MLB schedule today has 7 games
We’ve got less than half of a traditional MLB card on Thursday, as 16 teams enjoy a day off before heading into a new weekend series. Of the seven games today, four have favorites well over $2, so the pickings could be a bit slim for those that like to go the side and total route. That’s what I do here in this article, but my colleague Zach Cohen looks at player props every weekday, so check out his work after you scroll through mine.
Yesterday sure was an interesting day. Despite the best weather we’ve seen this season, there were only 31 homers hit over the 15 games. Many games had winds blowing out and above average temperatures, but there were only 133 runs (8.8 R/G). We did have several quality starters, but we also had some not-so-great arms, so it was a little surprising to see offense lag a bit.
I retweeted a tremendous table from Jason Collette, which looked at some year-over-year numbers from 2022 to 2023 and 2021 to 2023 for March/April. The biggest takeaways I noticed:
- BABIP is up 11.8% from last season on Pulled/Center ground balls and up 14% from 2021
- HR/Contact is up nearly 25% from 2022, but down 3.5% from 2021
- HR/FB% is down 5.3% from 2021, but up 26% from 2022 – we absolutely had a dead ball to start last season
- K% is down 1.1% from last season and 6.8% from 2021 (the year that the foreign substance crackdown started in May/June)
- SB% (stolen base percentage) is up 8.3% from 2022, 5.1% from 2021 and SB attempt rate is up 20.8% from 2022 and 37.2% from 2021
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Another new episode of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets will be up for your listening pleasure shortly.
Here are some thoughts on the April 13 card (odds from DraftKings):
Philadelphia Phillies at Cincinnati Reds (-135, 9)
The Phillies are hoping that Bailey doesn’t Falter as they open up a weekend set with Nick Lodolo and the Reds. Falter has two starts to his name and one of them came against the Reds at Citizens Bank Park last weekend when he allowed one run on four hits in a head-to-head battle with Lodolo. The Phillies eventually walked it off in 3-2 fashion after a stellar performance from Lodolo.
Over 10.1 innings, Falter has allowed three runs on 11 hits. He’s only struck out five batters, but he hasn’t walked anybody. He’s given up a couple of long balls and is running a 97.6% LOB%, so he’ll be a guy to look at for regression either here or down the line. He allowed two runs on seven hits against the Rangers in his first start and has yielded a 40% Hard Hit% thus far. He has basically been a two-pitch pitcher so far with nearly 80% usage on his fastball and curveball, which I would think has to help a team seeing him for the second straight time.
Lodolo struck out 12 in those seven masterful innings last Saturday. He didn’t allow a run and scattered three hits with a couple of walks. He gave up two runs on seven hits with nine strikeouts and two walks in his first start against the Pirates. Lodolo has also done a much better job of limiting hard contact with a 30.8% Hard Hit%, including just three hard-hit balls in 13 batted ball events against the Phillies, though two were barrels.
We’ve seen some Lodolo love early this morning and, as I mentioned, you have to evaluate the Reds differently at home than you would on the road because of the hitter-friendly nature of Great American Ball Park. Of course, that helps the visitors, too, but Lodolo is very highly regarded and Falter has a career 4.52 FIP as a starter over 89 innings with a noticeable home run issue.
As usual, we’d be forced to pay a premium on Lodolo for a 1st 5 bet, as that line is 10-15 cents higher than the full-game line, but that’s the price for backing an ace-level starter on a team with a bad bullpen. I’m staying away from this one.
By the way, as a quick side note, Joey Votto is 4-for-32 with 20 strikeouts in his rehab stint at Triple-A, in case you were wondering if he’d be back to potentially help the Reds offense soon.