MLB schedule today has 8 games
We’ve got eight games on Monday to kick off the new week around Major League Baseball. I’m back in the saddle after heading back home to stand alongside my buddy as he got married, so thanks go out to Zach Cohen for covering on Thursday and to Jeff Parles for covering on VSiN Daily Baseball Bets on Thursday and Friday. Now you’re stuck with me once again. Sorry!
Hopefully a few days off to recharge and see some of my favorite people will help, as it’s fair to say that I wasn’t in a great headspace after how the results were coming in. Getting away in the content creation space is not easy, but sometimes it is essential. It was getting to that point, so I hope better times are coming.
A few quick updates since it’s been a while:
Two good tweets over the weekend from Jason Collette, who has been tracking month-by-month MLB stats. First he looked at May vs. June through June 10th
May vs so far in June:
BA .249 down to .242 HR/FB: 12.5% down to 11.3% HR/Contact: 4.6% down to 4.3% Barrels/Contact: 8.3% up to 8.4% K%: 22.3% up to 23.0% SB%: 80.0% up to 82.1% SP ERA: 4.38 down to 4.17— Jason Collette ??? (@jasoncollette) June 10, 2023
Then he looked at Net Stats for teams for the season:
Updated Net Steals & HR data before games kick off today. Random observations:
-Twins and Jays are quite the pair given their respective records and their numbers in these areas -White Sox are still in “contention” despite this absymal performance -TB, ATL, ARZ best in class pic.twitter.com/yhjrNuI6Xm— Jason Collette ??? (@jasoncollette) June 11, 2023
A few takeaways:
Hitters are not hitting more home runs as the weather warms up, as the HR/FB% is down over a full percent from May to June. That’s a bit of a shocker to me.
The K% is up month over month – perhaps some pitchers are coming back off of the IL or they’ve simply adjusted, but that’s a sizable bump in a decent sample size. The spike is all from starting pitchers, too. Relief pitching K% is the same month-over-month, but SP K% is up from 21.4% to 22.2%.
As a result of a higher K%, the LOB% for starters is also up from 71.6% to 72.3%.
A rundown of some of the big injuries that happened while I was away:
Hitters: NYM Pete Alonso (wrist; 3-4 weeks), HOU Yordan Alvarez (oblique; week before prognosis can be made), KC Vinnie Pasquantino (shoulder; MRI today), DET Akil Baddoo (quad; TBD), MIN Jorge Polanco (hamstring; 4-6 weeks), CIN Jake Fraley (elbow). COL Charlie Blackmon (fractured hand)
Starters: LAD Noah Syndergaard (blister), CIN Graham Ashcraft (calf), TB Josh Fleming (elbow; season-ending?)
Relievers: CHW Liam Hendriks (elbow), LAA Ben Joyce (elbow)
Alright, let’s get to the action for Monday.
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VSiN Daily Baseball Bets will be out shortly.
Here are some thoughts on the June 12 card (odds from DraftKings):
San Francisco Giants (-125, 8) at St. Louis Cardinals
There are no day games on Monday and the earliest non-interleague game starts at 7:45 p.m. ET when the Giants and Cardinals fire up the first of three at Busch Stadium. It will be Logan Webb for the Giants and Matthew Liberatore for the Cardinals, as San Francisco draws a southpaw starter in this one.
The Giants are actually improving in this split, though. They are up to 22nd in wOBA and are actually in the middle of the pack in batting average, despite a 26.3% K% that remains one of the highest in the league. Their 6% BB% in this split is really dragging down the overall offensive profile, but they do hit for substantially more power against righties, so maybe this isn’t a bad matchup for Liberatore.
The 23-year-old sophomore starter has struggled, as the Cardinals have used him infrequently and don’t seem to know which end is up this season. He’s allowed nine runs (eight earned) on 12 hits in his last two starts covering nine innings. He’s only struck out four to go along with four walks, so he’s had very little swing and miss in the profile. He’s faced the Guardians and Rangers, so one elite lineup and one very much non-elite lineup, but those two starts came 11 days apart, as St. Louis hasn’t had him on a regular turn and I think he’s suffered as a result.
This start does come on mostly regular rest, so we’ll see if he looks any sharper here. We probably don’t have to worry about Webb looking sharp, as he comes in with a 3.09 ERA and a 3.47 FIP in 84.1 innings of work. His last start at Coors Field ended a streak of eight straight starts with three earned runs or fewer allowed and he actually had seven starts with two or fewer runs prior to his June 2 start at home against Baltimore.
Webb has a 2.37 ERA with a 3.21 FIP in his last 60.2 innings of work after giving up 16 runs (13 earned) in his first four starts. The Giants are deserving of a road favorite price here to be sure, but I think this one is lined pretty fairly. If Liberatore doesn’t pitch better on a regular turn, that’ll be a big red flag for me.
Philadelphia Phillies at Arizona Diamondbacks (-110, 10)
Southpaws square off to start this one, as the Phillies send Matt Strahm to the bump for an opener appearance and the Diamondbacks counter with left-hander Tommy Henry. It is a full-on bullpen game for the Phillies, who have Andrew Vasquez as the only pitcher not to throw over the last couple of days out in the pen. Dylan Covey threw 14 pitches in relief on Saturday and Jeff Hoffman threw 27, so they are available, but those would’ve been the most likely bulk guys.
Strahm struggled in his last appearance with three runs on two hits (both homers) in an inning against the Dodgers. It was his first appearance in six days, so there was probably a little rust there and he’ll be on two days rest in this outing. Since May 23, though, Strahm has allowed a 58.6% Hard Hit% over 29 batted ball events and given up five barrels, so his command has been a little bit off.
Collectively, the Phillies pen has a 4.09 ERA and a 4.14 FIP, but Craig Kimbrel, Jose Alvarado, Seranthony Dominguez, and Gregory Soto all worked yesterday. Alvarado threw 31 pitches just three days after returning from the IL and has thrown 53 pitches over those three days. Soto would be working a third time in four days. I don’t think the Phillies are in great shape here.
That said, I’m not keen on Henry either. The pitch-to-contact southpaw has a 4.37 ERA with a 5.76 FIP in his 45.1 innings of work. He does have a 4.26 xERA despite a horrible K/BB ratio, which speaks to how impressive of a job he’s done with his contact management, as he’s only allowed a 32.6% Hard Hit%. This is the weaker of the two sides for the Phillies, though a lot of that has to do with a 25.8% K% and a 5.9% BB%. Their SLG ranks 13th compared to their wOBA that ranks 21st.
Henry followed up seven shutout innings against Colorado with five runs on five hits over 4.1 innings to the Nationals on the road. Guys like this that are so reliant on batted ball luck and sequencing are really tough for me to back, even if the Diamondbacks are a legitimately good team with a better offense in this matchup.