MLB Best Bets for Tuesday (4/20)

After a small Monday slate, Tuesday offers us 16 MLB games to choose from, including a doubleheader between Minnesota and Oakland. With every single team schedule to play, value is bound to be on the board somewhere, so let’s find out where it’s hiding. 

Atlanta Braves @ New York Yankees

Atlanta will travel to New York to open up a quick two-game series in the Bronx against the Yankees. Charlie Morton will be taking the mound for Atlanta, while Jameson Taillon tries to snap New York’s five-game losing streak.

By all accounts, Morton has been one of the unluckiest pitchers in the league. His 4.76 ERA through his first three starts is certainly nothing to write home about, but his 2.63 FIP and 2.97 xFIP are both almost 2 full runs lower and are at All-Star levels. He hasn’t shown any glaring concerns when looking at his stats over the last few years compared to his 17 innings so far this year — in fact, if anything he’s shown improvement. His K/9 is up over a full strikeout from last year, his GB% is up 6%, and he’s still right in line with his career BB/9 and a league average HR/FB ratio. What has been the cause of his inflated ERA is an extremely high .381 BABIP, a number that is virtually guaranteed to see some regression back down to .300. With a better hard-contact rate allowed than the league-average and a FIP- 36% better than league-average, Morton’s luck should start to turn around.

Atlanta has come out of the gates swinging the sticks to the tune of a .331 wOBA (fourth) and 105 wRC+ (eighth) to start the year. Lefties have somewhat had their numbers, but their .336 wOBA and 109 wRC+ are both top-five marks in the league against right-handers. Their .48 BB/K is good for fourth in the league resulting from their fifth-highest BB% and eighth-lowest K%. With a top-10 hard-hit% and a BABIP actually 25 points lower than league average, shockingly suggesting that they have been unlucky, Atlanta’s offense seems to be firing on all cylinders.

Taillon’s return from Tommy John hasn’t exactly gone how he would’ve hoped, checking in with a 7.56 ERA and a 6.10 FIP over just 8 innings in two starts. His .348 BABIP and 20% HR/FB ratio does lean toward him being a fairly unlucky, but with a hard-hit rate 8% higher than the average starter and one of the higher barrel-rates in the league, the home runs do appear to be at least partially his fault. Taillon only managed to go 3.2 innings against Toronto, a worse offense than Atlanta, giving up 8 hits and 5 earned runs. He’s been lit up by righties (.362 wOBA) and lefties (.486 wOBA) alike so far on the season so navigating through a lineup with Marcell Ozuna and Dansby Swanson from the right side followed by Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies on the left will be a difficult task. 

For as good as New York’s offense was rumored to be coming into the season, they currently have the 20th-ranked .291 wOBA and the 19th-ranked 88 wRC+ against right-handers and are surprisingly even worse at home with a .288 wOBA (ranked 25th) and 87 wRC+ (26th). Their BABIP is slightly lower than the league average at .275, but not so much so that moving towards .300 would make that big of an impact on their numbers. They have the seventh-highest home K%, second-lowest SLG vs. righties and a bottom-10 OPS against righties. With a bottom-10 hard-contact rate, an inability to reach base regularly against righties, and a barrel rate in the bottom half of the league, New York could be in for a tough day at the dish. 

The pick

For some reason, Atlanta opened up as +110 dogs in this matchup, so either the books know something I don’t, or these prices are off. Not only do I think Atlanta is underpriced here, but I also project them to win this game outright by a score of 5.66-5.07, pricing them closer to -120.  Gladly taking the underdog that I perceive as a favorite in this one. Atlanta +110.

St Louis Cardinals @ Washington Nationals

St. Louis and Washington are set to play the second game of their three-game series Tuesday after St. Louis won the first game 12-5. Long time redbird Adam Wainwright will get the start for St. Louis, while southpaw Patrick Corbin is on the bump for the nation’s capital. 

With the league’s 20th-ranked .299 wOBA and the 21st-ranked 88 wRC+, St. Louis’ results haven’t exactly been terrifying, but finding value is all about exploiting misleading results. Even with their low wOBA and wRC+, they have the eighth-highest barrel rate, a top-three hard-hit rate, the seventh-highest exit velocity and just the 25th-ranked BABIP at .263, leaving room for a decent amount of positive regression. Where St. Louis has really thrived this year though, has been against lefties posting league leading marks with a .399 wOBA and 153 wRC+. Contrary to their BABIP overall, their BABIP vs. lefties is pretty high at .344 which would point to some negative regression, but their top-3 ISO, and league-leading BB%, OBP, SLG, OPS, and BB/K, are all signs that their success may be partially legitimate. 

While still roughly a league-average starter, Wainwright is a far cry from the perennial All Star he was for his first decade with St. Louis. His 7.11 ERA is extremely high and while his FIP is almost 3 runs lower, a 4.37 FIP is still nothing to brag about. He has been outrageously unlucky with an opposing BABIP all the way up at .415, but he’s added almost 1.5 walks to his BB/9 and his HR/FB ratio is more or less in line with his career numbers since 2016. He may not be as bad as his 7.11 ERA suggests, but projections have him pinned for a 4.53 FIP this year so he also may not even be as good as his current 4.37 FIP.

With Corbin taking the mound to oppose Wainwright, this matchup doesn’t seem to have the ingredients to be a pitchers’ duel. Once one of the better starters in the league, Corbin has only lasted 6.1 innings through two starts this year, allowing 12 hits, 4 homers, 7 walks and 15 earned runs (16 total runs). His .381 BABIP is definitely high, but bad luck isn’t even close to being the reason for his failures. Corbin has added over seven walks to his BB/9, lowered his LOB% by 44%, and has decreased his groundball rate by 14%. Out of 147 starting pitchers to have made two starts so far this year, Corbin’s hard-hit rate is the seventh-highest and his barrel rate is the fourth-highest. The high BABIP does suggest that he has been a victim of some bad luck, but his disappointing start is mainly the result of loss of control and not being able to miss barrels.

Although they’ve checked in with numbers just under league average, Washington has still been a roughly average offense with a .319 wOBA (10th) and 97 wRC+ (16th), a rankings discrepancy caused by how drastic of a hitter’s park Nationals Park is. They check in with slightly better home splits, putting up a .329 wOBA and 101 wRC+, while also having a bottom-10 K%. Their .326 OBP is only middle-of-the-pack, but their home SLG is the 8th-highest in the league resulting in a top-10 home OPS. They have the eighth-highest hard-hit rate in baseball and with a lineup that has Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Josh Bell and Kyle Schwarber at the top, it’s only a matter of time before Washington starts scoring runs.

The pick

With an aging pitcher and one who seemingly can’t avoid giving up hard contact, I’m taking the look at the total in this one. Nationals Park has been a top-five run scoring environment over the last few years, the wind should be blowing out to left-center at about 8 mph, and both offenses have top-10 hard-hit rate. Give me some runs in this one. Over 9 -105.