MLB Best Bets for Monday (8/16)

The 11-0 streak finally came to an end for the MLB Best Bets writeups when Tampa Bay and Minnesota failed to score six runs in the first five innings Sunday, putting five runs through the first five and scoring a heartbreaking two runs in the top of the sixth that would’ve cashed the over an inning earlier. We’re turning the page to a new week and a clean slate as we look to start another dominant streak with Monday’s MLB board.

Due to a few teams having scheduled off days, we have a smaller-than-usual 10-game slate to go through, but that hasn’t stopped us from finding value before. Some brand-new matchups are on the schedule today and I’ll pick through them to find out the most valuable betting able on the board.

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Oakland Athletics @ Chicago White Sox

Oakland -108 Fanduel Sportsbook, White Sox +101 Caesars Sportsbook

Oakland will head to the south side of Chicago to kick off a four-game series at Guaranteed Rate Field. Right-hander Frankie Montas will take the mound for Oakland to square off against Chicago southpaw Dallas Keuchel.

Montas has had a fantastic 2021 season with a .398 ERA, 3.48 FIP, and just over 10 K/9 on the year, a far cry from his underwhelming 2020 season where he posted just a 5.60 ERA and a 4.74 FIP. His home/road splits have been fairly even, allowing almost a league-average .319 wOBA at home and just a .288 wOBA on the road, however his road FIP (3.77) is slightly higher than his home FIP (3.24).Facing such a powerful right-handed heavy offense though, his left/right splits are a bit more intriguing to me. He allows a sub-.300 wOBA (.298) to left-handers on the year, but nearly a league-average .313 wOBA to righties. His FIP facing lefties is a sparkling 2.86, but against righties that balloons all the way up to 4.05 and Chicago is expected to have seven righties in the lineup, four of which are of all-star caliber. Montas throws mainly a four-seamer, splitter and sinker (combined about 81% of the time) and sprinkles in a slider about 18% of the time. Chicago just so happens to be able average against all three of his most used pitches and ranks within the top-seven teams facing splitters and sinkers. To make matters worse, even with his good overall numbers, opposing hitters have shown the ability to barrel Montas up has his barrel rate ranks in the bottom 30% of the league and his hard hit% within the bottom-15%. He’s been on a good run recently, with the luxury of facing some bad offenses, but my guts telling me Chicago’s bats will give Montas trouble in this one.

Everyone thought after losing Roman Laureano to a season-ending suspension that Oakland’s offense would see a sharp decline. Well, all they’ve done over the last 30 days has put up a .331 wOBA and the fifth-best 1151 wRC+. They’ve done most of their damage on the year against splitters and cutters (not great for Keuchel, who throws a cutter 25% of the time), but they have really struggled against sinkers and have been about middle-of-the-pack against changeups, a combo that Keuchel relies on about 66% of the time. They’ve been lucky enough to have faced terrible teams in Texas (actually losing that series) and Cleveland over their last nine games, so a shock back to reality facing one of the best teams in the majors on the road could be in store for Oakland facing a pitcher with an arsenal that doesn’t necessarily pose a great matchup.

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Keuchel has gone the exact opposite direction of Montas in terms of his 2020 season compared to this year. Through 63.1 innings last year, Keuchel finished with a remarkable 1.99 ERA and a 3.08 FIP. Expectations were high for him to have another successful season for Chicago, but instead has posted just a 4.51 ERA and a 5.23 FIP over 125.2 IP. He has fared better at home than on the road, allowing a below league average .313 wOBA and a 4.23 xFIP. Bad luck in the HR/FB ratio department has hit him pretty hard with one of the higher marks in the league at just over 20%, a number that is certainly due for some regression back to around 10-12%. The starts of games don’t appear to be Keuchel’s weakness either as he’s actually been pretty good the first time through the order with a .289 wOBA and just a 3.84 xFIP, but those numbers increase drastically as the game continues. With Chicago’s offense behind him, if Keuchel can continue his early game success and just be slightly better the second time through the lineup, he could put Chicago in a great position to win this game.

Everybody knows how good Chicago’s offense is against lefties, but that narrative sometimes silences how good they’ve been against righties as well. They have top-10 marks in both wOBA (.325) and wRC+ (108) and have the sixth most wins overall when facing right-handers. Their offense at home is one of, if not the, most intimidating squads in the league with a .335 wOBA and 116 wRC+ when playing at Guaranteed Rate Field. They may not be quite as hot as Oakland over the last 30 (104 wRC+), 14 (114), and seven days (123), but they still have top-10 marks in all three spans and the numbers they have put up are nothing to sleep on. What Chicago does have going for them, is some possible positive regression. Even with posting above average and top-of-the-league marks over the last 30 days, they’ve done so with the second-lowest .260 BABIP in the league. That is ridiculous production for a team getting so unlucky and with their BABIP steadily rising over the last 14 and seven days, I’m expecting them to get back on track against Oakland.

The pick

Don’t get me wrong, Keuchel has been bad recently, but the fact that Chicago is +125 dogs at home for the F5 in this game is a little surprising to me. They have the fourth most home wins overall and hold opponents to a bottom-five 3.67 R/G. Splitting that to just the first five innings, Chicago has the best record overall (65-33-17) and at home at (35-14-9). Oakland has been one of the hottest teams in the league recently, but these prices on Chicago at home are too good to pass up. Chicago F5 +125 & F5RL (+.5) -115 DraftKings Sportsbook. 

Column record: 40-38, +9.39u