his best offering against them. Given that he nearly doubles his cutter usage against righties, and now (once again) throws it more than his changeup, it looks like Fiers figured this out pretty quickly and we didn’t even have to mention the beautiful rise on his 88 mph fastball that is now up to 90 MPH. Fiers has displayed the ability to fool major league hitters, particularly in his last 18 starts dating back to last season. When the fly balls stop leaving the park and balls in play stop finding holes, Fiers' ERA should improve substantially. This is a really good pitcher that hasn’t had much luck. His current surface ERA of 4.53 provides us with this outstanding buy-low opportunity.
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Just wanted to mention that I have read all the posts or comments in all the previous threads over the last week or two and I really do appreciate all the support, well wishes and encouragement during a bad month of May. That said, the negative comments will not keep me from posting, as I couldn't care less about them or who they are from. I'm used to it from years and years of posting plays and it phases me not. I know that Value + Patience + Discipline + Persistence = Profit. If you want that get rich quick shit try the MegaMillions, Powerball or whatever lottery is in your area with 87 million to one odds. I try and make this business respectable by portraying realistic results and posting them for everyone to see. Also, I don't just talk the talk. I wager on every game I post. The only thing I do is provide information and opinions on games. What one does with that info is up to the individual. My record over the years in baseball and other sports speaks for itself so an inevitable bad run does not bother me a bit, as I'm in for the long haul and usually get it back with interest.
The good people on here far outweigh the negative comments from a few by a wide margin. I've met some GREAT people and handicappers in this forum and in the NHL forum. The good one's with constructive things to add stick around for a long time and they are all absolutely, 100% worth my time and the time I take to read their posts.
BEST OF LUCK MOVING FORWARD!
