MLB Picks of the Day
By Zabo Jones
MLB Favorite of the day: Detroit Tigers -107
The Tigers and Padres are in an interleague series at Petco Park Saturday night. Anibal Sanchez is going to be starting for the Tigers against Dinelson Lamet. Both teams are likely going to miss the postseason, and it’s pretty hard to see when they will be contenders again.
Anibal Sanchez is going to be starting for the Tigers. Sanchez is likely in the last year of his 5 year contract (there is a team option for next year, but I think it’s pretty clear that the Tigers won’t pick that up), and I imagine the Tigers want Sanchez to improve a lot this season so they have an opportunity to trade him for a mid-level prospect. It’s not looking like he’s going to improve though, he has an ERA of 7.96, and has been allowing almost 3.5 homeruns per nine innings. His flyball to homerun ratio is high, but not outrageous, the biggest problem is that he has only a 31% groundball rate. Granted, he has only pitched 24 innings, but it’s still a concern that he’s more than 10% below his career average. I’m not sure that Sanchez is going to improve much. He of course won’t continue pitching with an 8 ERA, but I don’t think he will be below 4.50 either.
Pitching for the Padres is going to be Dinelson Lamet. Lamet is making just his sixth career start, and so far has struggled a little bit. He has an ERA of 7.50, but his xFIP is much better at 3.91. His strikeout rate throughout the minors was awesome, and that has continued in his MLB stint, at 35%. While this is above his projections, it speaks to the movement that he is able to get on his 95 mile 2-seamer that he throws. Even still, I like the Tigers in this game. The Padres have no offense, so I’m not really that concerned about Anibal Sanchez, even knowing how bad he’s been. The Tigers offense isn’t as great as it was in 2013, but it’s still above average, so at -107, I’m fine with the Tigers here.
MLB Underdog of the day: Pittsburgh Pirates +124
Early in the season, I was pretty high on Pittsburgh. I thought they had a good chance to compete for a wild card spot once again, and maybe even scare the Cubs early in the season. Gerrit Cole in particular, I thought had a strong chance to be a Cy Young candidate this season, even though he had a pretty disappointing 2016. The Pirates are going to be playing the Cardinals, who are going to be starting Lance Lynn.
Gerrit Cole may not quite live up to being the number one overall pick by the Pirates, but he’s still certainly a good pitcher, who has a bit of an unfair reputation. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about his inability to develop a strong breaking pitch, while simultaneously failing to put any movement on his fastball, making it pretty easy to hit. I think the second criticism there is fair, the Pirates are well known for making their pitchers add some movement to their fastballs, and discouraging 4-seamers. They had Charlie Morton throw his sinker ball much more often, Francisco Liriano moving towards a 2-seam fastball rather than 4-seam, and a number of other examples. Cole has continued depending on his 4-seamer, and it would probably help to add a moving fastball, but he’s still been pretty good. He has a strikeout rate of 7.37 per nine, this is not as high as one should expect from Cole, but it’s not shockingly low. He has managed to reduce walks, and maybe that has been a tradeoff the Pirates want him to make. I think it’s likely that Cole is going to continue to improve as the season continues.
Lance Lynn is going to be starting for the Cardinals. Lynn has been pretty good this season, with an ERA of 3.33, but his peripheral stats are much less impressive. He has a FIP of 5.31, and xFIP of 4.61. Lynn has outperformed his peripherals throughout his career, even though the Cardinals are not known to field a great defense. This probably speaks to his ability to have a good batted ball profile. The Pirates offense isn’t great, but this is great value. I think it’s entirely possible that Cole is going to outperform Lynn for the rest of the season, and Lynn will move a little closer to his peripherals. In a divisional game, I think the Cardinals are too heavy of favorites here. I don’t have any totals picks for today, so these are going to be my only picks.
