MLB Best Bets for Monday (8/2)

It’s been ice cold in the land of MLB best bets recently with Baltimore being our latest heartbreakers against Detroit. The first four batters of the game hit absolute missiles off of Tyler Alexander to secure a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, but from there Baltimore went scoreless and only scratched out two more hits the rest of the game. Granted they were +125 road dogs, but a tough loss to take after such a promising start.

As we turn the page, Monday offers us a small eight-game slate to ease into a new betting week. Let’s jump right in and see where the value is hiding on the short board.

Philadelphia Phillies @ Washington Nationals

Philadelphia and Washington open up another four-game series, this time at Nationals Park, for what will end up being eight games played against each other in just an 11-game stretch. After being one of their best bullpen arms for most of the year, Ranger Suárez will get the start for Philadelphia, while Washington will send out new addition Josiah Gray.

While coming out of the pen for the entire season thus far, Ranger Suárez has put up a phenomenal 1.12 ERA coupled with a 3.31 FIP. Oddly enough, he ranks in the bottom 1% of the league in terms of fastball spin rate, but his lack of spin hasn’t resulted in him getting shelled. His average exit velocity, hard hit%, xwOBA, xERA, xBA, xSLG and barrel rate all rank within the top 10% of major league pitchers, so it’s no wonder why Philadelphia is trying to stretch him out to cover more innings. He doesn’t have any starts yet this year to base how he’ll do at the beginning of a game, but 13 of his 27 appearances has lasted longer than a single inning, and in those appearances Suarez is 4-1 over 26.1 innings with just 10 hits, 2 earned runs (both solo homers), six walks (2.07 BB/9), and 29 strikeouts (10 K/9), good for a 0.69 ERA and a FIP around 3.50. He should only be in the game for about three innings, but he’s proven to be able to shut offenses down for that long earlier in the season and he gets the luxury of facing a team that just sold off most of its solid offensive pieces.

Over the past month, Philadelphia has quietly had one of the better offenses in the league. For a team expected to fight for a playoff spot, Philadelphia was middling, if not disappointing, on offense, but over the last month they have the second-highest wOBA at .346 and tied for the third-highest 115 WRC+. Their BABIP is sitting at a near perfect .292 and, while their HR/FB ratio does lead the majors over that span, a team HR/FB ratio of 16.7% isn’t too egregious. They’ve had a league leading 11.5% walk rate, a bottom-five strikeout rate, the best BB/K ratio in the league, and the second-highest OBP, while their SLG, OPS and ISO all rank within the top five. Strikeouts were Philadelphia’s big Achilles heel to start the year, but if they can keep reducing their strikeouts and increasing their walks while getting the luxury of facing a starter with over 5 BB/9, then Philadelphia could have a boatload of baserunners today that should lead to a lot of runs.

Josiah Gray was part of the return Washington received in the Max Scherzer/Trea Turner blockbuster deadline deal. He’s had very limited time in the major leagues, but he’s been absolutely torched in his two starts so far this year. He’s lasted just eight total innings (four innings in each start) and has allowed seven hits, six earned runs, four homers, five walks and an impressive 13 strikeouts, leading to a 6.75 ERA and an even worse 8.28 FIP. At 44%, his HR/FB ratio is outrageously unlucky and sure to regress back to normal levels, but at just .231 it appears he has gotten a decent amount of good luck in terms of BABIP. Even with his sky-high HR/FB ratio, he’s still allowing batters to barrel up 24% of his pitches for a hard hit rate north of 40%. His .397 wOBA is already bad enough, but when he allows contact that skyrockets up to an xwOBACON of .594. Gray may be one of the better prospects in the majors, but it seems like he’ll need more than two starts under his belt to get a feel for the big-league level.

As I mentioned before, Philadelphia ranks second and tied for third in terms of wOBA and wRC+. The only team they’re trailing in both? The Nationals. Even after selling off most of their respectable offensive piece, they lead the majors with a .353 wOBA and 117 wRC+. While those are numbers I typically wouldn’t look to go against, Washington does appear like a team due for some negative regression. Their .323 BABIP leads the majors over the last 30 days and at an even more unsustainable .333 over the last seven. Arguably even more shocking, they’ve managed to put up these eye-popping numbers with a bottom-five barrel rate, bottom-five average exit velocity, and a hard hit rate just outside of the bottom 10. At just 8.3%, Washington doesn’t walk a ton meaning hits account for a majority of their OBP and once their BABIP luck starts to run out, baserunners could become scarce.

The pick

To back a reliver making his first start of the season or an unproven rookie with terrible results so far, that is the question. With both offenses playing at elite levels recently, I’m inclined to side with the pitcher who has at least shown some success at the major league level. The regression monster should be coming any time now for Washington and when it does, I’ll gladly be on the other side. I actually have Philadelphia projected to be about -150 favorites, so I’m scooping up the value on the favorite in this one. Philadelphia F5 -105 & FG -120.