MLB Picks, Predictions & Best Baseball Betting Odds [Wednesday, May 4 ]

TC Martin:

Welcome to BetUS TV. This is the MLB show. TC Martin along with Mark Borchard, aka the Base Winner. Jeff Nadu is off today. But glad to have you with us. As you know we’re here Monday through Friday at 12:00 noon Eastern. Make sure that you like and subscribe the channel here at the MLB show and of course at BetUS TV.

TC Martin:

We break down Major League Baseball each and every day, handicapping winners for you. For about the next 40, 45 minutes or so, we’ll break down about four or five games and hopefully get everyone to the cashier. Great Wednesday. Glad to have everyone with us. My man Mark Borchard hanging out there in Scottsdale, Arizona. I like it. We got Vegas. We got Scottsdale. It looks we’re matched up. We got Team Red going today, Mark. I kind of liked that, because I have Diamondbacks on. Is that good?

Mark Borchard:

I got my full … No. Not Diamondbacks because I’m going to bet against them today. But I weren’t because of the Phillies. I like the Phillies today. We’ll dig into that one. A little bit later. But, TC, I’m really pumped up about the Tampa Bay bullpen. How about those guys?

TC Martin:

Should we talk about the Tampa Bay bullpen, or should we talk about the Oakland A’s bullpen, Mark, how bad they are for what the second time? I believe in the last three days, they blew not one, not two, but three, four run leads. That was a scenario last night in Oakland in front of about 346 fans how crazy that game was.

Mark Borchard:

You know what was crazy is in the extra inning, one of the guys I hit a triple for the Rays and the camera spans. He’s gone from second to third. I mean, there’s nobody in the stands. You couldn’t tell if it was 2020 with no fans in the stands, or it’s 2022. I’m like, “No. It’s 2022, thank God.”

TC Martin:

There’s a lot of layers to that story. First and foremost is some people may know or may not know, the A’s have been negotiating with the City of Las Vegas here about coming here. This has been going on for two years now. They’ve had around about a dozen meetings. They came back to town just a couple of days ago again, and they just cannot get a ballpark den.

TC Martin:

As we all know that the old Oakland Alameda County Coliseum or wherever they’re calling it now RingCentral Field, I mean, it’s gone through a bunch of different names. But the building has been the same. It’s just one of the worst places to go watch baseball as a fan for players and everything. It’s one of the worst facilities.

TC Martin:

We talked about Moneyball the other day where they filmed a lot of that movie. It’s really … That was 20 years ago. That stadium is still the exact same, I mean, for the players down below, and then the fans. The fans in Oakland are just fed up, because they’re tired of losing teams, because they lost, obviously, the Raiders that played in that same stadium to Las Vegas.

TC Martin:

They’ve lost the Golden State Warriors, which played in the building right next door at the arena there to San Francisco. Now there’s talk that the A’s are going to be leaving Oakland as well, because they cannot get a deal for a new ballpark in Jack London Square in downtown Oakland. I think fans are sick of it. As we already know that the A’s lose players every year, because they develop these players.

TC Martin:

Billy Beane does a great job developing players. But then they outperform their contract and they’re gone. The A’s lost several players over the last couple of years again. The fans are showing up or not showing up in this case, intentionally. I mean, they’re just fed up with the product. They’re fed up with the city and the mayor and Libby Schaaf there. Yeah. Get used to it.

TC Martin:

I understand weeknight games against maybe not a great opponent, but doesn’t matter who’s coming there, except maybe if it’s the Yankees or somebody like that. Then there’s more Yankee fans that are coming to games. But yeah, it’s a sad situation in Oakland. I’m a Northern California guy. I missed those days of the A’s when they used to pack the place and going back to the Charlie Finley days and the Billy Martin days of the ’80s. Those are some great teams and they still have a very loyal fan base. But they’re just not that many of them anymore.

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. I was thinking last night when I was driving that … What the games that have been played there, they’ve hosted a lot of playoff baseball over the years. But personally, I think it’s time to get rid of that stadium, whether they move, whether they get a new stadium. Just the foul balls over there, it seems like you hit a foul ball and it’s an out. But yeah, it had the tenth inning had the atmosphere of a beer league softball game, and the lighting doesn’t seem to be very good there either. The lighting seems really bad just at least on TV it does, but so happy …

TC Martin:

You know what good there, Mark, is the Miller’s Hotdogs. The hot dogs are good there.

Mark Borchard:

There we go.

TC Martin:

If you go on a Tuesday or Wednesday, like dollar hotdogs. You can’t beat that. That’s good.

Mark Borchard:

We’ll have to go on a tour of one of these days of all these ballparks and scout the food and I can do some analytics on all of them, of all the food. Is that like rate? Ratings, different nachos, different hotdogs?

TC Martin:

Well, that’s probably much what I’ll do.

Mark Borchard:

That’d be fun.

TC Martin:

I try to get to as many ballparks as I can, especially during the summertime. That’s a big part for me is the food. But back to that game last night, Mark and I yesterday we were debating this game and actually wasn’t going to play the game. I’m going to say that I got goaded into that game. But I took it because Mark had Tampa Bay. But I said, “Yeah. You know what? I like Paul Blackburn. Mark really doesn’t.”

TC Martin:

The thing about it is Blackburn was actually pretty good last night. Here’s what’s frustrating in both of the games last night. I went two and two. We’ll get to the records here in a minute. But the two games I lost I got really frustrated, Mark, because a handicap that A’s raise game by going against Yarborough. I said, “They’re going to go with the opener. They’re going to probably use six pitchers.” Sure enough, Yarbrough was horrible …

Mark Borchard:

He was really bad.

TC Martin:

… even grand slam, give up five runs in the first inning. A’s don’t score again until we go to the girls’ softball game in the 10th inning, putting the runner on second base. But it was just … Yeah. It was terrible. They had that five, three lead going into the ninth. They give him the two run homer two is Zunino. But they had no offense between the first inning and the 10th inning.

TC Martin:

Again, that’s the third time that they blown a four-run lead in the past three games. That was frustrating to watch. Then you go to the Toronto game yesterday, where Manoah was rolling through six innings, gave up one run and three hits. What happens? They go to the bullpen. They blow up Aaron Judge goes deep, not once but twice.

TC Martin:

But it’s hard when you handicap starting pitchers or go against a starting pitcher and it lays out that way. Then all of a sudden, here comes the late inning fall apart from the bullpen and the heroics on the other team. Not good excuse because that’s baseball. We get that.

Mark Borchard:

But we made a good point on the show yesterday, because Jeff said, “Hey.” It’s just … I was like, “Hey, this is the component. This is this. This is the fielding. This is the relief. This is everything about this game.” He said, “Well, you’re just playing the starting pitchers.” I wasn’t. I said, “Hey, sometimes you have to handicap especially in this day and age.”

Mark Borchard:

I’m going to talk about Blackburn not going to the third part of the lineup. He’s only faced the third part of the lineup, 3 batters out of 92 batters he’s faced. If you’re handicapping Paul Blackburn moving forward, you’ve got to say, “Hey, he’s only going to face a lineup twice, because that’s what they’ve shown so far.” But anyway, I think to sum up what I’m trying to say is I think you have to handicap these games.

Mark Borchard:

I think it’s a better way to handicap the bullpen first and move back to the starting pitchers. Because these guys they’re not going deep into the game. Now that was different with Manoah last night, because he did pitch fairly deep. But no, I thought that the Tampa Bay Rays, but that was a key part of the handicap last night and it turned out really good for me.

Mark Borchard:

But just to quantify how bad Yarbrough was, because you were right about going against the starting pitchers. Since July 4th, there’s been 3,000 games or 3,087 games that I’ve graded from starting pitchers. He comes in at 3,064. I mean, you can’t get much worse than that. I just when he was pitching him, they must be seeing something that I’m not because I just kept saying, “Get him out, get him out. This guy, he doesn’t have it.”

Mark Borchard:

I don’t know made that. It’s the Tampa Bay Rays. Maybe they saw something in him that I didn’t see. But it was fortunate. It was a fortunate win for me, TC.

TC Martin:

Yeah. You’re right. But we both really handicap that to perfection from our own vantage point. I was looking good through the first eighth and a third innings, eighth and two-thirds innings until Zunino hit the home run. But okay, I thought the A’s would get maybe a little more runs than the five that they gotten the first. But then you handicap going against the A’s bullpen in the latter part of that game.

TC Martin:

It was one of those strange games where you could probably make the argument, yeah, we were both right in our handicapping, but the end only one team can win and then Tampa Bay lit up in the tent.

Mark Borchard:

But I personally like to go head-to-head. Hopefully we’ll have some of those matchups before. It gets out an incentive and I love you. I think you’re a great host and I’m really happy to be working with you. But sometimes it’s nice to have a little rivalry in those games. Yeah.

TC Martin:

I agree. I agree. That’s why I always joke around a lot of times. A lot of times I can’t get Jeff to bite on like, say, a food bet or something like that. But I like to do that a lot. I do it with my show and of course here as well, too. Speaking in my show, got to give Mark a shout out. I invited Mark on my show yesterday. That was good. Because I really wanted to touch on the baseball situation with Major League Baseball, like we touched on this show yesterday.

TC Martin:

If you want to go back to my website and check that out, tcmartinshow.com, go to yesterday, Mark and I had a very good conversation with that. I appreciate you coming on my friend.

Mark Borchard:

My pleasure. It was fun to be on. I was amazed at your sports movie knowledge, your ability to recall actual character names from the love of the game. I don’t really know that many character names. I can tell you I know Willie Mays Hayes from Major League and Pedro Cerrano. That’s probably the extent of my character name knowledge for in sports movies.

TC Martin:

That’s it. Oh, yeah, Billy Chapel For the Love of the Game. I mean, Kevin Costner, I mean, fantastic. Yeah. Then we can go on and on with not only just baseball movies, but sports movies in general. I’m a big sports movie guy. But I’m a big critic, too, as well, if they don’t get it right. If they’re filming a movie in a certain stadium and they’re calling it a different stadium. That irritates me.

TC Martin:

If they get the editing wrong and that sort of thing, I’m a big critic with that. But I love a good sports movie where they nail it. It’s not so fictitious. Or if it is fictitious with content and that sort of thing, at least they make it look real. Yeah. Yeah. Good conversation yesterday. I appreciate it.

Mark Borchard:

It was cool. It was cool, man.

TC Martin:

All right. All right. I got … Again, yesterday, congratulations to my guy, Dusty Baker for getting win number 2,000. I know that was a story that I talked about leading up to it. Then I was glad to see the national media jumped on that story after the fact, so very happy for Dusty, celebrating today with my Dusty Baker wine that I have right behind me there.

TC Martin:

There you go, Mark. I have to share some of that with you. Baker Family Wines, my guy Dusty, he’s involved with all kinds of things outside of baseball, but celebrating for my man. You know that 2,000 victory for a plateau for a manager is a big deal, because that basically guarantees you a spot in the Hall of Fame. Everybody else who … The 11 other managers who have 2,000 wins all are in the Hall of Fame.

TC Martin:

When it’s all said and done here, Dusty after this season, will probably end up at number nine, because he’s only 40 victories away from passing up several other guys. Bruce Bochy has 2,003. He’s going to probably catch him by the weekend. Very happy for my friend Dusty Baker and the Astros started play some good baseball as well, too. Last night was a very good night for the Astros and for me for MLB betting on them.

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. No. That’s good. He cashed a ticket on the 2,000th game. That’s got to be a fun ticket to catch.

TC Martin:

I told him, I said, “I want that tickets stubs because I couldn’t be there in Houston last night. I want that ticket stub from that game last night.” Hopefully …

Mark Borchard:

He was a pretty good outfielder for the Dodgers. I’m dating myself a little bit. But I remember when I was a kid, he played … he would nonchalantly catch the fly, but yeah, I just got it, no problem. He was pretty good actually. He was part of those Dodger teams that, I think, couple went to the World Series in ’77 and ’78.

TC Martin:

Yeah. He won the World Series with the Dodgers Silver Slugger Award winner. I mean, yeah, list goes on and on. Again, 25 years as a manager, 20 as a player. Yeah. He’s just one of the great ambassadors also, one of the great guys in all of Major League Baseball and sports for that matter, so congratulations to him and I’m looking forward to seeing him here in the next month or so when I get down to Houston.

TC Martin:

All right. My friend, let’s take a look at what we did yesterday. I went two and two yesterday, had the Astros, also had the Dodgers against the Giants so that made me feel pretty good. We talked about the couple of losers with the Manoah not really getting a chance to go past the six innings to run a loss to the Yankees, but congratulations, the base winner on that one.

TC Martin:

Then the A’s in Tampa Bay, like we discussed earlier too, A’s winner got the victory with that. There you go. Also you had the White Sox yesterday, my friend. The White Sox over the Cubs, that was good. You’re lone loser was that first game of the day with Charlie Morton with Atlanta gets a Mets. I was joking with you, Mark, yesterday, I guess before the show and during the show, it’s like, “Hey, you sure you don’t want a piece of Kyle Wright in the nightcap?”

TC Martin:

It didn’t matter because the Mets swept the Braves in that doubleheader yesterday, which is rare that we see. But hey, Mets are playing some pretty good baseball right now.

Mark Borchard:

They really are and their bullpen … Look, Edwin Diaz in that first game … I mean, gosh, he can pitch like that all year. The Mets are going to be hard to beat especially late.

TC Martin:

Yeah. There’s a records right there. I’m at 23 and 16 right now, base winner at 21 and 17. Jeff, 9 and 15 there. Trying to keep it above the plus units there. All right. Let’s take a look at the action today. We’re going to handicap four games for you. We are going to start with the early morning game that’s going to go or early afternoon depending on what where you’re residing right now.

TC Martin:

But Mark, you’re not giving us any shelf-life here. I mean your diving …

Mark Borchard:

I know.

TC Martin:

… in your game that’s a 20 minutes away from first pitch, my friend. I don’t know about that.

Mark Borchard:

You guys as cool and the gang would say, “Get down on it,” because it starts to …

TC Martin:

Look at my man. You’re bringing in some old school music reference. We could do this all day …

Mark Borchard:

I love that song.

TC Martin:

… my friend, get down on it. How about a little Jungle Book? Or do you want a little celebration in about three and a half hours …

Mark Borchard:

That would be good. No. No. That’d be good the get down on at, the celebration at the end. I didn’t even think about. That’s actually really good.

TC Martin:

I do this all day.

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I know you’re big music guy so that’s give. That’s my contribution musically to the weekly … for the week. But anyway …

TC Martin:

I appreciate it.

Mark Borchard:

I’m go with the Marlins here and it’s the line started at Miami minus 135. It’s gone all the way to minus 160 here. I’ve got a price at minus 167. I still think it’s a play. There’s so much to love about this matchup for me personally. We’ll start off with the starting pitchers. I’m just not sold on Madison Bumgarner. I’ve got him in the model at 116, so 16% worse than average. He’s 140th out of 150 pitchers.

Mark Borchard:

I’ve got Hernandez in there, 62nd out of 150 pitchers. I’ve got the relief much better than the Diamondbacks relievers, 97th out of 154. The Marlins 148th out of 150 the way it sets up for Bumgarner and offensively a big advantage here. The Marlins, very surprisingly, can hit left-handed pitching really good. My projections are really high on them versus left-handed pitching.

Mark Borchard:

If you take a look at the individuals that comprise this lineup, we’ll start within there. All of these guys are 100 or above. It starts at the top of the order with Birdie and then it goes Jesus Aguilar, Jorge Soler, Cooper, Garcia, Anderson, and Miguel Rojas, and all these guys are above 100 by my weight of runs created plus versus left-handed pitching.

Mark Borchard:

That’s why it’s spitting out that nice line value for us. I think I wanted to touch upon one thing about Madison Bumgarner, because I do think that if you look at his ERA, you see a 1.17. You say, “Well, base winner, how can you play against the 1.17 ERA?” My answer to you would be, “Well, on my side, I have the base winner ERA, which I think is much more predictive moving forward, and it takes strikeout percentage, walk percentage and ground ball rate.”

Mark Borchard:

If you look at his base winner ERA, it is at 6.45, which is 131 out of 140 pitchers. I’m just not sold on Bumgarner yet and all the other components shake out and that’s why I’m going to go here with the Marlins. You guys get down on it fast. It starts in 20 minutes here.

TC Martin:

There you go. Yeah. Let me just add on to Bumgarner. He’s lost so much over the past three seasons. This guy hasn’t gone more than five innings in the last four starts. I mean, the last time he went beyond the fifth inning was September 17th of last year. Now he doesn’t have it anymore. I think this is just a waste of money in the salary this guy is getting from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

TC Martin:

He is basically a go-against all the time. I think it’s a big line of minus 165 or so with the Marlins. But let’s give the Diamondbacks some credit mark because they’ve won six out of their last eight games. They played pretty well as of late. You’re going with a guy here with Hernandez, who’s similar to Bumgardner. He’s not much of a strikeout guy at all. This guy’s 0 and 2 with the ERA of 655 against the Diamondbacks.

TC Martin:

I’m not really crazy about either pitcher here, and I don’t want any part of this game. I’m rooting you on my man. But I will say this the Diamondbacks … Bats are really coming alive right now and not crazy about your pitcher. Give me some more thoughts about the Miami pitcher.

Mark Borchard:

Oh, Hernandez? Well, Hernandez really … I mean, he grades well in my projections. If you go over to baserunner.com and you look him up, you see, well, he has an ERA of 5.75. But their surface metrics are a little bit or the underlying metrics rather a little bit better. 4.63 based on an ERA. But he’s above average in strikeout percentage, and above average in suppressing walk.

Mark Borchard:

I do like that. I like his long-term projections. I know he’s sown from the game log, the three-metric game log. I know he’s thrown a couple starts in the 75th percentile. I think he’s 2 out of 4, have been in the 75th percentile. There’s a lot to like still about Hernandez. I did lose. I remember losing with him against the Angels. I think you were on the other side of the Angels where he gave up a three run homer after striking the guy out and not getting the call.

Mark Borchard:

I don’t know how you handicap that analytically moving backwards, but Hernandez a lot to like about him.

TC Martin:

All right. Let’s lock base winner in. He likes the Miami Marlins today in the early start. If you’re going to get down, get down like James Brown early, Miami minus 159 over the Diamondbacks. All right. Next up, let’s take a look at the Houston Astros taking on the Seattle Mariners again. The pitching matchup today has Matt Brash going for Seattle. Justin Verlander going for Houston. Astros a $1.85 favorite.

TC Martin:

The total in this game seven and a half shaded to the over at minus 120. I think that’s probably shaded to the over because of the Astro bats because you’re not banking on the Seattle Mariner bats right now. The Mariners have scored zero in this series in the first two games. That’s right. They have not scored a single run in the series as the Astros has pitch to shutouts.

TC Martin:

Cristian Javier got it done a little bit by committee yesterday. But this is really a pitching mismatch when you look at. Brash is horrible. He gave up six earned runs to Miami in only two innings before getting blasted in that game, gave up three earned runs, four walks. That was horrible against Kansas City. Then he pitched against Houston a couple of weeks back. He walked six Astro batters in that game in only five innings.

TC Martin:

He has been horrendous thus far, especially with his control. He has walked 13 batters already. Then on the other side, you got Justin Verlander, who’s just been lights out, coming back from the injury, 28 strikeouts, only for walks. He’s gone eight innings, six innings and seven innings in his last three starts. To me, I was not going to play this game today. I was looking at I said, “Okay. But it’s Verlander and it’s Brash.”

TC Martin:

I’m going to be remised if I didn’t play this game, because this is a pitching mismatch. Then we throw in the fact that, “Oh, by the way, the Seattle Mariners offense has done nothing in the last couple of days.” I talked yesterday about this, Mark, that this team is so streaky, and we’ve seen him going four game winning streaks. We’ve seen go on four or five game losing streaks. Well, they are going bad right now.

TC Martin:

Seattle has not scored a run in the last 18 innings of this series. To me, it seems pretty simple. You got to ride with the Astros here, especially a hot pitcher like Verlander going against one of Seattle’s worst and Matt Brash.

Mark Borchard:

Did you say Matt Brash is one of Seattle’s worst?

TC Martin:

Yes.

Mark Borchard:

Okay. I disagree with you on that. But I do. There are some numbers that he’s thrown out there that aren’t very good. I think that this play … This is an interesting play for me or an interesting game for me because I saw a renegade pirate line yesterday. It was about minus 160. It’s climbed all the way up to minus 200 level. My model has it priced Houston at minus 195.

Mark Borchard:

It’s actually leaning towards Houston, originally, early morning yesterday about 11:00, 12:00 Pacific Time. But it’s climbed all the way up. I don’t really see any value. I don’t think it’s a bad … I don’t think you should play Seattle here. I just don’t see any value either way. One of the things about Brash is I think the guy has tremendous upside. His stuff plus is in the 95 percentile compared to Verlander.

Mark Borchard:

Verlander has good stuff, too. He’s in the 78th percentile stuff plus. But Brash is perplexing, and I bet on him last time out versus Miami and lost with him. I’m looking at his underlying metrics from that start. They’re really interesting. He had a 17.5% swinging strike rate, which that equates to the 92nd percentile in that particular metric.

Mark Borchard:

But if you look at his expected walk rate, he had a 14.5% expected walk rate, which is in the 8th percentile. He was getting the swinging strikes, but he was wild with his stuff. Then when they did hit him, they hit him pretty hard, 18 hard hits per 9 in his last start. As high as I am on him from a ceiling standpoint, I think that his starts to date and you look at his 55 percentile against the White Sox, 21 percentile you’ll like this, TC, when he faced Houston last time, when he faced Houston in the game that they played against him before in Seattle.

Mark Borchard:

Then the Royals 55 percentile and then his last time out, the cumulative was in the 27th percentile. I think that my long term projections on Brash, well, I think, he’s got a huge upside. He’s going to have to find a way to control his pitches. I think that’s the primary concern. But if I had to play this, I think I’d probably lay the run line. I’d play it on the run line because I think that Brash could be really bad, walk a lot of guys, the Astros have pretty good plate discipline. I think if I played it, I’d have probably played on the red line, TC, the Astros.

TC Martin:

Yeah. Again the Astros do have their A lineup in today, Altuve, Brantley, Bregman, Alvarez, Gurriel, Tucker, Diaz playing short today, Jeremy Pena getting the day off today, Castro catching today instead of Maldonado. Yeah. The center A line about there and again anytime Justin Verlander is going to take the hill you got to go with him and especially against Brash.

TC Martin:

What you’re saying could be true about Brash in the future. We’ve had this discussion with other pitchers before. Again I can only handicap what’s in front of me and what is in front of me are behind us actually is how bad Brash has been. Again, the walks, ridiculous. Again, you mentioned that game against Houston. I mentioned it to, six walks and five innings.

TC Martin:

I mean this guy is all over the place. Control is definitely an issue. I just don’t see the Seattle bats snapping out of it against Verlander today. Again, good spot lock me in. I will take the Astros. We know that this line is rising and Mark is right. I mean you open a 165 yesterday. There are some shots right now that have this up to $2 and over $2 right now. If you can get it a BetUS at minus 185 jump on it. Again, Astros going for the sweep today.

TC Martin:

All right. Next up the Texas Rangers and the Philadelphia Phillies, Martin Perez going against Zack Wheeler for the Phil’s. The Phillies are dollar 65 favorite played at home at Citizens Bank Park. If you like the Rangers, take a shot with them. They’re starting to hit the ball now, plus 145. The total in this game is 8 slightly shaded to the over at minus 115.

TC Martin:

Base winner Martin Perez had a perfect game going against the Houston Astros in his last start through six innings. This guy was untouchable. Then Chas McCormick led off with a double in the seventh inning. That was it. But Perez has shown that he can be decent at times. Then Zack Wheeler, I mean, a lot of fans will remember Zack Wheeler from his time with the Mets, not really crazy about him. Overall I’m not really crazy about either pitcher. Give me some thoughts on who you like and why in this game.

Mark Borchard:

Well, I’m going to go ahead and lay the wood with the Phillies and I would disagree with your read on Zack Wheeler. I mean, this is a guy who was Cy Young contender last year. I don’t know. I think a lot of people thought he should have won the Cy Young. One of the things I do like about Wheeler is he can go deep into the game.

Mark Borchard:

That’s priced into my model. I’ve got it priced at minus 188. You can get it at minus 162. That’s showing value. Just real quickly, I’ve got Wheeler long-term projections. He’s 15th out of 150 pitchers and I’ve never really liked Perez. In fact, I’m surprised that I’ve got 109th out of 150 pitchers. I usually have him towards the bottom there. That’s actually somewhat surprising.

Mark Borchard:

He did mention the Rangers offense has been hitting and they’re a capable offense. I have them 13th in baseball. They’re 107 weighted runs created plus. But I like the Phillies’ offense much better. I’ve got them 6th versus lefties at 117 weighted runs created plus. What I think I liked the most about … This is one of the reasons I do this game log. I score every game so that I can get a read on how those games compared to Major League Baseball.

Mark Borchard:

One of the good things about Wheeler is his last time out. He had a 91 percentile overall base winner rating. That was 249th out of over 3,000 games. I think he’s rounding back into form. He certainly hasn’t shown great form so far early in the year. But I’m going to give him a pass, a Cy Young contender on a short spring training. It looks like he rounded it out his last time out.

Mark Borchard:

Really suppressing hard hit per 9 in the 97th percentile in that start. One of the things and it’s really scary with this Philadelphia bullpen. I’m not really high on the Philadelphia bullpen. I have them ranked 20th out of 30 teams. But the Rangers I have 23rd out of 100 … There’s not 150 baseball teams. There’s only 30 baseball teams, 23rd out of 3 baseball teams.

Mark Borchard:

One of the things that comes into my handicap here is I think that Wheeler’s capable of going deep into the game. There’s three guys in the Phillies’ bullpen that I really liked. I like Knebel a closer. I’ve got him in a space winner 70, which means he’s 30% better than the average pitcher. I like to Familia. This could be controversial to some baseball hipsters. But I have him 9% better than average.

Mark Borchard:

Then this is my favorite guy in the Philadelphia bullpen. His name is Seranthony Domínguez. I have him 80. It was just 20% better than an average pitcher. You said well, your ratings like Knebel better. Why do you like Seranthony Domínguez better than Knebel? Well, I really like his name. It’s not Sir Anthony like Sir Anthony knights of the roundtable.

Mark Borchard:

It’s Seranthony. It’s S-E-R-A-N-T-H-O-N-Y. He’s a guy that I really want to succeed and I’m high on him with my numbers. But I want him to succeed because I just love his name, TC.

TC Martin:

There it is. Write that down. There it is right there. Lock him in, base winner is playing a team because of the great name that he has as a relief pitcher. I understand. I can relate to that exactly.

Mark Borchard:

I hope they bring in Seranthony and he pitches like Sir Anthony.

TC Martin:

Yes. I understand. Yeah, exactly. Like Sir Elton John, right? He’s a sir. Sir Paul McCartney, right?

Mark Borchard:

Well, he would be. If the Phillies got to lead and he can hold them, I’m going to knight him in my base winner ratings.

TC Martin:

Like that. All right. Lock the base winner in for the Philadelphia Phillies today. He likes the Phills at minus 165 at home. Talking about these pitchers and talking about the offenses, because I do like both of these offenses. Why not possibly entertain an overplay here as well, too? Again, you’re talking about bullpens really not that strong with either team especially the Phillies there. Any quick thoughts on overplay?

Mark Borchard:

Maybe Phillies team total over. I’ve never liked Perez over the years. One of the things that I failed to mention in my handicap was that he’s had in the stuff plus metric he’s at five percentile. I like playing against guys like that. Maybe go Phillies team total over. I would be comfortable making that play.

TC Martin:

Okay. All right. Base winners got the Philadelphia Phillies. All right. Tonight, we’ve got the Giants and the Dodgers. Game won that series last night. I was on the Dodgers and they came through with a three to one victory. Today, Alex Wood is going for San Francisco. Guess who’s going for Los Angeles? Nobody, because Dave Roberts is playing games with us again today.

TC Martin:

Oh, yes. He did not want to announce a starter. Kind of deja vu of what we went through in the playoffs last year as well, too, where Roberts decided to go with Corey Knebel as an opener instead of Urias, if you remember that. This thing is crazy. If you go back to that game when San Francisco played the Dodgers in the NLDS, he said he sent the Giants manager a text and saying, “Hey, sorry about this. But I’m going to let you know what we’re going to do here today, but I’m really not announcing into the media.”

TC Martin:

Well, he’s not announcing nothing today. This is a regular season game. It’s really strange, because …

Mark Borchard:

I think it’s smart. I think it’s super smart. I don’t like … I’m not a big Dave Roberts fan. I don’t like the way he coaches in spring training. He’s just too laid back for these guys. Well, of course, I had a bet on his spring training game when the guy didn’t take the extra base and it cost me the money. But maybe it’s personal. But no. I think it’s really smart here in all seriousness, because think about the Giants and their analytical department, how they prepare for different types of pitchers.

Mark Borchard:

You know they’re in there watching the video, looking at pitch tendencies and they’re trying to handicap the game as much as we are. If you don’t know who the starting pitcher is, well, how can you tell your hitters what to hit? I think it’s really smart of Roberts. In fact, if I was a major league manager, I’d keep people guessing all the time. I don’t want people knowing who’s going to start.

Mark Borchard:

They get locked in on my starting pitcher. Keep them guessing. I think that’s one of the reasons that opener works so well because these guys, they’re locked in like last night. We’re locked in on Yarbrough. But they don’t know who they’re going to get after that. It keeps these guys on their toes. Sorry. I stepped in on you. But I think it’s a smart move. This is coming from somebody that who’s not a big Dave Roberts fan.

TC Martin:

Yeah. Okay. I will say this. I appreciate gamesmanship more than anybody, from a coaching perspective manager. I love that. I agree. But here’s a couple things. This is a regular season game. What it’s doing … Yesterday, you were talking about the baseballs and affecting betting and that sort of thing. Major League Baseball doesn’t care about that and all that sort of thing.

TC Martin:

This is destroying bedding, because there is no line on this game. This game is off the board. This is the exact reason why we had to go to not listing pictures anymore in sports books here in Nevada and throughout the world. This is terrible because baseball is the game and I’ve talked about this before, where you are basically handicapping a pitcher, unlike any other sport.

TC Martin:

Lines are based on who you are starting pitcher is. To be able to not list pitchers, that is a huge deal, especially in total players. Because remember, if you’re betting a total and you would get a starting pitcher, it’d be scratch, your bet was void, because it was all based on that. People would always list their starting pitchers. Well, you can’t do that anymore because of the Dave Robertson, specifically the Joe Mann’s and the Kevin Cach’s who liked to do this nonsense about being coy and throwing the opener, like you said, Mark, just you don’t know what you’re going to get next.

TC Martin:

But what this is doing for the betting industry right now, I was going to play the Dodgers. But I can’t play the Dodgers because there’s no line of the game. I will have no play on this game. Now, what we think we are going to get if we read into Dave Roberts’ mind is Tony Gonsolin is probably going to be the starter.

TC Martin:

Roberts has gone so far to say, “Okay, it’ll be Gonsolin, or it’s going to be the opener,” which who knows what that’s going to be. But if you have a pitching rotation, you have a pitching rotation. What it does for your own team is that it locks your guys in and they know when to have their bullpen sessions. They know what they do the day before and there’s a routine.

TC Martin:

He is messing with his own team in this facet as well, too. Like I said, I love the gamesmanship, but it’s a regular season game. We’re the first part of May. This isn’t a playoff game at all. I mean, this is really …

Mark Borchard:

What does the season come down to you? But what did season come …

TC Martin:

… pitcher right now?

Mark Borchard:

What did the season come down to you last year as far as that division goes? I think it was one game. I think that’s what separated the two. You have to treat these games like they’re important. It does but you bring up a really good point. It makes that the whole handicapping process, boxing listed pitchers was a staple for years as far as I remember handicapping base.

TC Martin:

Forever until this year.

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. That makes it difficult from that standpoint, because at times you’re guessing. But at the same time, if you can get ahead of the market and you can handicap each person in the bullpen and come up with a plan, I think the Rays game last night was a good example. I think I mentioned that Yarbrough. I didn’t expect him to go three innings and then we’re going to get a mix of a really deep Tampa Bay bullpen.

Mark Borchard:

I think you can use it to your advantage. But it does take a heck of a lot of work and a lot of time and I speak from experience on that. But yeah, I’m with you on that. Can we box listed pitchers at least it makes it hard I think for the bookmaker though because it’s like, okay, well Wheeler, he’s not going to be the opener. You can tell what these guys, well, who’s going to be an opener and who’s not.

Mark Borchard:

I can see maybe the bookmaker could take a look at and say, “Okay. Well, they’re going to start Yarbrough and they’re going to go bullpen. Okay. We won’t allow people to box that particular game or we won’t to allow people to have starting pitchers box in that game.” But like a game where Wheeler goes seven innings, probably 97% of the time.

Mark Borchard:

I think that maybe they could use a little bit of flex. They could use some flexibility or they could I guess incorporate some flexibility as far as the boxing pitchers. But yeah, it’s a sore spot for me, too, TC. I’m with you on that.

TC Martin:

Here’s what we know in this game. Alex Wood is going for the Giants, the former Dodger going against his old team. Wood’s coming off a horrible start against Washington and gave up five earned runs, eight hits, and five innings pitch. Again, I was all set to continue to ride the Dodger train since I have them last night.

TC Martin:

But then again, it’s like who’s pitching for the Dodgers? Well, we have no idea. Again …

Mark Borchard:

But we can make a bet because there’s no line on the game.

TC Martin:

There’s no line in the game so we got no action on this game. There we go.

Mark Borchard:

I guess I can start betting who they’re going to start by putting odds on. I got three guys.

TC Martin:

I may bet on this game later on day, possibly. We’ll see when Roberts announces who was starting pitchers. But really, what we know about Gonsolin is nothing great there. But he’s only going to go probably four innings, five innings max and if he goes that long. It wouldn’t surprise me if Robert goes with the “opener” which I hate. All right.

Mark Borchard:

It’s a tough game for me handicappers.

TC Martin:

It is. It is. Kyle’s got a question. He wants to know we think about the Cards and Royals base winner. Any thoughts on that?

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. I think it’s priced about right. I’ve got it showing at minus 137 for the Cardinals. My base winner line is minus 130. I’m not too high on either guy. I guess, Wainwright looks like he’s moved up a little bit in my ratings. He’s 90th out of 150 pitchers. The St. Louis offense is much better than the Royals offense here. But I just think if you just throw it all in the mix here, it’s probably priced about where it needs to be.

TC Martin:

All right. Yeah. No opinion on this game. I do like the St. Louis’s offense. We’ve talked about them before. Royals are kind of hit and miss for me. I’m going to pass. Anytime you know Wainwright’s taking the hill I got to be a little bit leery and suspect here. Not sure what he had. I view him almost in the Bumgarner range where again, he’s not the same pitcher. But he has these occasional starts.

TC Martin:

If you’re going to back St. Louis, you’re back in the offense pretty much. You’re back in the bats more than you’re back in Wainwright. We’ve seen Kansas City. They’ve gone through their streaks. They could be decent at home. But that’s a pass for me. Northbound Training, he’s got a question. He says, “You don’t shy away from the run line at home favorites even though they may be getting eight innings at bats.”

TC Martin:

He goes, “I thought that was a rule of thumb. But I see many people smarter than me betting on them. I brought that up on numerous occasions.” For me, if it’s a really pitching mismatch, and maybe an offensive mismatch, I will go ahead and lay the run at home. But I generally don’t like doing it because you’re only getting eight at bats. I’m more inclined to do it with visiting teams because you’re guaranteed at least the nine at bats, and especially if you’re going to extra innings that really keeps alive, too, and especially you have the advantage of the runner on second base.

TC Martin:

Yeah. For me, I contemplated that a little bit today with Verlander. But again, as a general rule for me, I stay away. Quick thoughts on that base winner?

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. I think you almost have to model to have a separate model for the run line. Quite frankly, that’s why I don’t play a lot of them. I think in this particular situation where … He does bring up a good point. I wanted to touch upon this, too, because I think every good mode should account for the possibility that the home team will not bat.

Mark Borchard:

How I do it is I come up with a game probability and let’s say, the team has a 65% chance to win. Well, they also have a 65% chance that they’re not going to hit in the ninth inning. I modeled that with my run projection and you get that with my adjusted team total when I talk about totals. But anyway, I was talking about this particular game, the Matt Brash, Verlander.

Mark Borchard:

I think that why it might be a good idea to play the Astros here is because Brash has a high ceiling but he’s also got a really low floor, too. The guys in the go and I think that you couple that with Houston’s plate discipline metrics, he could put a lot of guys on. They got power and then that’s where they’re going to get the big run. I think that you could take a look at some of these selective matchups.

Mark Borchard:

I can see Brash winning this game. If he’s electric, he can match up with Verlander. It gets to a bullpen battle and I like the Seattle bullpen. I like Houston’s bullpen, too. But it’s coin flippy at the end there. But I can also see Brash having a big blow up. That’s why I think in this particular game, that would be how I would play it. But again, I’m not showing any value on this particular game.

Mark Borchard:

But I think that sometimes when you have these guys that came, maybe their command’s not very good, that’s a good opportunity to say, “Well, I’ve seen these guys just be lights out.” But I’ve also seen him put a bunch of guys on. Maybe that’s a better option to play in those particular in situation like this. Yeah.

TC Martin:

In options, too, always go with the first five as well, too, with that favored as well. Thinking, okay, the bats will come alive early, then you don’t have to worry about not getting that that ninth inning, that as well, too. All right. Really quickly. Mets, Atlanta, this game any quick thoughts?

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. I’ve got a price at minus 113, market showing minus 125. For me, it’s a no play. I’m a little bit surprised. My number on Ian Anderson is where it is. I have these guys … I have him at 98th or 90 run suppression number, also have Megill at a 91 run suppression number. There’s some things about Anderson that I don’t like. But that’s the way it’s showing up. But it for me it’s a no play.

TC Martin:

Yeah. No play. Megill has been very, very good for the Mets. He’s 4 and 0, ERA of 183. He’s been pretty much lights out and big strikeout guy as well, too. Again, I’m like you, not crazy about Anderson. Minnesota Twins today, Mark, any thoughts? Mark wants to know about that.

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. I think this Bundy is hard to play on. He’s got a 7% stuff plus. I’ve got a price at minus 126, market has at it a minus 138. For me, it’s a no play. Kyle Bradish is interesting. I have him 102nd out of 150 pitchers. I mean, that’s pretty high for a guy who’s making a second star. There’s some things that the projections like about Kyle Bradish as far as his particular game is in no play for me, TC, and Mark.

TC Martin:

Okay. Good stuff. All right. Let’s go to our best bets here today as we wrap things up, and we’ll tell you who we like one more time today. All right. Base winners on the early start that’s already underway. Miami had minus 159. Miami against Madison Bumgarner in Arizona going against the, sounds strange, the red hot Diamondbacks right now. But base winner is on the Marlins laying 159. Also the Phillies laying 165 today.

TC Martin:

The Phillies taking Zack Wheeler over Martin Perez and the Texas Rangers. I am on the Houston Astros. For me, the pitching mismatch it looks like for me is Justin Verlander over Matt Brash and again Seattle has not scored a run in this series yet. Again, we know that the Mariners bats will probably come alive at some point in time, but hopefully not today. Take another shot with the Astros and my man Dusty Baker can get win number 2,001 today.

TC Martin:

All right. Appreciate all of the questions. As always remember, we’re here Monday through Friday at 12:00 noon Eastern, 9:00 Pacific here on BetUS TV. It is the MLB show. Base winner, have yourself a great day. Good luck to you my friend and we will reconvene tomorrow.

Mark Borchard:

Yeah. Thanks, TC. Enjoyed breaking this car down with you.

TC Martin:

There you go. Excellent stuff. All right. We’re back at it again tomorrow. Make sure that you join us at 12:00 Eastern. Remember to like and to subscribe to this channel so you get the notifications. Hit that bell so you get the notifications when we go live. Remember, join us every weekday here at 12:00 Eastern on the MLB show. BetUS TV. Don’t forget to check out our sportsbook website. Have yourself a great day. Enjoy the games.