Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
It is a sweltering hot Tuesday all over the country, including in and around NJ. That means it is time for another edition of the Tipico Sportsbook local roundup of MLB action. All three local teams play Tuesday, and all three are also coming off Monday losses. The Yankees are at home taking on the Angels, the Phillies are at home taking on divisional rival Miami, and the Mets are also in a divisional game against the Atlanta Braves, but they are on the road.
The home teams are favored in all three of those games. The real question is which one provides some value.
Can Shohei Ohtani hit his 27th home run of the season?
Ohtani wasted no time showing the Yankees why he is a leading candidate for MVP in the American League Monday night. He went yard in the first inning, and the Angels never really looked back. Tuesday, he gets to face Jameson Taillon. I mention Ohtani first, because of the one thing that has killed Taillon all season, the home run ball. He has allowed a career-high 1.54 HR/9 in 2021. For his career, that number was below one per nine before the start of the season. Taillon has not looked great. His ERA is over 5 — the xFIP is around 4.50, so he might be just a tad unlucky. He has really struggled with left-handed bats, and that’s a killer with the configurations of his home ballpark and the short porch in right field. Not only is Ohtani a problem, but the Angels as a whole crush right-handed pitching. They have the seventh-best wRC+ in the league against righties, at 108. I would not be excited about starting Taillon in fantasy, and I am definitely not looking forward to betting on him.
For the Angels, they are throwing former top Marlins prospect Andrew Heaney. Heaney is a big lefty with strikeout ability. He’s currently averaging over 11 K/9. Heaney has a 4.72 ERA, but that is a bit deceiving; he’s actually pitched much better than that. His xFIP is 3.57. What has killed him, like Taillon, is the HR ball. This year his HR/9 is 1.44, but that is in line with his 1.51 career HR/9. The bigger problem for the Yankees is that they are below average against LHP. They shouldn’t be with some guys on that roster that have historically hit lefties well, but this year the current lineup has just a 99 wRC+.
The strangest thing about Tuesday is that based on these numbers, you would think the Yankees are favored, but that is not the case, and it’s a pretty sizeable number too. Heaney has been unlucky and still has a better ERA than Taillon plus it’s not even close when you look at the xFIP, which is a more reliable and predictable stat to project. The Angels lineup is better at producing runs against a RHP than the Yankees lineup is against lefties. Again, this is factual based on their wRC+ scores and not just an opinion. On top of that, the Yanks are sitting at -160 with the Angels at +130 on the moneyline. That +130 means the Angels have an implied chance of winning that is just north of 43%. You guys can see the discrepancy here. Based on the numbers we discussed, I would expect the Angels to be favored and probably win this game more often than not, meaning north of 50% win probability. At a 43% implied payout number, we have a lot of value on the Angels.
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