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2022 MLB All-Star Game and Home Run Derby Overview

TC:

And welcome aboard wherever you may be. Join us here on the MLB Show. It is BetUS. I am TC Martin, flanked by my two handicappers Scott Spritzer and the base winner, Mark Borchard as all three of us are feeling the heat. And I mean, literally because we are about 111 degrees plus temperatures with Scott and I in Vegas. And I’m sure base winner in Scottsdale, Arizona as well. But guess what guys? The air conditioning is always good. And of course we play baseball no matter what indoors or outdoors. Glad to have everyone with us here today on the MLB Show, a Monday edition. Base winner, what is happening to my friend?

Mark:

I was pumped up before I thought about the air conditioning bill because that’s not cheap, that’s for sure.

TC:

Well, I know. I guess it’s part of the way of life though. As much as we love the desert, right? We have to pay sometimes. And I guess the air conditioning bill is one way we have to pay though, right? I guess you can say that, right, Scott?

Scott:

I keep hearing that hum 24/7 and when your house needs two air conditioners, it ain’t fun. I was going to ask you for a little loan there when we get done with the show today, but the pool’s about 30 degrees cooler than the air temp, so that’s where we’ll be about noon today. There you go.

TC:

Oh, wow. The pool at the noon hour. Now I’m usually used to hearing about Scott going to the pool about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. You’re going to battle that sun at 12 noon, Scott? Come on, man.

Scott:

We do 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning on the days where I’m not doing the show. You’re right about that.

Mark:

Don’t even get me started on the pool guys. The thing has been such a thorn in my side and last night I thought it would be cool when we built it to have the fountains like Kauffman Stadium. I have like this fountain feature and stuff. Well, the motors having issues again. It seems like every other week there’s an issue with that pool, but I guess it’s worth it. You go in there and you cool off.

TC:

Well, I know the base winner. I mean, you’re there in Arizona. I figured you just kind of modeled your pool after Chase Field there where you got a ballpark right there for you. You’re handicapping out there in right center field, right?

Mark:

No, I really didn’t get involved with the architectural design process. My wife did it for the most part, but when that fountain came up, I said, oh, that’s going to be like the fountains at Kauffman Stadium. It kind of is too. It’s pretty cool. I guess if I bet the Royals I’ll turn on the fountains, maybe give me some good luck.

Scott:

No retractable roof, I guess.

TC:

Right.

Mark:

Well, don’t get us started on that. I hope my wife’s not watching the show.

TC:

Mark’s all about the retractable roof and the AstroTurf. There you go.

Mark:

Hey, Scott said something-

TC:

Less maintenance.

Mark:

She’ll be like, Scott said something about a retractable roof. I think we can do that. No, stop. She loves projects.

TC:

All right guys, speaking of projects, how did your weekend go from the baseball side, Scott?

Scott:

Baseball was okay until yesterday. Well, we had a loser on Saturday night after winning Saturday during the afternoon. And then yesterday, really didn’t like anything. And I had a real small play, I had one baseball play, was it. I had a baseball play. This is crazy for me on a Sunday, one baseball play and it lost. And then I had a NASCAR matchup, which won, and I’ve been doing NASCAR’s TC since 1996 or seven. And it was because that’s when they used to write the names on the board of the Stardust. And I can remember when Darrell Waltrip, one of the biggest names and, I wasn’t a NASCAR fan at all, guys. If you asked me about NASCAR back then, I would’ve told you yeah, they turned left a lot. And that was about it. But I look up at the board and Darrell Waltrip is one of the biggest names, obviously, in NASCAR history.

And they had its name spelled wrong. And I’ve just started thinking, I’m mean a dumb little thing went off in my head and it said, hey, if they don’t know how to spell Darrell Waltrip, maybe they’re not following those two closely. They follow it a lot closer now, do the books. And we used to bet to win, now we bet matchups. But yeah, yesterday I had a guy finish outside of the top 20 and still won the matchup. How about that? I think it was my lowest finisher in NASCAR and also to win the matchup at the same time while finishing outside the top 20. We got pretty fortunate there and it actually was the biggest play for me yesterday. I got a little ahead there, but yeah, I mean, baseball was great. Mark and TC, I mean, we hit 61% of our tickets and up a good $3,200 since June 4th and now it’s about 2,900 after the weekend.

TC:

Okay. All right. The Yankees guys. Yankees got me the last two days and Boston got them in comeback fashion in both games. Just a little bit concerned there. I know a lot of people are going to say, well, the Yankees still have the best record in baseball, what’s the big deal? If you watch this team on a regular basis, the offense is there, there’s no question, but here we go again with the pitching. And I think down the road when they do have to play the Astros and they play some of these tougher teams, you have to be aware. Our oldest Chapman, they threw him in the game yesterday, the guy couldn’t get anybody out. The day before, Clay Holmes comes in, he looks good, but then you got to go to Paralta after that. The Red Sox came back in two wins on Saturday and Sunday in dramatic fashion here.

And then again, when we start talking about Yankees pitching, Taillon hasn’t been good as of late, there’s a lot of their starters that are not living up to the billing here. It’s just funny how people just still want to rave about the Yankees because they are so far ahead and we understand that, and I like to do this, to kind of pick apart these little flaws because when you’re betting, you lose games like this, it does become a little bit frustrating. But anyway, so there’s my vent on the Yankees on Saturday and Sunday, Mark.

Mark:

You went with the…, those are tough games to lose too because they were close going into the later innings.

TC:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark:

At least you didn’t lose them on the show, that’s great, but they didn’t count from the show stats, TC.

TC:

And people say, oh, why are you talking about, because that’s what we do. I mean, Scott and I, we talk about our winners and we talk about our losers and we’re very upfront with that.

Mark:

No one is, and I think it’s really refreshing that you’re not like, oh yeah, we’re seven and 0, Scott was 20 and 0, and I was 50 and 0. It’s good that we keep it real here, TC.

Scott:

And that’s the thing, Mark. I mess around with a lot of different sports. I mean, I’m handicapping all the time it seems like, ask my wife, but like yourself, but yeah. Sunday we got the big win in NASCAR, Saturday I had a top play was in MLS and I lost and it was Montreal. And I thought the price was right, they lost by a goal. But that’s the way it goes, man. I mean, you got to let people know about the losers as much as we talk about the winners. And we’ve always kind of been that way, but I’ll say something about that game yesterday. TC, was kind of funny. I’m watching the Yankees, Red Sox and boy have times changed. I look out in the bullpen in the fifth or sixth inning and Aroldis Chapman is out there warming up and coming in the game in the middle of a baseball game.

My how times have changed. It was kind of funny though, because they’re up six to two and I was texting a fellow better here at Las Vegas, he’s a huge Red Sox fan when he’s not playing against them and he wasn’t yesterday. And I said, man, the Yankees had just got up six, two. And I’m like, this offense is something else, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I’ve already turned it off, I can’t watch this garbage. I’m watching a Randolph Scott western. And then two minutes later it’s tied, it’s six, six. And I’m going, you better turn your boys on because they’re coming back in Fenway and they certainly did. Tough loss the two losses though, because he had great chances to get a couple more runs. And yesterday it’s LeMahieu. I mean, my gosh, he was so bad, I heard the Angels were going to offer him 20 million a year today.

TC:

There you go. Makes total sense.

Mark:

Now his play last night in the field would qualify him to make that Angels roster, that’s for sure, Scott. That’s a good one.

TC:

Yeah. And it’s mind boggling. And what Scott is talking about, bases loaded, LeMahieu goes back, you can’t catch the ball. And again, in that situation, the center fielder has to make that catch because he will make that catch, hold the runner at third, probably get out of the inning unscathed because that would’ve been the second out, but it just goes to show you guys that fundamentally how unsound a lot of these teams are and these players, how can you not think about the situation because even if LeMahieu catches that with his back towards the plate, the runner is going to tag, his momentum as a second baseman is going backwards, he’s falling down and where’s the communication there? And just the little things, little nuances that can flip a game just like that. And it’s mind boggling sometimes that you don’t think that these guys have the best baseball IQ, and it is very true. In some instances, you’ve got to know the situation and that one, again on national television yesterday, you’re just shaking your head. They’re going, why does this happen in a major league baseball game, especially with a veteran second baseman?

Mark:

Well, especially when you have money on it too.

TC:

Thank you. Yeah.

Mark:

You’re cussing and throwing remotes at the TV, saying what’s what’s up, LeMahieu?

TC:

Yeah. This is true.

Mark:

He was Lame-Mahieu last night.

TC:

Very good. Very good. All right guys, let’s get onto today’s action. It’s a Monday, kind of a light schedule. We’re going to handicap four games for you. Before we get into that, we’ll get a look at the updated record board. We had a good Friday, think all of us pretty much did on Friday. We go back to that. There is your tote board, so to speak, up there with all of us. We continue on this week and hopefully we continue to hit them well as we kick off another MLB week here. Last week before the All-Star game, just a little programming note that next week we will be on Monday and we will handicap the All-Star game for Tuesday and also have a little fun and talk about the home run derby. Mark, I expect you to start getting your home run props and matchups there together, and we’ll have some fun with that. We’ll be off Tuesday, Wednesday and reconvene when the major league baseball schedule gets back a week from Thursday, but just a little FYI for viewers out there with that.

Mark:

TC, I did some modeling for that in 2019 and it turned out really good. I’m actually excited. I’ll bring that back and go over it on the show. That’ll be kind of a fun show, TC.

TC:

All right. We’ll have some fun with that. And we know Scott will be vacationing that week as well too.

Mark:

Where are you going, Scott?

Scott:

We’re going to do SoCal. We’re going to do a little Disneyland for about the 110th time and hit a couple of the beaches. Our favorite beach is just hanging out at Laguna beach. We’ll be in 75 degree temps unless mother nature does us wrong. And I won’t be missing Vegas too much at that point. I got to say real quick for those who just started watching the show, they probably think I passed about 110 days when it comes to best bets when they see two and one, but I’m kind of new to the group.

Mark:

Very selective.

Scott:

Very selective. Low volume.

TC:

As you should be really. Okay. All right, man. Let’s take a look at it. Let’s start with the first game on the docket today and we’ll take a look at the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays today, I guess. Okay. They want us to talk about the White Sox, Guardians instead. Okay, we’ll go there. How’s that? Lance Lynn against Cal Quantrill. That is the matchup today. Virtually a pick him in this game, the White Sox minus 111, the total in this game is nine, shaded towards the overhead minus 120. Scott, kick us off here on this Monday. Some thoughts, Lynn and Quantrill.

Scott:

Yeah. Teams are kind of going in opposite directions of late. I mean, Chicago’s been getting healthier, not completely healthy, but healthier and they’ve scored 17 runs on the last three games. They got Eloy Jimenez who came back, that certainly doesn’t hurt. Lance Lynn, he’s rounded into form. I don’t know if you trust those numbers thus far because he missed about two and a half months, and now he sees kind of close to as far as full strength is concerned, I think he’s there because he’s topped 100 pitches in a couple of starts of late, but the Soxs have owned top shelf batting average all season on the road against righties and now theie offensive metrics. The other offensive metrics, OPS will by that kind of stuff, is catching up to that team batting average, which has been pretty darn good the whole year. At the same time, the Guardians, well they’re seeing a drop off in their offensive metrics. They’ve won two of the last, what, 10, they’ve won four of the last, excuse me, five of the last 19 games. Three weeks ago, guys, this Cleveland Guardians team was above 500, now they’re one game below 500. They were eight games above 500 just three weeks ago. I like the White Sox here, guys. They’re decent on the road, 22 and 18. And I think they jump out on Monday to the victory. Price isn’t bad, about $1.10 or so.

TC:

All right. Base winner, what do you think about backing Lance Lynn, here?

Mark:

Well, I think if I had to be it, I would back Lance Lynn. I’ve got it priced at minus 121. And prior to the show, I saw it about minus 110. I think it’s priced right about where it needs to be. One of the things that Scott mentioned when he talked about this game is how Cleveland has kind of dropped off from their offensive numbers. And it got me thinking, I think the first couple weeks of the show, we were talking about Cleveland and Jeff was super high on Cleveland’s offense. And they were playing Toronto. And I said, Jeff, if Cleveland beats Toronto in Weighted Runs Creative Plus at the end of the season, I’ll give you my house. And of course, I don’t have the authority to do that, but I said it anyway.

And so what was funny about that is for about two or three weeks after I said that, Cleveland continued to beat Toronto and Toronto was lousy, but if you look at the Weighted Runs Creative Plus right now, you’ve got the Blue Jays at 110 and you got to go all the way down to 98 with the Guardians. And so they’ve really taken a significant drop. Having said that, I think that one of the things that’s concerning to me, at least, if you want to back the White Sox here is you’ve got, and I picked up on something that Scott said too, and I’ll get into that in just a second, but I just wanted to say the ISO power for the White Sox, 28th in baseball at a 0.123 clip, their plate discipline numbers. That’s walks divided by strikeouts, .306 that’s 28th in baseball.

But I think the interesting thing that Scott brought up and I think it’s very important to note is that they’re getting a lot of guys back into the lineup. And so there’s a lot of guys who are injured that are coming back in, but the other thing that does affect is kind of how you look at this team from a past standpoint because some of those numbers that I just cited have been accrued by guys who aren’t playing in the lineup. I think it’s pretty important that you have some kind of method that you… Well, you can cite the numbers and I think that there is some correlation, even if there is some change in the lineup. I think that it’s important to kind of look at each person in the lineup and base your projection on that.

TC:

And we talk about Lance Lynn on the other side, you got Quantrill going guys and he has not been good at all. He’s given up 13 earned runs in his last four starts, he got blasted by the Tigers and his last start giving up six runs. Yeah, Cleveland is definitely struggling right now. Great points there by both of you guys, especially with the White Sox getting more healthy. And I think the question is how much do we trust Lance Lynn in this situation? We know that this guy’s a veteran, he’s been around a long time, but he is very, very hittable as well too. But probably-

Scott:

I mean, let’s factor that in also. He could come out and get bombed tonight, but he’s missed a lot of time, he was injured.

TC:

Yeah.

Scott:

He’s kind of like in April right now.

TC:

Right.

Scott:

And I think that the way you judge a pitcher doesn’t mean he’s going to come out and pitch extremely well or anything like that, but the way you judge a pitcher being over an injury, all of a sudden I think he’s got two starts that have topped 100 pitches and another one that was 99. One pitch away from three starts where he hit the century mark. His strength is there, and it’s kind of one of those things where I’m looking, like Mark said, I had it priced at $1.27. And so it’s good 15 cents higher than what the number is for the most part. And I think you look at this point of the season, four teams that are starting to come around and play to the form you thought they were going to be against a team in Cleveland that’s just been pathetic for the last three weeks for the most part.

TC:

Yeah.

Scott:

That’s what we’re doing here. That’s the way we like them, but again, Lance Lynn, I can totally understand why folks are hesitant on backing Lance Lynn.

TC:

Yeah. And I’ll use the correlation here yesterday, guys. You know how I feel about Jake Odorizzi. Odorizzi came back from the injury, got bombed his last start and actually played Odorizzi yesterday, just because it was more of a gut feel that I was going against the A’s in that pitching situation and I just figured, okay, this might be a good spot for the Astros. And Odorizzi threw in one of those good games, because Odorizzi actually has got decent stuff, especially against the weaker teams. It worked out for me that way, but on the surface, I’m not going to play Jake Odorizzi on a regular basis, but there are certain spots, especially if feel you’re getting a little bit of value with him on the road as well, too.

Kind of that way, maybe. I don’t know, Scott, I’m not speaking for him. Maybe that’s kind of a Lance Lynn thing as well. You’re probably not high on the guy, but maybe, hey, this is a good spot for him. And like I said, coming off the injury, good point. It’s like April, but again, probably more of a play against Quantrill and the struggling Cleveland offense as well too.

Mark:

Absolutely.

TC:

We will root the White Sox on today. And so put Scott down for the White Sox in this contest on the road, as he will have them in this game today, minus $1.11, great price on that as well. It’s like we mentioned, basically a pick in this game. All right, next up, we’ll go to the Red Sox and the Rays game guys. In this one, you’re basically going to get a couple of openers in this game, Boston minus 1.10, seven and a half is the total in this game, the Red Sox’s coming off those two big comeback wins over the Yankees at Fenway on Saturday and Sunday. Brayan Bello going for Boston, and this is a crazy one here for the Rays today, guys. Matt Whistler is going today. Whistler pitched Friday night and lost the game in a walk off balk. Then he also pitched yesterday in relief, but he is going to get the start today, according to Kevin Cash.

Why? Because both of these teams are pretty much decimated by injuries, especially from the Red Sox side. It is crazy when you look at Boston’s pitchers that they have thrown out here. And as you guys know, I have picked against the Red Sox using the term of these high school pitchers because literally that’s what they’ve been throwing out here the last three days. Chris Sale injured, Paxton’s injured. Those guys will be coming back. Eovaldi, Wacha, now Rich Hill goes on the IL. Whitlock went on the IL. Seabold after his last start on Friday when we picked against him, now he’s on the IL. They have no pitchers left. It is just crazy. And then they’re going to throw Bello out there. We don’t know how long he’s going to be able to go today. Then on the Tampa Bay side, like I said, very strange that Whistler is going to be getting one inning today. Cash has already said that he’ll go one inning and they’re going to bring in Josh Fleming to get a bulk of the work.

Why they just don’t start Josh Fleming is beyond me, but I’m not going to have any action in this game, guys, but it just seems like one of these things that I just wanted to bring up and talk about because the injuries are just crazy on both sides. And really for Tampa, you look at the hitters, they’re missing five regulars in this game. If you are going to play this game, just a little beware with that, but yeah.

Mark:

Who are they missing, TC?

TC:

Tampa. Kirsch, Myers out, a couple other guys.

Mark:

I know Franco got hurt. That’s-

TC:

Yeah, Franco’s another one.

Mark:

A huge-

TC:

That’s another one. Yeah.

Mark:

Subtraction from their lineup, but I’m interested because I wanted to break down the lineup and I know that Franco’s out and ki Myer is, but I was wondering who else has been injured. Scott, do you have a play on this game? Sorry, TC, to jump in, but I that was an interesting-

TC:

No, no, no. Like I said-

Mark:

Yeah.

TC:

Just yeah, no. I don’t think none of us have a play in this game, but just if you have any quick thoughts on this game, very difficult game to handicap, I think. Scott?

Scott:

Yeah, it’s great situation to go against Boston right off the way. They won the last couple of games to get to be-

TC:

That’s what I was thinking, right.

Scott:

Heated rivals, but I can’t. Listen, I gave Tampa a shot yesterday. That was the one play I talked about earlier thinking they could stave off a sweep against Cincinnati despite the injuries. And they were just bad again. I mean, they went up against a very bad baseball team and got swept. You’ve got this horrific situation for Boston. And then I look at Tampa Bay and I see an injury list that reads like a Leo Tolstoy novel. I mean, you can’t finish it in one sitting. And so it’s a situation for me where I thought, man, this is where you exercise discipline, right guys? You’re sitting there and you’re going, Boston’s got to be in a really tough spot today. And basically against anybody else in baseball, I’d probably go against Boston today. Well with Tampa Bay’s list of injuries, I just can’t do it. I can’t really tell you more than that. I mean, I would rather have Whistler as an opener than Bello. And Tampa Bay knows how to use the whole opener situation better than any team in the league than the ones that basically started the whole shebang, but I can’t, I just can’t jump… I gave them a shot yesterday, it cost me a couple of bucks. I’m not going to do it today.

TC:

Okay. When was the last time that we saw a guy getting the start on the day after he came in relief and then two days after he had a walk off balk?

Mark:

How many times has that happened? I think the walk off balk, I might want it-

TC:

23 in major league history. 23 times, he just threw the game.

Mark:

Yeah. And I had a decent size position on Tampa Bay that night, so that was kind of painful to me. I didn’t think that balk needed to be called. He did by letter, the law, he did balk, he flinched a little bit with his glove, but I thought it was pretty ticky tack.

TC:

Right.

Mark:

I think the interesting thing to me on that one was Mejia. And this is one of the things, if you guys ever listen to the Tampa Bay broadcast, I’m trying to think right off the top of my head who those guys are and I just can’t. Andy Freed and Dave Wills, I think is the name of the guys who do the radio. And they were really critical of the Mejia base running mistake in the top of the 10th. And they said he should have scored. They said, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have scored on that. And he ended up getting thrown out on a ground ball the next play. And I think that really hurt their opportunity to win, but sometimes I think it’s beneficial to listen to the radio broadcast. And particularly those guys there, I really like it when the radio broadcast, those guys are super critical about their team, or not super critical, they don’t have to be mean to their team, but they’re objective about their team.

And I thought that was a really objective call of that game, but they weren’t up in arms about that balk. They were like, hey, that probably shouldn’t get called, but it technically is a balk. Okay. Having said that and vented a little bit about losing a game on a walk off balk, this game’s a tough one for me. I’ve got it minus 1.10. It’s right where the line should be, but I think even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t make a play on it. The interesting thing about Bello is if you look at his steamer projections, and I don’t know how else you can, maybe Scott, after I say what these stats are, you can say how you handicap a rookie pitcher because I think it’s interesting how everybody looks at it, but I use the steamer projections pretty much primarily.

If you look at his steamer projection, it’s 3.94, but if you look at his zips projection on FanGraphs, it’s 5.5. There’s a huge disparity there and so it’s like, you throw your hands up in the air and you say, well, how do you even rate the pitcher that’s going to start for the team? For that main reason and the injury reason that you guys cited before, I’m going to pass on this game, but Scott, it’d be interesting for me to… How do you handicap a rookie pitcher like this? Do you tend to avoid those games just as a rule? How do you do it?

Scott:

Yeah. Normally if it’s a righty especially, I’ll more often than not look to avoid it. Or a lot of times what I’ll do is that’s the games that I certainly don’t play a first five. I’ll play full game a little bit. If you’re not quite certain how they’re going to look, you look up their triple A numbers or double A numbers, all that stuff, which I do. When it’s a lefty on the mound, what is Bello? Bello’s a righty, correct? Yeah. Bello’s a righty. Had to double check. If it’s a lefty on the mound and he’s going to not just be an opener, Mark, the first thing I do is I look to see if I want to play the under. And I do that every time I see a lefty on the mound making his debut start. Bello’s already been out there for a start.

The eye test was that he didn’t have a lot. And I look to see how guys do on the pitches that they consider to be the top of their repertoire. And Hunter Green, I’ll use him as an example. There’s a guy who he throws a few different pitches, but he likes to rely on the fastball when he gets in a little trouble. You look at him, you see, well, his numbers say this, but his movement is nil when it comes to his fastball. I just look for little things like that, but I tend to not get involved in games involving rookie pitchers unless I know a lot about them coming out of the minors for the first couple to starts. And all we’ve seen out of Bello thus far is struggling. And in one game, what is it?

One game I think he’s had so far and he struggled.

TC:

Right.

Scott:

It’s a situation where I leave it alone. Now I would have come in because Tampa Bay’s already seen him. And if you’re a rookie and you’ve only started a game or two, that means your opponent hasn’t seen you and maybe you do well those first couple of times through the batting order. And then they finally get to you by the third time through the batting order if you’re still in there, that’s why I’ll play the full game. Well, Tampa’s already seen him, correct? It’s a situation where he didn’t fool them then, he’s not going to fool them now, but there’s nobody left on Tampa Bay to get out there and swing the bats. It’s kind of one of those things where I just have to say, I can’t play it. And it’s really a bummer for me because I really want to jump in and go against Boston, but you just can’t do it.

TC:

Yeah. Talking about situational plays here, this is one I was kind of looking to play Tampa Bay because they’re coming off a getting swept to the Cincinnati Reds. You figure, okay, they’re back home, they’re going to answer the bell, Boston coming off two big emotional winds against the Yankees. Again, opener versus opener, basically and a rookie in Bello who don’t have much respect for, but I can’t pull the trigger. But it’s just one of those situational plays that you look at, okay, Tampa’s better than getting swept by the Reds, but the reason why they’re getting swept is because a lot of the injuries that is taking place with this team. No action there, but just to beware if you are going to play this game. All right, moving on, guys. The Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals today, we got a very good pitching match up there with Aaron Nola back to the hill for the Phillies today. The Phillies are a 120 favorite, Miles Mikolas going today for the Cardinals. The Cardinals, you’re getting plus 1.10 on the 10 cent line there. Total in this game at seven and a half minus 120 towards the over. Base winner, give us some thoughts here. Phill’s, Cards.

Mark:

Yeah, I’m going to play the Phillies here. It’s a bet for me. I’ve got the game price at minus 132. It was a little bit lower in the market. It was right around pick them yesterday when I released it. And it’s gone up to minus 120. I still think it’s a decent play there. I mean, basically fundamentally I’ve got the Phillies starting pitcher is at 78. He’s 22% better than an average pitcher. I’ve never been a huge fan of Mikolas and I’ve got him 2% better than an average pitcher. From a Stuff+ metric, you’ve got Nola, he’s in the 70th percentile, Mikolas is in the 12th percentile. And if you look at the luck number, Mikolas is 94 percentile, higher being luckier. He’s been extremely lucky and that’s based on batting average of balls in play, left on base percentage and home runs to fly ball. Sets that could be considered regressive depending on the situation, but the way I’m looking at it is that he has been a very lucky pitcher.

And then if you look at the base winner ERA compared to their actual ERA, it’s a pretty interesting comparison. You’ve got Nola at 3.15 just in regular ERA, but his base winner ERA, this is strikeout percentage, walk percentage, ground ball rate. Things I think the pitcher controls. He’s at 2.71. And then when you look at Mikolas, he’s at 2.72 ERA, and you say, hey, that’s pretty good. But then if you look at his expected ERA, his base winner ERA is 3.97. It’s basically a play on the starting pitcher. The Philly bullpen is a little bit concerning. I do like what Knebel’s done and Alvarado’s done in their recent form. I decided to play it on the full game.

Those guys are available today. I don’t think we’re going to get Seranthony. That’s not Seranthony from the round table, that’s Seranthony Dominguez because he pitched 25 pitches last out. I’d like him to… I just hope we don’t get Brad, Mr. Hand, in there, but I think we might get Knebel and Alverado, and I’ll back that against the St. Louis bullpen who I guess some people like, my numbers don’t particularly like the St. Louis bullpen. For all those reasons, I’m going to take a play here on the Phillies tonight.

TC:

I think most people would rather see Spicoli than Mr. Hand coming out of the Philly bullpen, don’t you think, guys?

Mark:

Oh, it’d be great if they had a guy named Spicoli too with long hair. That’d be cool.

TC:

Yeah.

Mark:

Some guy in the minor league organization should grow his hair long and change his name to Spicoli just so he’ll get called up.

TC:

Well, one thing they’d have pizza delivered during the game, coming into the clubhouse there. There you go. There’s some old school movie knowledge that even the basemen will recognize [inaudible 00:30:23].

Mark:

“If I’m here and you’re here, isn’t it our time?” Mr. Hand would say, “It’s my time.” Right?

TC:

There you go. One of the great, great character actors of all time there. Mr. Hand, of course, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which Scott Spricer has on frequent play at his house.

Scott:

Oh yeah. And I just want to see him, maybe if Hand comes into this game, he’s got a bagel tucked in the front of his pants like Spicoli did. Something like that or, but it’s funny. I don’t know why I was thinking of this when you guys were talking about that particular movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but you talked about somebody changing their name and being a Spicoli. Talk about the attention you would get as a minor leaguer when you finally make it up to the bigs if you’re in that organization with Hand or in the national league east and you know you’re going to go up against him, but it reminded me of a few years ago. I mean, we’re talking at least a decade ago, there was a triple A player whose last name was Schmo.

And I don’t know if you guys remember that, and it’s like Joe Schmo, right? And I’m like, his parents had such a chance and his name was Doug. I’m like, oh my gosh, your last name’s Schmo. You got to be Joe, what’s wrong with these people? But anyway, it just made me think about that, change that name to Spicoli, but anyway, you know what? I like Mark’s play here, I do like the Phillies. I also like under first five in this game, and I don’t want to trust the bullpens here when it comes to a total, I don’t want to trust… We won’t get into it again, the ghost runner at second, if it happens to get to extra innings, but the Cardinals two and six of their last eight. They’ve scored a grand total of 11 runs of those eight games. Their four run outburst last night was the most runs they’ve scored in over a week in any game.

They’ve really been struggling at the plate. And I was looking to see when this All-Started for the Cardinals and you go all the way back to June 15th over the last 26 days. And those Cardinal metrics slip into the bottom third at the plate in the metrics that I care about the most, the three or four metrics that I like, which includes WOBA, OPS, Weighted Runs Creative Plus, and then Nola’s numbers are terrific. 61K, seven walks, 55 road innings. But here’s the Phillies, I jotted down some notes. 13 runs they’ve played in their last five games, that’s it. Hitting metrics on the road against righty’s, dreadful over the past 30 days. It’s a situation. In fact, they’re ranked dead last in batting average and second in OPS, WOBA and Weighted Runs Creative Plus over that time span. It’s a situation where I think both teams will be held in check if things go according to plan.

If the script on paper translates on the field like it says on paper, we should get out of this maybe one, one or one, nothing or something like that after five innings. Last check of weather, I didn’t check before we jumped on air here, but last night I checked and it was minimal. It was weak as far as the wind. It wasn’t going to play a great deal into this one. I think the Phillie’s pull away on this game. And one more factor that is, I guess, a bit arbitrary when you’re looking at this time of year, especially this week leading in the All-Star break, it’s been working pretty well for many years now when you jump on a pitcher, a starting pitcher who was snubbed, and that’s not arbitrary to call Aaron Nola snubbed. I mean, he was certainly snubbed for the All-Star game. Those pitchers, that first time out after being snubbed, have that extra bounce in their step, that extra motivation.

And they normally come out and pitch extremely well. It used to be a decade ago, you could play against the All-Star pitchers and on the snubbed pitchers and do quite well. Well against the All-Star pitchers has not been that great over the past few years now, it’s kind of a 50/50 deal just like any other handicap of a baseball game. But I think Nola comes out with a little bit of extra fire and hopefully that’ll get the Phillie’s the win for Mark and get that under in the first five too.

TC:

Yeah. I’m glad you brought that up, Scott, because key point. And I’ve always looked at that to fact, and I’m thinking that Nola is thinking that exactly. And plus the fact that he has been rolling all season long.

Scott:

Sure.

TC:

Does he deserve to be an All-Star? Absolutely correct, he should. Maybe for base winner, that’ll be a good thing tonight. Let’s lock the base winner in for that, his play with the Philadelphia Phillies on the road, Aaron Nola on the hill tonight only laying 120 in this contest as well. Good luck base winner on that one. All right, [inaudible 00:34:35]-

Mark:

Yeah. That’s a good point, Scott. How does Nola not make the All-Star? I’m just looking down the player list and it’s like, I mean, who do you take out of there? You’ve got Mantiply for Arizona, I guess he’s their best bet, right? He’s your best option. That’s one of the drawbacks of having to… You have to have a representative on each team. I mean, I don’t think that anybody who’s sane at least can say Mantiply is a better pitcher than Nola, but I don’t know. The other guys are pretty decent that are on there, but maybe you get rid of Gonsolin. I mean, but he’s 11 and 0, but if you’re a sabermetrics guy, you’re looking and you’re going, oh my God, it’s heresy. Nola, not Gonsolin because you’re a sabermetrics guy and he’s got a point lower than Gonsolin from an expected ERA standpoint. I think that’s just part of the problem with the All-Star game is they have really strict limitations. It’s like, maybe they should loosen it up and let the guys in.

Scott:

Yeah. [Inaudible00:35:34] in the All-Star game, Carlos Rodon is in the All-Star game. I mean, I don’t know. I would think expand the pitchers a little bit so you can get some of these guys in. There’s five or six pitchers who easily could be in this All-Star game that are not. And I just think you could expand the pitching rosters a little bit in both leagues for an All-Star game. It’s an All-Star game after all. And let guys at least sit on the bench, even if they don’t get in the game.

TC:

Yeah. And see, and that’s the quirks of this game when you have to have one representative from each team and some of these low league teams, you’re talking about the Diamondbacks or the Giants, again, not a lot of name recognition, the Giants there. Well, they have to have one, who’s it going to be? It’s going to be Rodon. That’s why he’s there, but when you talk about the pitchers, guys, in the America league, they only have nine. Miracle league All-Star team only has nine pitchers. And that’s a little bit [inaudible 00:36:26].

Mark:

Dude, Blackburn made the All-Star team. I’m just seeing this for the first time. I would’ve led with that. That’s insane. My gosh, I’m going to have a heart attack. Oh.

Scott:

Is Rodon [inaudible 00:36:35]?

TC:

Save that for the All-Star show, Mark. The All-Star show is Monday.

Mark:

And Montes didn’t make it? Wait a second. Blackburn made it, Montes didn’t make it? How does that happen? Oh.

TC:

It’s just like a storm just came flying over Scottsdale, Arizona and a hole opened up [inaudible 00:36:54].

Mark:

Scott, help me out. Scott, help me out here. Oh, should Montes be ahead of Blackburn? I mean-

Scott:

Absolutely positively, a big fat juicy yes. I completely agree with Montes being in there. Did Carlos Rodon get named to the All-Star team this morning, because I didn’t see him listed last night. I got to double check. I don’t have it in front of me.

TC:

I’m just going on what base winner said. I don’t have the rosters in front of me, but-

Mark:

No, no, no. He’s not. I never said that. He’s not on there.

Scott:

Yeah. He’s another one that’s not in.

Mark:

I think Scott said he was snubbed. Yeah, he said he was-

TC:

Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Mark:

And I agree with Scott on that. Yeah.

TC:

Okay. Got you. Got you. Okay. Okay. Understand that.

Mark:

God. Blackburn, my gosh man. Somebody’s after me. Oh.

TC:

Villain number one is on the All-Star.

Mark:

Villain number two is not. No, villain number two would make more sense if Martin Perez was on the team. I mean, at least that guy had some numbers that were decent. Ugh. I don’t know.

TC:

There is a reason to bet now on the national league for you, base winner, on Tuesday night.

Mark:

I might.Just for that fact. But I can’t because I’m pissed that they let Nola off the roster. I’m mad at both leagues now, TC.

TC:

There you go. All right, next up guys. Let’s talk about the Mets and the Braves. Great pitching matchup in this one. As you got Max Scherzer going to the hill for the Mets and Max Fried for the Braves. Braves are $1.27 favorite in this one. Mets value there possibly with Scherzer at plus 117, total in this game is seven minus 115 towards the over two ACEs that have combined for 170 strikeouts, guys, are in this game. And only given up 26 walks. Scherzer and Fried, two of my favorite guys to watch pitch. When you look at Scherzer’s last or few outings, his last outing, he was fantastic coming off the IL. And what I like about this game is that Scherzer has not faced Atlanta yet this year. Granted he missed a good part of the season. When you look at Max Fried, his last start, he’s at what, six innings, gave up two earned runs, four hits, six strikeouts, no walks.

And then when you look at Fried, the big picture here, 13 of his last 17 starts actually not his last, but he’s had started 17 games a season. In 13 of those, he has given up only two earned runs or less. When you look at that same number, two earned runs or less, Max Scherzer has done that in six of his nine starts. Another thing when you talk about Max Fried, Fried hasn’t lost since April and the Braves have cash tickets in his last nine times that he’s gone to the hill. Now he hasn’t got a decision on all those games, but it just goes to show you how they back them there. For me guys, this is a game, I’m not a big totals player as you guys know, but this has two, one, three, two, maybe Max all over it in my opinion. I love both these guys.

I think Scherzer is not going to have that much of an innings restriction on him. Maybe 90, 95 pitches, because he’s ready to go, he looks so fantastic. And again, as I mentioned last week, it was the oblique, it wasn’t an arm injury, wasn’t a shoulder, elbow, that sort of thing. And Scherzer’s pretty fired up to go against the Braves here. You have a lot of swing and misguides in this game, especially on the Atlanta side. I’m banking on an under here. Plus I’m only having to lay 105, maybe a first five. You guys probably have those numbers, what a first five looks on this. Maybe I might be intrigued in that as well too, but for the sake of our show today, I’m going to take the under with two solid pitchers in this game. Scott, some thoughts?

Scott:

Yeah, I like it under first five, three and a half is the total. Last I checked, it was minus $1.05 on the under. Here’s the thing, that price is almost $1.30, Atlanta being the favorite. And I don’t want to go against either one of these two pitchers and lay $1.30 against them. For me, it was okay, let’s look if we want Scherzer, let’s look if we want the total and the total came up for me and I gave you all the reasons before many times about why I would rather play a first five when it comes to an under than a full game. But you mentioned how well Scherzer pitched in his first game back, 11 punch outs, no walks. I know it was against Cincinnati, but it’s still in that band box of a park that he pitched in Great America.

He was able to shut him down without any problem. If you look at before he got injured, plus the last start, his first two plus times through a batting order have been excellent. Same thing for Fried, first couple of times through a bating order, he’s been really strong, this year he’s been strong everywhere this entire season, but you’ll see that he gets through those first couple of times without many hitches or many problems. And in the Mets, they’re middle of the pack in major league baseball when it comes to offensive metrics on the road against south paw. You’re facing this guy who is just tearing it up all season long, he doesn’t lose. You mentioned they’ve cashed nine straight tickets when he takes the hill and you’ve got an offense that has been mediocre at best on the road against lefties.

I don’t want to mess with late innings, I don’t want to mess in it because it’s a low total overall too. And I don’t want to mess with the potential ghost runner. Under three and a half runs. Again, this is one of those things where it’s on paper looking like one, nothing through five innings, maybe one, one tops. And if it translates on the field the way the numbers say, then we’ve got a low scoring game first five and throughout this contest. You just got to hope it doesn’t go two, two into the 10th inning, then all of a sudden six runs are scored. One of those things on that full, but I do like your playing. I like an under full game. I just prefer under first five a little bit more.

TC:

Right. Base winner.

Mark:

Yeah. This is a tough play for me either way. I’ve got a price minus 122 for the Braves. From a money line standpoint, I think it’s priced where it needs to be. The run projection in the model, 7.4. That would indicate maybe some value on the over, but the pitchers are good. Scherzer’s ninth in my ratings at 150 and Fried 17th. They’re expected numbers. I think the base winner ERA, if you look at Scherzer, he’s at 2.60, a little bit above his ERA, but still very respectable. Fried now has some disparity between his ERA and his base winner ERA, it’s a 2.52 to 3.15, but 3.15 still pretty tidy. The one thing I think that kind of if I were to back your play TC, I’m looking at the weather today and it looks like there’s going to be some humidity in baseball.

Without getting into the science of it, I think it’s going to affect the ball. Long term with the higher humidity in games is going to increase run production. You have that going kind of against the total there. Yeah. The Braves, but what you have going for you is this Braves plate discipline. It’s awful. It’s 22nd in baseball overall, but then if you look at they’re very interesting team because plate discipline is not good, but the power is really good. If you look at their ISO power, number two in baseball. For me, it’s a stay away. I’m going to root for you though, TC. It’s interesting, I think, to note that this might, I think, be the first total that you’ve ever put out on the show.

TC:

I think it’s a second, maybe the second or third. Yeah. And again, I usually kind of stay away and honestly guys, I looked at the card today, wasn’t crazy about anything, but again, it was tough for me to make a case in this side. I really like these pitchers. Again, going to take a shot and especially we’ve seen a lot of unders. I mean, look at that game yesterday with the Mets and the Marlins, and I was going to get on the under and I stayed away because I usually stay away from unders. We had nothing, nothing at the end of nine. And a two, nothing final in 10 innings. I’m going to put myself out there and go with the under today, lane 105 with again, not a strong play for me, back to your point.

Scott:

And that’s another reason I like first five unders and all these ghost runners and all this kind of stuff.

TC:

I’m with you, Scott. Yeah.

Scott:

It gave me an excuse to play more first fives. I hate, you just mentioned it. I hate playing unders because I don’t care what the sport is. You’re sitting there the whole time on pins and needles. And my brain is constantly going like in a basketball game. Okay, there’s been 48 points scored in the first 15 minutes of this game. If you take that and spread it out over 48 minutes, the average is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you’re just sitting there constantly stressing on the under. I get it. And it’s another reason I like to do first five and I’m kind of kidding here, but I get it out of the way in an hour, hour and a half, and I’m done with that game and I move on. That’s to me…

And I like playing unders, which is funny as far as the record is concerned, my record over the years, but it is tough to sit there and have to root against action. Root against action on the bases, root against guys on the plate. It ain’t easy. A guy like me and a guy like you who probably barked two. We like to see some hits here and there. We like to see guys stealing bases. And at the same time, you’re sitting there going, no, I got the under. I’ll root for it in the second half of the game.

TC:

Right, right, right.

Mark:

I’m personally rooting against human achievements. I don’t mind playing the under. They’re really grueling to have… It brings up an interesting game and this occurred, I think in 2013, but it was an Oakland Houston game and the game was zero to zero. And the nine regulation innings, and I’ll have to look up the actual games on the next show, but they ended up going over the total. It was seven and a half total, ended up going over the total, all runs scored in extra innings. Unbelievable. It just goes to show you, it’s never under until it’s over.

TC:

Exactly. And I will clarify Scott, I’ll use a term that we use quite a bit. This play of mine is for entertainment purposes only. Okay. There you go.

Scott:

There’s a lot of those games on the card today. In fact, on a short card, a lot of entertainment purposes only. Second straight day for me, where I just don’t have a ton to play.

TC:

Yeah, I know. It’s Monday. What do you expect? All right here, guys. Let’s get to the Q&A very quickly here, okay. Slick wants to know what we think about the A’s and the Rangers today. Base winner, quick thoughts?

Mark:

I’m just disappointed it wasn’t Paul Blackburn versus Martin Perez. That would’ve been an all time favorite of mine? No, about the game itself. I have it minus 166. It’s right where it’s priced at. Totals at 8.7. That’s right kind of where it’s priced at. I wouldn’t play this game.

TC:

Yeah. I got no opinion. Howard and Martinez. No, thanks, Scott.

Scott:

Yeah. Lean over. It’s a lean. Howard’s hittable. And then of course, Texas bats against Oakland pitching, they ought to be able to do a little damage. You probably need, I’m going to guess, three runs out of the A’s on the road to be able to push this one over the total, but again, it’s a lean.

TC:

All right. And then Sabino would like us to talk about the first game on the board here today. We do have day baseball today with the Tigers and the Royals. Michael Pineda going for the Tigers today and Brad Keller for the Royals. Any thoughts on that, Scott?

Scott:

Well, I guess don’t get caught up in the actual ERAs of these two pitchers, Pineda and Keller because if you look at their, I’m going to venture into base runners stuff here for a second. But if you look at ex-ERA and things like that, I mean, Pineda’s ex-ERA is 6.35, Keller 4.06. Don’t go too far into just the basic ERAs. You would think that maybe Pineda is due for a rough start, but Detroit’s seven and three in the last 10 games. That’s hard to ignore. Am I going to lay $1.30 or so with a team like Kansas City? Heck no. Got to be a pass for me, but maybe those stats will help somebody out there who’s looking to jump into this baseball game.

TC:

Mark, any thoughts?

Mark:

Yeah. From a pure pricing standpoint, there’s value for me on Detroit. I have the game price at minus 102. I can’t back Pineda and I think people who have been following me for years have banned me from backing Pineda. And back in the day when he was really good, he would have just great advanced numbers, a low walk rate, high strikeout rate, but he’d always slip up and throw two or three pitches right in the heart of the zone and he’d just get rocked. And so that was hard for me to quantify and I always came back with him. And admittedly to mixed result, I didn’t always lose with him, sometimes he won, but I’ve got to really take a gulp before I bet on Pineda just because that’s kind of the way his numbers shake out. But Scott’s right, both the advanced numbers. Back in the day he had good advance numbers. He doesn’t even have good advance numbers now. Detroit, Kansas City, maybe it’s a good time to get a workout in, go to Costco, get some errands done. And that would probably take precedence over watching that game.

Scott:

Hey, here’s a good time to read that Tampa Bay injury list.

TC:

There you go.

Mark:

There you go. Good point, Scott.

TC:

Does Costco still have the cheap hot dogs there? They can get a hot dog there for $1.

Mark:

They do, but you got to get into the automated ordering. You can’t go up and order it anymore. You got to go to the… It’s a kiosk thing. It’s very intimidating at first, but once you get it down, then it’s no problem.

TC:

Yeah. I believe back in the day they had the Hebrew Nationals there as well too.

Mark:

That’s what they serve. They’re really [inaudible 00:50:08].

TC:

There you go. And I’m not a big Costco guy, but there you go.

Mark:

TC, I’ve actually gone to Costco just to get the hot dog on more than one occasion actually.

TC:

I can’t blame you. Of course. Yeah. Get the mustard, onions. Got to love it. Best MLB betting here today, guys, as we wrap things up here on this Monday. And as usual, we’ve scoped the gamut here for you today as well too. And always a food reference. You got to love it. Scott’s going with the Chicago White Sox here today, minus 111 in their contest, taking the White Sox over Cal Quantrill and the Guardians. Base winner’s taking the shot with the Phillies over the Cardinals today. Aaron Nola snubbed by the All-Star game here, but we’ll see what kind of effort he puts forth today because Nola has been pretty much lights out this first half of the season. And then I’m going to take an undershot with two hot pitchers, Scherzer and Fried today with the Mets Atlanta under seven. There you have it.

All right guys. Good stuff. We will reconvene here again tomorrow. Remember, we invite everyone to join us Monday through Friday at 12 noon Eastern time here on the MLB Show at BetUSTV, presented by America’s favorite sportsbook, BetUS. And remember to click that bell that way you get the notifications when we go live here. And again, we’re glad to have everyone join this as we handicap some winners Monday through Friday at 12 noon. All right. For Scott Spricer and the base winner, TC Martin saying so long, have yourself a great day. We’re back at it again tomorrow right here on the MLB Show, BetUSTV.

 

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