MLB schedule today has 13 games
A new week begins in Major League Baseball with a lot of night games. We’ve lost one to cold weather and another is threatened (Guardians/Tigers), but it is a good night of action on the diamond. A lot of today’s pitchers are making their fourth starts of the season, so we’re starting to get closer to meaningful sample size with the stats. The more data points, the better. (Tracking sheet)
There were only 86 homers hit Friday-Sunday, but the league-wide BB% was up at 9.7%, so walks have continued at a high rate. Stolen bases were also 81-for-93 (87.1%), so those also remain a thing.
I’m seeing a lot of stats about home runs being up.
The balls were crazy dead last year to start the season. We're basically on 2021's pace with homers, so it's not like the balls are juiced or this season is some kind of outlier. The first six weeks of 2022 were the outlier in a bad way so this gap will keep widening. https://t.co/D3ZKUUDRKm
— Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods) April 17, 2023
While they are up from 2022, they are actually lagging a little behind the 2021 pace, so my quote tweet is slightly inaccurate. Last season had some of the deadest balls we’ve seen in 50 years. It is not a good comparison to make. So, don’t let that fool you. Yes, homers are up relative to one of the worst offensive seasons we’ve ever seen, but still lagging behind a normal season like 2021. Offense is up because there are more walks, more hits, more baserunners, and more steals. Home runs are not an outlier this season.
Last quick note, temperatures have lowered this week in a lot of Midwest and East Coast cities. We even have some chilly evenings on the West Coast. Tough days and nights for hitting in a lot of places.
I’ll talk about that and more on a new episode of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets today.
Here are some thoughts on the April 17 card (odds from DraftKings):
San Francisco Giants at Miami Marlins (-125, 7.5)
Logan Webb got bumped back a day because of a rainout in Detroit on Sunday, so he’ll draw this start against the Marlins in his first one after signing a contract extension. Webb signed a five-year, $90 million deal that will kick in next season and buys out three years of free agency. It’s a good deal for both sides, as Webb owns a 3.53 ERA with a 3.21 FIP in 451.2 innings of work. Everybody handles contracts differently. Some guys tense up a bit trying to immediately justify the deal, while others just treat it like business as usual and maybe even relax with some financial security.
I don’t know which group Webb will fall into, but his stats signal a good bit of positive regression through three starts. He’s got a 4.76 ERA with a 3.98 xERA, 4.32 FIP, and a 2.48 xFIP. Webb has a 22/3 K/BB ratio in 17 innings, but has allowed four home runs. He’s allowed a .341 BABIP and has a 58.4% LOB%. BABIP and LOB% are two good indicators for positive regression under the right conditions. In this case, Webb’s high K% of 31.4% is a good sign. His Hard Hit% of 48.9% is not and the Giants aren’t a very good defensive team, though their early-season metrics look better than I expected.
Jesus Luzardo looks great for the Marlins in the early going. He was great last season in 100.1 innings of work with a 3.32 ERA and a 3.12 FIP, but he’s cut down on the walks and the homers thus far in 2023. His K% is down a little, despite an uptick in velo, but still grades highly at 27%. Luzardo has also induced weaker contact on the whole with a 1.9 mph dip in average exit velocity and a 5.1% drop in Hard Hit%. In two starts at pitcher-friendly Marlins Park, he has only allowed one run over 12.2 innings with 15 strikeouts.
The Giants are 29th in wOBA against LHP at .246 and have struck out in 30.9% of their plate appearances. By comparison, they are second in wOBA against right-handed pitching. Sample sizes are still pretty small, but San Francisco doesn’t profile as a good offense against lefties given the composition of the lineup. The Marlins are also much worse against righties than lefties to this point.
No play for me on this one, though, as I really like Webb, especially against this lineup and in this park. This may just come down to a bullpen game and the 1st 5 total is too low to gamble on in my mind.
Arizona Diamondbacks at St. Louis Cardinals (-155, 8.5)
Merrill Kelly has had a weird season to this point. He faced his archnemesis twice in the LA Dodgers and allowed two earned runs (four total) on nine hits in 9.1 innings. He also faced the Brewers last outing and allowed three runs on just one hit (homer). Kelly has 15 strikeouts in 15.1 innings, which is great. He’s also walked 12 guys, which is not great. He’s issued four free passes in each of his three starts, but has only allowed seven total runs and only 10 hits. He has a 2.93 ERA with a 4.76 FIP and a 5.05 xFIP, so the advanced metrics aren’t keen on his start to the season.
Kelly has altered his pitch arsenal this season to throw more cutters, changeups, and curveballs, which are all harder to throw in the zone. His Zone% is 41.3% per Statcast compared to 53.5% last season and his career mark of 52.7%. He’s getting more swings and misses and a couple more chases outside the zone, but he’s also throwing a lot more balls. Remarkably, hitters haven’t done much with the advantageous counts, but his average exit velocity is up at 91.8 mph and his Hard Hit% is 44.4%, over 8% higher than last season.
In other words, he’s flirting with disaster regularly, but so is Jack Flaherty, who has walked 14 batters in his three starts. He did just make a start at Coors Field with only one walk in 5.1 innings, so maybe he found something to fix the issue. He’s also allowed just three earned runs on nine hits in 15.1 innings. Like Kelly, the advanced metrics aren’t shedding a positive light on him, with a 1.76 ERA, 5.41 FIP, and a 5.91 xFIP.
The Diamondbacks only have a 4.9% BB% this season and their offense is really lagging behind most of the league with an 85 wRC+. They may not be able to take advantage of Flaherty’s wildness as the Cardinals may with Kelly. On the other hand, Kelly has quite a bit of upside and the new pitch mix should ultimately lead to weak contact and more strikeouts than most of his seasons. Not to mention another season with pitching coach Brent Strom.
Really tough handicap here, as the Cardinals are priced at a level they don’t really deserve again (see the Pirates series), but neither pitcher has trustworthy metrics.
Pittsburgh Pirates at Colorado Rockies (-140, 11.5)
Speaking of regression candidates, Kyle Freeland is on the hill for the Rockies in this one against the Pirates. Freeland has a 0.96 ERA with a 3.66 xERA, 4.34 FIP, and a 5.32 xFIP in his 18.2 innings of work. He’s running a .212 BABIP and a 100% LOB%, as both runs he has allowed have been solo homers. Freeland’s BABIPs by season in his career are .308, .285, .308, .305, .325, and .318, so we’re talking about a pitch-to-contact guy whose home park is very penal for that profile.
And Freeland has pitched to a lot of contact this season, as he has only struck out 11 of the 70 batters that he has faced. Furthermore, while Freeland’s Hard Hit% is just 35.2% and his Barrel% is 5.6%, his average exit velocity against is 90 mph, so he’s given up a lot of batted balls just below the 95 mph threshold for a hard-hit ball. His velocity is also noticeably down this season coming out of the World Baseball Classic. American pitchers like Kelly, Miles Mikolas, and Lance Lynn have all had some issues post-WBC. Freeland has, too, but we just haven’t seen them appear in his stat lines yet.
In his last start, he allowed a 52.9% Hard Hit% and all three of this season’s barrels to the Cardinals with an average exit velocity of 96.5 mph. He allowed just two runs on six hits over six innings. I think he’s really flirting with disaster, even more so than a guy like Kelly.
The question then becomes whether or not I can back the Pirates with Rich Hill. Hill has two respectable starts and one terrible start. He allowed seven runs on eight hits over four innings against the White Sox, but has allowed five runs on eight hits in 11 innings against the Astros and Reds in his other two outings. Hill only has eight strikeouts in 65 batters, so there isn’t much to like there, but the Astros don’t strike out much and he clearly didn’t locate well against the White Sox, who have hit lefties well for the last several seasons.
Is the 43-year-old Hill done? Maybe. I mean, he’s allowed 10 barrels in three starts, even if his Hard Hit% is 34%, so he’s certainly gotten his money’s worth on hard contact. He’s down to throwing 86-87 mph with the fastball and he’s getting virtually no swings and misses or chases outside the zone right now. However, his stuff against the Astros last time out was better, as he made a pretty big usage change to throw a lot more cutters and actually cut back on the curveball. He also seemed to make a mechanical change that resulted in more extension and a different horizontal release point.
It’s entirely possible his mechanics have just been a little wacky. He also had better velocity on the fastball in his last start. He didn’t get much more swing and miss, but he did see much lower exit velocities across the board. His spin rates were a bit better as well, which was likely a byproduct of the increased velo.
I feel like I’m trying really hard to talk myself into taking Dick Mountain and the Pirates. Maybe a little too hard. Though, it is worth noting that the Rockies have a 72 wRC+ against lefties, while the Pirates are a bit better with a 89 wRC+. Pittsburgh’s bullpen is up against a bit, though, too, so if anything it would be more of a Pirates 1st 5 look. I just couldn’t get there.
Atlanta Braves (-145, 8.5) at San Diego Padres
Max Fried returns to the Braves rotation after missing some time with a hamstring strain and he is a big favorite as Atlanta has rattled off six wins in a row since losing three straight to the Padres. It will be Ryan Weathers for the host Friars, as they look to get back to .500.
Fried did not make a minor league rehab start, rather just threw some bullpens and a sim game. I’m always extremely skeptical of pitchers that get hurt early in the season. You do all that work to get ramped up for the year and get your arm to where you want it by Opening Day and then you’re out for a while. Fried’s last actual game action was March 30. He looked good against the Nationals in that start over 3.1 innings, but I think it’s fair to wonder how he’ll look here against a quality Padres lineup.
It’s also fair to wonder how far he can go here and what his pitch count will be. I would guess Lucas Luetge would be first out of the pen for the Braves, who were rolling with nine bullpen arms, but one likely goes down to activate Fried (probably Danny Young). I would guess the plan for Fried is like 60ish pitches, so keep that in mind if you’re looking at any props with him.
This is what I would call a subpar matchup for Weathers. The left-hander has seen a big velo spike this season, but he’s never really been a big strikeout guy. The Braves are beatable when you can induce a lot of swings and misses. The Royals did not and got swept. Weathers does a decent job of keeping the ball on the ground, but also allowed 20 homers in 94.2 MLB innings back in 2021.
Weathers is also left-handed and the Braves are second in baseball in wOBA against lefties. They have a .408 OBP, which is 22 points higher than anybody else. Weathers has only allowed a 16.7% Hard Hit% to this point over 30 batted balls against the Diamondbacks and Mets, but that rate will go up here for sure.
Another tricky handicap because laying -140 on Fried in a shortened start is a tall ask, but Weathers doesn’t match up very well here.
New York Mets at Los Angeles Dodgers (-150, 8.5)
We’ll see southpaw David Peterson against the Dodgers here and that seems like a really bad matchup for him. Peterson has walked eight batters in just 14.2 innings of work and the Dodgers have the highest BB% against lefties at 15.9%. They’re running a .176 BABIP in that split, so it has hurt their offensive numbers, but they are drawing walks and making things interesting in those matchups.
Outside of the walk rate, Peterson has been both lucky and unlucky. The fact that he has only allowed eight runs is a real stroke of luck with 19 hits allowed, plus the walks. On the other hand, the .415 BABIP is not supported by his 30.2% Hard Hit% and 4.7% Barrel%. He’s done a good job of limiting hard contact and really shouldn’t have given up as many hits as he has. He’s faced the Marlins, Brewers, and Padres to this point.
The variance of baseball is pretty evident in this pitching matchup. May has allowed a Hard Hit% of 40.8%, but his BABIP against is just .143. He’s gotten pretty fortunate on balls in play, while Peterson has not, despite allowing a much lower rate of hard-hit contact. May has 12 strikeouts against seven walks in 18.1 innings of work. May has only allowed three runs on seven hits over 18.1 innings of work. He also has a noticeable lack of swing and miss to his profile thus far with a 7.4% SwStr%.
Another game that just seems kind of wonky. Peterson and May both have varying regression signs in their profiles and this game feels like it could go a variety of ways.
Cleveland Guardians (-125, 8) at Detroit Tigers
I don’t think this game gets played and we already saw Phillies/White Sox wiped out due to cold and wind. The forecast in Detroit looks really similar. If it gets played, you could certainly make a case for the under on a miserable day to hit with two subpar offenses, but who knows.
Hunter Gaddis is listed for Cleveland and Matthew Boyd for Detroit. Gaddis got smashed by the Yankees last time out, which was to be expected as a fly ball guy with below average command and not much in the way of strikeout upside. He gave up eight runs on eight hits in three innings. He has two bad starts and one good start to his name. He’s just a placeholder until Triston McKenzie comes back or the Guardians get more aggressive and bring up Logan T. Allen and/or Tanner Bibee.