MLB Best Bets for Friday (7/2)

We have a full 15-game MLB slate Friday as we head into the first day of the holiday weekend. The first half of the season is quickly coming to a close and we’re starting to see some teams separate themselves from the pack. Are Vegas’s prices keeping up with these teams? Let’s jump in to see any price discrepancies we can take advantage of.

St. Louis Cardinals @ Colorado Rockies

St. Louis and Colorado will bump heads again Friday for their second game in this four-game series. Johan Oviedo will look to turn things around for St. Louis after the Cardinals lost Thursday’s game, while Chi Chi González will look to keep the momentum for Colorado.

Neither St. Louis nor Colorado comes into this game giving right-handers nightmares. Both squads currently have a wOBA under .300 against righties while putting up bottom-five wRC+ marks, with Colorado’s 73 wRC+ ranking dead last. They’ve put up identical 11.3% HR/FB ratios, 25th in the league, so they have been equally unlucky in terms of homers, but the BABIP department separates them slightly more. Colorado’s .291 is roughly right where you’d expect it to be, while St. Louis has the lowest .262 BABIP against right-handers in the league, suggesting that bad luck has his St. Louis significantly more than Colorado and some positive regression should be coming their way. Colorado’s home stats can always be a bit deceiving playing in Denver and especially over their 29-16 stretch at home this year. They have the league’s No. 3 (!) .350 wOBA at home, coupled with the No. 24, below-average 93 wRC+. While the elite .350 wOBA is good in theory, wRC+ should be considered for Colorado arguably even more than any other team since their home-park is so drastically skewed to favor hitters. wRC+ takes park factors into consideration, where wOBA does not, and when you take out the benefit of playing at Coors Field, you’re left with a below average offense being aided by a sky-high .330 wOBA. Colorado has been one of the best teams at home in the league this year, but just how much of that has been legitimate?

The pitching matchup in this one is eerily similar to the offensive matchup. Johan Oviedo comes into the game with a 5.23 ERA and a 5.30 FIP, not to be outdone by Chi Chi González’ 5.81 ERA and 5.17 FIP. Gonzalez, however, has been remarkably bad across the board. His average exit velocity allowed and hard hit rate are both within the bottom 20% of major league pitchers, while his xwOBA, xERA, xBA, xSLG, K% and whiff rate are all within the bottom 5% of pitchers. He’s not only below average, but borderline terrible in nearly every statistic, and while his 16.7% HR/FB ratio is slightly high, it doesn’t appear any of it is due to bad luck.

Oviedo is by no means light years ahead of Gonzalez in any category, but he has at least shown that he can limit hard contact and barrels. For the sake of transparency, Oviedo ranks in the bottom-12% of the league in terms of xWOBA, xERA, xBA, K% and BB%, only slightly better than Gonzalez, but he manages to find himself in the top-14% of the league in terms of average exit velocity allowed and in the top 9% of the league in hard hit%. He misses barrels at a slightly above-average rate as well and, in my mind, if a pitcher can limit hard contact and miss barrels then he’s doing something right. If Oviedo can limit the free passes he allows, he should be able to keep this Colorado lineup quiet.

The pick

Looking deeper at Colorado’s stats and how they’ve come to be known as a home powerhouse, I’m thinking the market might start to be a little overpriced on them. They actually have a below-average offense at home, with the eighth-highest home FIP. Gonzalez is on a brutal 0-2, 6.23 ERA, 5.81 FIP stretch since the calendar flipped to June, while Oviedo is over a run better in both stats over that same timeframe. I’m liking the offense that should have some positive regression versus the struggling starter in this one and have St. Louis closer to -140 favorites. St. Louis -110.