Sat, April 7. Braves (Jurrjens) at Mets (Dickey).
There has been a lot of talk recently in the gambling world about over estimating the amount of line value an injured player is worth above his replacement. Take for example the NBA. When a player gets injured his replacement is another professional who was likely the best player on his college team and there may be some value betting on the injured player’s team as the public has overreacted to the injury and forced the line to move more than it should. This theory holds true for many positions for many sports, but not for starting pitchers in baseball. While starting pitchers don’t go as deep into games as they used to, they are still a major determinative factor relative to their teammates when prices are set for baseball games. With that being said we will now take a look at the two starting pitchers in this matchup.
Jair Jurrjens was a really good pitcher the first half of last season. The second half he wasn’t. The reason for this is simple: his knee hurt. He was constantly sore. The training staff tried to get the soreness to go away but couldn’t. He tore his meniscus in 2010 and had surgery. I don’t know if he re injured his knee or never fully recovered or what the exact story is. It doesn’t matter. He didn’t have a great spring training and though he claims his knee is fine but has been reluctant to dial up the velocity on his fastball. Until I see it return I am going to assume it isn’t coming back. Either his knee is still bothering him or he is afraid to go full throttle and risk a re injury. Jurrgens is not the type of pitcher who can be dominant without his velocity. When the Yankees were looking to add arms this offseason they initially had interest in Jurrgens but backed off because they felt he possibly had a serious knee issue (so they went after someone with decreased velocity due to an arm issue instead in Pineda). Pitchers are finely tuned machines and when one part isn’t working right it can cause a multitude of other problems. Much like a professional golfer everything has to be flowing right for a pitcher to be effective. Take a look at this clip from a spring training game March 20th where Jurrgens falls down for no apparent reason after throwing a pitch: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=20235877&c_id=mlb I’d be hesitant to back him with cash until he proves he is capable of being his old self.
Now let’s take a look at R.A. Dickey. Even though Mets fans have soured on the team and ownership because of a massive cut in payroll due to financial involvement with Bernie Madoff, their support for Dickey on Saturday will be massive. Why? Because growing up he was repeatedly molested by a female babysitter as a child. He just released a book in which he chronicles the abuse. The reaction has been favorable as he has opened up about something that is not easy to talk about and it will help bring awareness to the subject. This will be his first time pitching in N.Y. since the details of his book were made public. I expect Dickey to feed off the energy of the crowd and have an inspired performance. Also if you follow Dickey on Twitter you know he is a pretty religious guy and this is supposedly the holiest weekend of the year, so he’s got that going for him. (Joking)
Now we will take a look at hitting. One player throughout the years has constantly killed the Mets with his bat. He has seriously owned them. He has had such success against the Mets especially in NY that I kid you not he named one of his children ‘Shea’ after Shea Stadium. His name is Larry Jones but most people know him as Chipper. Fortunately for the Mets he is injured. The Braves lineup may actually be a little overrated. Mitch Williams said today that NL pitching has ‘solved’ Jason Heyward and that he must adjust to have future success. That adjustment won’t come overnight. Sabermetricians put little to no value in individual batter vs hitter matchups. Sample size be damned this is one of the few areas I think they are just flat wrong. People also need to realize that just because a particular school of thought is embraced by the saber community doesn’t necessarily mean it is right. I remember watching a playoff game last year where a batter was facing a pitcher who the manager had just brought in who he was something like 6-13 with 3 hrs lifetime against and sure enough he goes yard. Peter Gammons a minute later tweets he is waiting for the first saber guy to tweet how the previous matchup stats were meaningless. Hitter-pitcher matchups can have even more value when it involves a pitcher with a unique style such as R.A. Dickey who is a knuckleballer. Chipper has owned Dickey but he is hurt. The rest of the Braves haven’t fared so well against him and Dan Uggla is 0-21. The only other Brave who has been able to hit him is Freeman. It wouldn't be smart to put a lot of stock in these numbers but I do believe they have some value.
The Mets lost Jose Reyes this offseason and Jason Bay is a shell of his former self but I actually think the Mets offense is slightly underrated. David Wright is playing for his next contract and Ike Davis and Lucas Duda are up and coming power hitters poised for breakout seasons. What worries me about the Mets the most is their defense. Daniel Murphy is at 2b because he can hit and is very below average with his glove. Duda’s defense in RF is not great either. This offseason the Mets traded for Andres Torres to play CF and improve the outfield defense but he hurt himself in the opener and will miss some games. Also another angle to consider is that this a Saturday afternoon day game after a Friday night that both teams have off. The Braves are a young team and it is not out of the realm of possibilities that some of them enjoy themselves a little too much Friday night in New York City.
I believe the Mets should be favored in this game and I make my true line (assuming 10 cent juice) Mets -130/Braves +120. This would mean the Mets have roughly a 55.5% chance of winning. No books have a line up yet for this game but hopefully their (and the public’s) perception of Jurrgens and the Mets offense is off and they hang an opener that offers enough value to warrant a bet.
True Line: Mets -130/Braves +120
There has been a lot of talk recently in the gambling world about over estimating the amount of line value an injured player is worth above his replacement. Take for example the NBA. When a player gets injured his replacement is another professional who was likely the best player on his college team and there may be some value betting on the injured player’s team as the public has overreacted to the injury and forced the line to move more than it should. This theory holds true for many positions for many sports, but not for starting pitchers in baseball. While starting pitchers don’t go as deep into games as they used to, they are still a major determinative factor relative to their teammates when prices are set for baseball games. With that being said we will now take a look at the two starting pitchers in this matchup.
Jair Jurrjens was a really good pitcher the first half of last season. The second half he wasn’t. The reason for this is simple: his knee hurt. He was constantly sore. The training staff tried to get the soreness to go away but couldn’t. He tore his meniscus in 2010 and had surgery. I don’t know if he re injured his knee or never fully recovered or what the exact story is. It doesn’t matter. He didn’t have a great spring training and though he claims his knee is fine but has been reluctant to dial up the velocity on his fastball. Until I see it return I am going to assume it isn’t coming back. Either his knee is still bothering him or he is afraid to go full throttle and risk a re injury. Jurrgens is not the type of pitcher who can be dominant without his velocity. When the Yankees were looking to add arms this offseason they initially had interest in Jurrgens but backed off because they felt he possibly had a serious knee issue (so they went after someone with decreased velocity due to an arm issue instead in Pineda). Pitchers are finely tuned machines and when one part isn’t working right it can cause a multitude of other problems. Much like a professional golfer everything has to be flowing right for a pitcher to be effective. Take a look at this clip from a spring training game March 20th where Jurrgens falls down for no apparent reason after throwing a pitch: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=20235877&c_id=mlb I’d be hesitant to back him with cash until he proves he is capable of being his old self.
Now let’s take a look at R.A. Dickey. Even though Mets fans have soured on the team and ownership because of a massive cut in payroll due to financial involvement with Bernie Madoff, their support for Dickey on Saturday will be massive. Why? Because growing up he was repeatedly molested by a female babysitter as a child. He just released a book in which he chronicles the abuse. The reaction has been favorable as he has opened up about something that is not easy to talk about and it will help bring awareness to the subject. This will be his first time pitching in N.Y. since the details of his book were made public. I expect Dickey to feed off the energy of the crowd and have an inspired performance. Also if you follow Dickey on Twitter you know he is a pretty religious guy and this is supposedly the holiest weekend of the year, so he’s got that going for him. (Joking)
Now we will take a look at hitting. One player throughout the years has constantly killed the Mets with his bat. He has seriously owned them. He has had such success against the Mets especially in NY that I kid you not he named one of his children ‘Shea’ after Shea Stadium. His name is Larry Jones but most people know him as Chipper. Fortunately for the Mets he is injured. The Braves lineup may actually be a little overrated. Mitch Williams said today that NL pitching has ‘solved’ Jason Heyward and that he must adjust to have future success. That adjustment won’t come overnight. Sabermetricians put little to no value in individual batter vs hitter matchups. Sample size be damned this is one of the few areas I think they are just flat wrong. People also need to realize that just because a particular school of thought is embraced by the saber community doesn’t necessarily mean it is right. I remember watching a playoff game last year where a batter was facing a pitcher who the manager had just brought in who he was something like 6-13 with 3 hrs lifetime against and sure enough he goes yard. Peter Gammons a minute later tweets he is waiting for the first saber guy to tweet how the previous matchup stats were meaningless. Hitter-pitcher matchups can have even more value when it involves a pitcher with a unique style such as R.A. Dickey who is a knuckleballer. Chipper has owned Dickey but he is hurt. The rest of the Braves haven’t fared so well against him and Dan Uggla is 0-21. The only other Brave who has been able to hit him is Freeman. It wouldn't be smart to put a lot of stock in these numbers but I do believe they have some value.
The Mets lost Jose Reyes this offseason and Jason Bay is a shell of his former self but I actually think the Mets offense is slightly underrated. David Wright is playing for his next contract and Ike Davis and Lucas Duda are up and coming power hitters poised for breakout seasons. What worries me about the Mets the most is their defense. Daniel Murphy is at 2b because he can hit and is very below average with his glove. Duda’s defense in RF is not great either. This offseason the Mets traded for Andres Torres to play CF and improve the outfield defense but he hurt himself in the opener and will miss some games. Also another angle to consider is that this a Saturday afternoon day game after a Friday night that both teams have off. The Braves are a young team and it is not out of the realm of possibilities that some of them enjoy themselves a little too much Friday night in New York City.
I believe the Mets should be favored in this game and I make my true line (assuming 10 cent juice) Mets -130/Braves +120. This would mean the Mets have roughly a 55.5% chance of winning. No books have a line up yet for this game but hopefully their (and the public’s) perception of Jurrgens and the Mets offense is off and they hang an opener that offers enough value to warrant a bet.
True Line: Mets -130/Braves +120
