This new split-finger fastball is becoming quite an effective weapon for Wheeler, so much so, that it is not even properly registering on Pitch F/X data. Batters are currently swinging and missing at the pitch at a well over 17% clip and today he faces a Philly team that A) hasnt seen the pitch yet and Has not performed well vs other pitchers who feature a split-finger fastball. Every single batter in the Phillies lineup has a whiff rate above 15% in their career vs the pitch as well as a batting average below .240 when making contact with it. The under bet is very enticing here too with both starting pitchers having K rates in the double digits when the sun is out.
This is large pitching mismatch that deserves better odds than this in my opinion. Without Cespedes and his .429 AVG/1.538 OPS against Nola in the lineup, no other Mets player has really had any success against him besides Conforto...who can't hit his way out of a wet paper bag right now. In addition, Oswalt's inability to throw a lot of pitches is going to expose the fringe guys in the Mets horrendous bullpen which leads the league in losses by the relievers.
Tigers/Liriano +193
Archer is going to be on a 75 pitch limit which will likely get him out of the game after the 5th inning, maybe the 4th inning since he does have issues from time to time with pitch efficiency. While the pen is rested...with bullpen games set-up over the next 2 days, the long men like Yarbrough and Andriese will likely be unavailable. Because of recent injuries to Font, Roe, and Venters, this will leave the middle innings to a couple of newcomers in Adam Kolerek, Jamie Schultz, and Hunter Wood who have a combined 8 IP of experience this season.
This new split-finger fastball is becoming quite an effective weapon for Wheeler, so much so, that it is not even properly registering on Pitch F/X data. Batters are currently swinging and missing at the pitch at a well over 17% clip and today he faces a Philly team that A) hasnt seen the pitch yet and Has not performed well vs other pitchers who feature a split-finger fastball. Every single batter in the Phillies lineup has a whiff rate above 15% in their career vs the pitch as well as a batting average below .240 when making contact with it. The under bet is very enticing here too with both starting pitchers having K rates in the double digits when the sun is out.
Prior to game time, I don't see how this is relevant. Batters see the ball better in daylight.
Prior to game time, I don't see how this is relevant. Batters see the ball better in daylight.
You are right that across MLB, the difference between night and day is negligible, but among individual pitchers, I think some guys are tougher to pick up during the day. For example, I think Jacob deGrom's day/night split has merit. But maybe you think just random noise?
I'm not sure if it's a lack of advance scouts or a lack of data communication between the minor league scouts and the report builders at the MLB level....but the Mets are notorious for being consistently dominated by SPs making their debuts against the club. Today, the Phillies #11 prospect makes his MLB debut in the middle of what has been the best season of his career. He brings a 1.89 ERA from (AAA) across 16 starts along with a strong 11.9% SwStr rate, including double digit swings and misses in 11 of those starts. The reason for his massive success is the new slider that the Phillies player development team added to his arsenal. It has immediately become a plus pitch and he's been throwing it a ton this season. This is troubling for the Mets as essentially their entire roster struggles vs pitchers who feature the slider with everybody but Bautista having a Whiff Rate above 15% vs the pitch and no one having an average above .240 in their careers.
Orioles/Cashner +206
Tanaka is being activated of the DL for today's game after missing a month with strains of both of his hamstrings. After a rough 1st inning, allowing a 2 R HR, he looked decent during his rehab start, throwing 69 pitches across 5 IP. That said, there was quite a bit of Hard Contact in that game against him and he's making his return in a ballpark where he has struggled to perform. Over his last 3 starts in Camden Yards, Tanaka has a 7.88 ERA allowing 32 base-runners and 4 HRs across 16 IP. With Cashner seemingly having the ability to keep Judge and Stanton in check (2 for 21 against) so far in his career....I'll take a crack at the Orioles here.
Cardinals/Mikolas -164
So much for the boost to the White Sox that Avisail Garcia gave as the OF finds himself back on the DL with a strained hamstring. Without him, the White Sox lineup is without a bat above Matt Davidson's phantom .797 OPS (it's propped up by a huge April. Since May 1st his OPS is .692). This really hurts the White Sox chances today as they will need to score some runs with Dylan Covey's 13.20 ERA over the last 4 starts on the mound.
Twins/Slegers -163
Ian Kennedy seems to be rushing back from his oblique injury after spending only the minimum 10 days for an injury that generally takes a lot longer to heal. Even worse, he's coming back to a horrible matchup as these Twins batters have absolutely destroyed him throughout his career. Across 148 Plate Appearances, current Twins batters have a .326 AVG/1.029 OPS against with 10 HRs and 25 total runs scored.
I'll find some spare change in the couch for this one.
Tigers/Zimmerman +125
Tigers/Rays o7.5 runs +105
Day Game + facing a lefty in Ryan Yarbrough with Hunter Wood leading off the game after throwing 30 pitches on Monday. Jordan Zimmerman has also been displaying a bit of a resurgence over the last few starts as he's starting to gain confidence in his curveball once again. Over his last 2 starts, he's upped his curve-ball usage from a career average of 12-13% to over 23% at the expense of his fastball. The change in usage resulted in double digit swings and misses in both games as the Curve is running a whiff rate near 17% vs his fastball's 6% whiff rate. On the Rays side, their bullpen is exhausted with Stanek, Alvarado, Kolarek, Schultz, and maybe Sergio Romo (has pitched 3 of the last 4 days) all unavailable after working back to back high pitch count days. With a tired bullpen on one side and a terrible (albeit rested) bullpen on the other, I like the over here too.
Mets/deGrom -155
A lot of opportunity lately to bet against SPs coming off the DL with Phillies Vince Velasquez being the newest one today. He's actually struggled quite a bit against the Mets in the past with a career record of 1-3 with a 4.61 ERA and .788 OPS against him. Michael Conforto and Asdrubal Cabrera in particular seem to get really good looks at him with both having OPS marks above the 1.000 mark.
I'm loving the swing and miss stuff I'm seeing from young Freddy so far. For me...the ability to generate swings and misses is the king stat above all others for SPs and he's posted double digits in all 6 of his MLB starts thus far and 13 straight games if you include his minor league starts as well (Disclaimer: this excludes his 1 minor league start where he got pulled early for his promotion. Still generated 8 in 3 IP though). My only concern with him is the fact that he doesn't have a viable 3rd pitch which will be a problem once team's start seeing him multiple times. For today though, that's not a concern as the Marlins will be facing him for the first time.
Comments
Mets/Wheeler -102
Mets/Phillies u8 runs -110
This new split-finger fastball is becoming quite an effective weapon for Wheeler, so much so, that it is not even properly registering on Pitch F/X data. Batters are currently swinging and missing at the pitch at a well over 17% clip and today he faces a Philly team that A) hasnt seen the pitch yet and
This is large pitching mismatch that deserves better odds than this in my opinion. Without Cespedes and his .429 AVG/1.538 OPS against Nola in the lineup, no other Mets player has really had any success against him besides Conforto...who can't hit his way out of a wet paper bag right now. In addition, Oswalt's inability to throw a lot of pitches is going to expose the fringe guys in the Mets horrendous bullpen which leads the league in losses by the relievers.
Tigers/Liriano +193
Archer is going to be on a 75 pitch limit which will likely get him out of the game after the 5th inning, maybe the 4th inning since he does have issues from time to time with pitch efficiency. While the pen is rested...with bullpen games set-up over the next 2 days, the long men like Yarbrough and Andriese will likely be unavailable. Because of recent injuries to Font, Roe, and Venters, this will leave the middle innings to a couple of newcomers in Adam Kolerek, Jamie Schultz, and Hunter Wood who have a combined 8 IP of experience this season.
Prior to game time, I don't see how this is relevant. Batters see the ball better in daylight.
You are right that across MLB, the difference between night and day is negligible, but among individual pitchers, I think some guys are tougher to pick up during the day. For example, I think Jacob deGrom's day/night split has merit. But maybe you think just random noise?
Thanks for the comment. :thumbup2:
Phillies/De Los Santos -109
I'm not sure if it's a lack of advance scouts or a lack of data communication between the minor league scouts and the report builders at the MLB level....but the Mets are notorious for being consistently dominated by SPs making their debuts against the club. Today, the Phillies #11 prospect makes his MLB debut in the middle of what has been the best season of his career. He brings a 1.89 ERA from (AAA) across 16 starts along with a strong 11.9% SwStr rate, including double digit swings and misses in 11 of those starts. The reason for his massive success is the new slider that the Phillies player development team added to his arsenal. It has immediately become a plus pitch and he's been throwing it a ton this season. This is troubling for the Mets as essentially their entire roster struggles vs pitchers who feature the slider with everybody but Bautista having a Whiff Rate above 15% vs the pitch and no one having an average above .240 in their careers.
Orioles/Cashner +206
Tanaka is being activated of the DL for today's game after missing a month with strains of both of his hamstrings. After a rough 1st inning, allowing a 2 R HR, he looked decent during his rehab start, throwing 69 pitches across 5 IP. That said, there was quite a bit of Hard Contact in that game against him and he's making his return in a ballpark where he has struggled to perform. Over his last 3 starts in Camden Yards, Tanaka has a 7.88 ERA allowing 32 base-runners and 4 HRs across 16 IP. With Cashner seemingly having the ability to keep Judge and Stanton in check (2 for 21 against) so far in his career....I'll take a crack at the Orioles here.
Cardinals/Mikolas -164
So much for the boost to the White Sox that Avisail Garcia gave as the OF finds himself back on the DL with a strained hamstring. Without him, the White Sox lineup is without a bat above Matt Davidson's phantom .797 OPS (it's propped up by a huge April. Since May 1st his OPS is .692). This really hurts the White Sox chances today as they will need to score some runs with Dylan Covey's 13.20 ERA over the last 4 starts on the mound.
Twins/Slegers -163
Ian Kennedy seems to be rushing back from his oblique injury after spending only the minimum 10 days for an injury that generally takes a lot longer to heal. Even worse, he's coming back to a horrible matchup as these Twins batters have absolutely destroyed him throughout his career. Across 148 Plate Appearances, current Twins batters have a .326 AVG/1.029 OPS against with 10 HRs and 25 total runs scored.
I'll find some spare change in the couch for this one.
Tigers/Zimmerman +125
Tigers/Rays o7.5 runs +105
Day Game + facing a lefty in Ryan Yarbrough with Hunter Wood leading off the game after throwing 30 pitches on Monday. Jordan Zimmerman has also been displaying a bit of a resurgence over the last few starts as he's starting to gain confidence in his curveball once again. Over his last 2 starts, he's upped his curve-ball usage from a career average of 12-13% to over 23% at the expense of his fastball. The change in usage resulted in double digit swings and misses in both games as the Curve is running a whiff rate near 17% vs his fastball's 6% whiff rate. On the Rays side, their bullpen is exhausted with Stanek, Alvarado, Kolarek, Schultz, and maybe Sergio Romo (has pitched 3 of the last 4 days) all unavailable after working back to back high pitch count days. With a tired bullpen on one side and a terrible (albeit rested) bullpen on the other, I like the over here too.
Mets/deGrom -155
A lot of opportunity lately to bet against SPs coming off the DL with Phillies Vince Velasquez being the newest one today. He's actually struggled quite a bit against the Mets in the past with a career record of 1-3 with a 4.61 ERA and .788 OPS against him. Michael Conforto and Asdrubal Cabrera in particular seem to get really good looks at him with both having OPS marks above the 1.000 mark.
I'm loving the swing and miss stuff I'm seeing from young Freddy so far. For me...the ability to generate swings and misses is the king stat above all others for SPs and he's posted double digits in all 6 of his MLB starts thus far and 13 straight games if you include his minor league starts as well (Disclaimer: this excludes his 1 minor league start where he got pulled early for his promotion. Still generated 8 in 3 IP though). My only concern with him is the fact that he doesn't have a viable 3rd pitch which will be a problem once team's start seeing him multiple times. For today though, that's not a concern as the Marlins will be facing him for the first time.