Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
Our hearts were broken twice from Monday’s best bets when Detroit tied it at 5-5 in the ninth inning thanks to a Robbie Grossman pinch-hit, 2-run homer. The home run blew our chances of the under at 10.5 runs and gave us false hope to cash the Detroit moneyline before they meekly fell to Minnesota in 10 innings.
To help us quickly turn the page on a couple tough losses, Wednesday offers us an overflowing, 16-game MLB betting slate thanks to Toronto and Boston playing two at Fenway. I’ll dig through Wednesday’s board below to help us get back in the green and touch on which matchup I see the most value on.
St. Louis Cardinals @ Cleveland Guardians
St. Louis and Cleveland will wrap up a quick two-game series at Progressive Field with an afternoon getaway game. Lefty Kwang Hyun Kim will get the start for St. Louis as Zach Plesac tries to salvage Game 2 for Cleveland.
Former KBO star Kim is having a fantastic sophomore season. Through 17 starts in 2021, he has a top-20 2.88 ERA and a 3.59 FIP that’s just outside the top 30 of 99 starting pitchers with at least 80 innings. His average exit velocity, xwOBA, xERA and xSLG all rank within the top half of the league, and he’s been even better at missing barrels and avoiding hard contact ranking in the top 30% of the league in barrel rate and hard hit rate. Over his last five starts, he’s quietly been one of the best starting pitchers in the majors, and maybe the sole best. During that span, he’s a perfect 5-0 with 30 innings, 16 hits, 3 earned runs, 9 walks and 22 strikeouts, good for a 0.90 ERA, 2.69 FIP, and 0.83 WHIP. His barrel rate and hard hit rate have plummeted to 3.7% and 35.8% and with elite recent marks, a lineup like Cleveland’s should be no problem for Kim to navigate through.
St. Louis’s offense has been colder than the North Pole in winter this season. Against right-handers, they’re putting up just a .300 wOBA with 88 wRC+ with eerily similar marks on the road, .300 wOBA and 85 wRC+, all of which rank within in the bottom-10 of baseball. Over the past couple weeks, their cannon deck has started to heat up though, as they’ve had the sixth- and seventh-highest .342 wOBA and 115 wRC+ coupled with the seventh-highest ISO. During that span, St. Louis has had the second-highest barrel rate at a whopping 11.8%, the most barreled balls in total, and top-10 marks in batting average, slugging and on-base percentage. To add a little icing on the cake, they’ve been on this torrid stretch with a clean .305 BABIP and the 13th-ranked HR/FB ratio, suggesting that the last two weeks may be more sustainable than fluky.
In a shortened season last year, Zach Plesac turned in a phenomenal 2.28 ERA and 3.39 FIP over 55.1 innings. Expectations were high on him to repeat his success coming into the year, but he has sorely disappointed. Through 13 starts, Plesac has just a 4.30 ERA and a 4.80 FIP and was bad enough at one point that he fractured his thumb ripping off his shirt in frustration causing him to need a two-start rehab stint in AA. Since his three starts off the IL, Plesac has picked up right where he left off, going 1-0, but with a 4.86 ERA and a 5.79 FIP almost a full run higher. He’s been getting hit harder than Dave Jauss, allowing nearly a 50% hard hit rate and a barrel rate over 16%! Shockingly, at .230, his BABIP actually suggests he should be pitching even worse if and when that starts to stabilize around .300. Plesac may have had a successful 2020, but he’s been an entirely different pitcher this year.
Much like St. Louis, Cleveland has been absolutely atrocious at the dish. They’ve scratched out just a .300 wOBA and 87 wRC+ against southpaws and have been equally underwhelming at home with a .306 wOBA and 88 wRC+, again all marks that rank within the bottom-10 in baseball. Unlike St. Louis, however, Cleveland has been a disgrace at the plate lately and specifically over the last two weeks. Not only have they had issues getting hits with the fourth-lowest batting average, they’ve had issues with just solely making contact as they have the third-lowest outside zone contact rate, lowest in zone contact rate, and lowest contact rate overall by nearly 2%. To make matters worse, combined with their terrible contact skills they also swing outside of the zone more than average, swing inside of the zone less than average, and have the highest swinging strike rate and called plus swinging strike rate in the majors. By any measure, Cleveland has been one of the most putrid offenses in the majors.
The pick
St. Louis opened as small dogs in this matchup and I immediately jumped on them when I saw that plus price. Neither offense has been particularly scary this season, but over the past week that narrative dramatically changes where St. Louis has been leaps and bounds over Cleveland. The pitching matchup, overall and even more so as of late, is also heavily leaning towards St. Louis here with Kim going scorched Earth policy on the league lately and Plesac serving up beach balls. St. Louis was priced as +105 dogs at both SugarHouse and BetMGM, but as of the time of this writing I’m seeing their best price as -105 at BetMGM. St. Louis +105
