MLB schedule today has 15 games
All 30 teams take the field on the first Monday of the MLB season, which is definitely rare based on how the schedule is typically set up. Usually Monday will be a travel day for some teams, but we had 20 teams off on Friday. The Giants and White Sox will be idle on Tuesday with a day built-in for bad weather in the Windy City.
It’s been a slow start to the season with the picks and with the volume of picks, as I’ve spent a lot of time stressing and overthinking about the rule changes and their impacts on certain teams and pitchers. I’ll elaborate more on today’s edition of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets, but here are some stats from the early season to this point. (Tracking sheet)
– The league-wide batting average has stabilized and so has the BABIP. Hitters collectively own a .245/.323/.392 slash (BA/OBP/SLG) and the BABIP is down to .301. Furthermore, K% has stabilized a bit as well, dropping down to 23.4%. In terms of stabilization points, K% is one of the fastest league-wide stats to stabilize and the fact that we’re into pitchers at the back of the rotation will help lower that number today and tomorrow.
– We have seen 70 successful stolen bases and 14 caught stealings, so an 83.3% success rate. That is still very high, but it was 21-of-23 on Opening Day, so catchers are doing a bit better. Everybody will adjust to the rules as we go forward.
– We’ve had 101 home runs over the first four days of the season. There were 100 the first four days of last season and nobody was really ready for the start of the season because of the lockout and the expedited Spring Training. I can’t make any definitive statements about the baseball and its properties yet, but it seems like nothing big has changed.
By the way, BABIP over the last four days of the season last year was .276, so that has changed rather significantly.
– Here’s something really interesting: Hitters are still not being rewarded for hard contact to the degree that they were pre-2022.
Batting average / slugging percentage on batted balls of 95+ mph:
2019: .539 / 1.121
2020: .510 / 1.065 2021: .500 / 1.015 2022: .488 / .954 2023: .487 / .934My working theory was that the shift ban would increase batter success on hard contact, but that hasn’t been the case thus far and we’ve also seen a decrease in power.
The league-wide launch angle is down to 11.3 degrees and the league-wide exit velocity is the second-lowest in the five-year sample size, better than only 2020, which was obviously a weird year. Batted ball distance is also down seven feet from last season – it would appear that hitters are not elevating the baseball quite as much as last season, likely an adjustment to not having the shift. So far, this is the second-lowest average launch angle of the Statcast era, which dates back to 2015 (and 2015 was the season at 10.9 degrees).
I’ll keep tracking the relevant data and see if I can pick up on anything.
The newest edition of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets will be posted shortly.
Here are some thoughts on the April 3 card (odds from DraftKings):
Chicago Cubs (-120, 9) at Cincinnati Reds
Drew Smyly takes the mound for the Cubs in their first road game of the season at Great American Ball Park. The Reds took 2 of 3 from the Pirates to open the year, while the Cubs dropped their series against the Brewers. Cincinnati will counter with Connor Overton on a rather nice spring evening on the banks of the Ohio River. It’s always important to look at the weather in Cincinnati because this is an excellent hitter’s park to begin with, but any wind and warmth help.
The wind will be blowing in from RF, so that isn’t a factor tonight, but get in the habit of checking. As I said, I really like Kevin Roth’s work for Rotogrinders. Anyway, I’m interested to follow Smyly early in the season. For his career, he has a 23.2% K%, but his 20.4% K% from last season was the lowest of his career. He still had a solid 3.47 ERA, but that came with a 4.23 FIP and his 78.5% LOB% seemed fortunate given the decrease in strikeouts.
The odd thing is that Smyly’s stuff was still really good. He had the highest Chase Rate of his career, the second-highest SwStr% of his career and limited hard contact better than he had in any season since 2016. He really increased his curveball and cutter usage at the expense of his fastball and found success with it. The Cubs also look to be a pretty good defensive team this season, but I do expect some more strikeouts from Smyly, who did bump his K% to 22.2% in the second half.
Overton debuted in pro ball back in 2014 and this will be just the eighth start and 16th appearance of his MLB career. He didn’t debut until 2021 and made four relief appearances for the Blue Jays and five appearances with three starts for the Pirates. He worked 33 MLB innings for the Reds last season with a 2.73 ERA and a 3.66 FIP, though he only struck out 14 batters out of the 124 he faced.
Overton had 99 batted ball events last season and allowed a 41.4% Hard Hit%, yet somehow posted a .204 BABIP against and a .186 batting average against. I don’t really see a Major League pitcher in the numbers throughout his career and there have been a lot of injuries to delay his development path that make me wonder just how sharp and consistent the stuff can be.
I also feel like the Cubs have the better bullpen between these two teams. Better lineup, better starter, better bullpen at a short price is going to be a play for me more often than not. Shop around here, as the Cubs are a few cents cheaper at most books.
Pick: Cubs -120
Atlanta Braves (-125, 8.5) at St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals currently own a 202 wRC+, which means they’ve been more than double a league average offense from a production standpoint thus far. St. Louis scored 22 runs in the series against the Blue Jays and batted .373. We’ll see what they do here against Charlie Morton and the Braves.
Morton had a 4.34 ERA with a 4.26 FIP during his age-38 season last year. It was the highest FIP for Morton since his rookie season way back in 2008 and his highest ERA in a full season since 2015. We saw a huge regression in Morton’s home run prevention, as his HR/FB% ballooned to 16.5%, his highest mark since 2010. His Hard Hit% also skyrocketed to 42.1%, easily his highest percentage in the Statcast era. He still ran a 28.2% K%, but the other numbers were a bit concerning.
Was it just an outlier season? His SwStr% stayed consistent from previous years and he still did a pretty good job of generating swings and misses in the zone. His BB% jumped a bit, but he’s been a little high there most years. His spin rates remain elite and I don’t really see anything that bad under the hood, other than natural aging. He did allow more fly balls than ever before last season, so maybe it’s nothing more than that. But, you can bet I’ll be watching closely.
Jake Woodford was a starter in the minor leagues, but has mostly been a reliever at the MLB level. He’s worked 137 innings, but has only made 10 starts, with eight of them coming in 2021. I’m not terribly high on him as a starter, since he doesn’t miss a lot of bats and pitches to a lot of ground ball contact. The Braves do swing and miss a lot, so I’ll be checking to see the postgame data on Woodford’s stuff and how it played. That may dictate my thoughts on him going forward. He’s also a really fastball-heavy guy, with nearly 60% of his pitches as sinkers and fastballs and that’s not my favorite kind of arm to back.
Arizona Diamondbacks at San Diego Padres (-140, 8)
We’ve got a couple of intriguing youngsters on the bump to start this one, as Ryne Nelson goes for the Diamondbacks and Ryan Weathers goes for the Padres. Weathers is more of a known commodity with 98.1 MLB innings to his name, but the numbers are suspect with a 5.49 ERA and a 5.42 FIP. Weathers was rushed to the bigs in his age-21 season and he may be a cautionary tale about moving a guy too fast. He started Rookie ball at 18 in 2018 and was in The Show just three years later.
Last season, Weathers spent the bulk of it at Triple-A and had a 6.73 ERA with a 7.21 FIP in 123 innings. His K/BB numbers were terrible and he allowed 31 homers. The Pacific Coast League has several ballparks that are Coors Field-esque, but those are still atrocious numbers. Weathers has completely overhauled his mechanics and has a brand-new windup for this season, so he’s a guy that has basically reinvented himself after four seasons of pro ball.
Weathers allowed five homers in 14.2 innings in Spring Training and allowed 11 runs on 17 hits, but he did have 20 strikeouts against six walks with the new look.
The irony is that Nelson had ugly Triple-A numbers last season, too. He had a 5.43 ERA with a 5.49 FIP as he allowed 25 homers in 136 innings of work. He made three MLB starts and looked good with three earned runs allowed on nine hits over 18.1 innings with 16 strikeouts and six walks. Pitching in the PCL is miserable, so you don’t really want to put too much stock in those numbers. I think the Diamondbacks are a really smart team and they opted for Nelson over Brandon Pfaadt and Drey Jameson, who has been pushed into a bullpen role for now.
Nelson is more of a fly ball guy, which will never play well in the PCL, but has the chance to play better at the MLB level with more neutral venues. That seems especially true tonight with winds blowing in at a 20 mph clip from LF. I couldn’t take the Snakes today, but we need to watch them closely. They just played the Dodgers and are now playing the Padres. They play the Dodgers again after this. Their offense was really held down in that first series and it could happen this week as well. We may have some value on them moving forward.
Colorado Rockies at Los Angeles Dodgers (-215, 8.5)
Not much to really say about this game, but I’m trying to hit as many back-of-the-rotation starters as I can so that you get an idea about some of these names. Ryan Feltner is the one for the Rockies and Michael Grove gets the call for the Dodgers.
Feltner has a 6.16 ERA with a 5.09 FIP in 103.2 MLB innings. The concern here is that he was actually worse on the road last season with a .281/.338/.484 slash and a .354 wOBA against compared to a .247/.326/.428 slash and a .330 wOBA against at home. He gave up 16 homers in 97.1 innings last season. While I don’t do player props and don’t cover them here (Zach Cohen does that M-F), I like throwing some of these nuggets out there for that purpose as well.
Grove threw 29.1 innings for the Dodgers last season with a 4.60 ERA and a 5.16 FIP over six starts and a relief outing. The high K% he had in the minors didn’t really translate to the Majors, but his home run problem did. Grove was the 22nd-ranked prospect for the Dodgers entering the season per FanGraphs and he’s in the rotation because Ryan Pepiot and Tony Gonsolin are both hurt. Pepiot had won the job, but suffered a strained oblique. The thought is that Gonsolin needs another couple weeks to be ready.
Check the weather on this one, as we’ve got winds blowing in at 20-30 mph from LF.
Toronto Blue Jays (-120, 8) at Kansas City Royals
Just a reminder that I roll through the MLB card by rotation number, so it will always go NL, AL, Interleague in that order. We’ve got five NL games, five AL games and five interleague games, so now I’ve reached the Junior Circuit with the Jays and Royals, as Toronto moves from one side of the Show Me State to the other to face a much weaker opponent.
However, the presence of Brady Singer is why the Blue Jays are such a short favorite here. Singer’s breakout effort in 2022 with a 3.23 ERA and a 3.58 FIP gave hope to a Kansas City club in desperate need of pitchers to build around. Singer had a career-best 24.2% K% and also his best BB% at 5.6%. He still gave up some hard contact as predominantly a two-pitch pitcher (fastball/slider 82% of the time), but commanded both well and kept a lot of balls on the ground.
The Royals really screwed with Singer last year. They sent him to the minors to manipulate his service time and wound up adding an extra year of arbitration to his contract. When he came back full-time on May 17, he fired seven shutout innings in back-to-back starts. Righties only posted a .284 wOBA against him, which is a significant stat when looking at a matchup against the Jays.
The problem with this handicap is that the Royals offense has to hold up its end of the bargain if you want to back Singer. I thought the KC lineup could be a bit undervalued this season, but the early returns are not great with four runs in three games. Kansas City is batting .133 to this point, as the Twins converted 27 of 28 ground balls into outs in that opening series. A matchup against Jose Berrios does represent a step down in class at least.
Berrios had a 5.23 ERA with a 4.55 FIP last season for the Twins, as his K% dropped and his home run rate spiked. His K% fell under 20% for the first time since 2016 and he allowed 29 homers in 172 innings. His Hard Hit% jumped to 43.4%, easily his highest mark in the Statcast era. The most concerning part is that he was awful on the road, even though Rogers Centre tends to be a good hitter’s park. He allowed a .303/.350/.532 slash with a .378 wOBA on the road.
He was also bad throughout the season, so it wasn’t an injury thing. It was just bad command for a prolonged stretch of the year. Lefties also hammered him with a .298/.351/.514 slash and 20 of his 29 homers allowed. Kansas City may throw as many as six lefties at him today, but I’m not sure this is the right type of lineup to fade him. But, I will be looking.