Friday Bets: Expected Value Around the Diamond

It's been an exciting opening week of baseball as new storylines begin to develop for the 2025 season. We've seen walk-offs, bat controversy, and surprise performances (for better or worse) from several unexpected teams across the league.

From a betting perspective, the books assign inflated lines for home teams based on public perception, so the model identifies fewer home teams as being expected value picks. This is done in a heavier variety to start the year when there is more public attention on the sport. Understanding the sentiment behind the bookmaker's strategy provides us with an advantage as we can then use our mathematical model to determine fair prices for each matchup before investing.  

This sentiment has held true in the early going:

• Home vs Away: The model has shown value on 56 Away teams compared to only 29 Home teams.
• Over vs Under: The model has shown value on 62 Unders compared to only 24 Overs.

Let's examine our Friday matchups, which show betting value and make these early-season storylines a little more interesting.

Matchups I'm targeting

• Royals @ Guardians
• Braves @ Rays
• Phillies @ Cardinals

Royals @ Guardians

Kris Bubic vs Tanner Bibee

This is a sneaky exciting starting pitching matchup early in the season between two pitchers who feature some of the nastiest pitches in the game.

Royals

Kris Bubic has been fantastic thus far, only allowing one run over 12.1 innings pitched in two starts against quality opponents in the Brewers and Orioles. Bubic was mainly used as a reliever in 2024, where he was extremely effective. Now, after filling the open starting rotation spot due to injury, he's picked up where he left off, only in longer outings. He's incorporated a slider as his fourth pitch to go along with an average fastball, sweeper, and a changeup.

Through those two starts, Bubic's total pitching run value ranks in the 97th percentile of the league, per Baseball Savant. He's been especially effective with his fastball, which currently grades out as a 113 per Stuff+, which is up from the 104 he posted in 2024. With the addition of his slider to the mix, he's missing bats and creating soft contact at a high rate, as his whiff and strikeout rates are in the 85th percentile range, that is on pace with his effectiveness as a reliever, and up over 10% from his previous range as a starter.

Guardians

The Guardians profile as a league-average hitting team vs left-handed pitching, and that is proving to be true thus far, per their team wRC+ grade of 110. It will be interesting to see how they react to the new look Bubic after seeing him in the division as a reliever over the past 4 seasons.

Taner Bibee is the acclaimed ace of the Guardian staff, which was rightfully earned by pitching to the tune of a 2.98 and 3.49 ERA in 2023 and 2024, respectively. He makes up for an average fastball with a highly effective cutter and a strong sinker to go along with a slider, which is his whiff pitch. It's Bibee's stuff that makes him great, as he's league average in hitting his spots and mixing pitchers per Fangraphs Location+ and Pitching+ metrics. So far this season, his stuff has lived up to the task, but he's not putting hitters away with strikeouts at his career rate (14 down from a 26-28% range), and is giving up hard contact at a higher rate than typical. He has the stuff and pedigree to get back on track, and will look to use his Friday home start vs an in-division opponent to do so.

Analysis & Pick

Based on the adjustments made to each starting pitcher in my model, I have them projected with nearly identical effectiveness in this matchup. Bibee and the Guardians appear to be getting the benefit of the doubt in the market as they are listed as a sizeable favorite at -140 on the moneyline.

I don't want to overreact to Bubic's early-season success, as it's only been two starts, but I also don't want to act too slowly to his success. Even though the model adjustments were marginal given the small sample of data in 2025, I see value in backing the Royals for this matchup based on his improvement.

Each lineup projects similarly to go along with the stalemate at starting pitcher, while the Guardians show a slight edge in the bullpen after the Royals were forced to eat four innings on Thursday. To hedge that, I'll play the Royals in the first five innings as well as the full game line.

Pick: Royals F5 (+120), Royals Full Game (+120)

Bravess @ Rays

Bryce Elder vs Taj Bradley

The handicap on this pick comes from simply factoring in two major elements:

1. Travel/Fatigue: The Braves finished up a series win vs Philadelphia late Thursday night (technically Friday morning on the east coast). The final game was delayed almost two hours in the sixth inning, which forced the game's extension, leading to extra innings. The Braves ended up using five total bullpen arms, which is likely to take its toll on the unit heading into Friday's game on the road in Tampa after traveling overnight.
2. Wind: So far this season, George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa has lived up to its reputation for being a "wild" run environment, as more games than not have gone over the listed betting total so far in 2025. Most notably, when the wind is blowing out, the stadium becomes a bandbox as balls carry over the fence with ease. On Friday, there is projected to be a 10mph wind blowing directly out to center field, leading to a situation that is again ripe for run scoring.

The model is already showing value value on the Over at 8.5 in this game before factoring in the weather, which again, will feature a stiff wind blowing directly out to center; on top of this, the Braves pen was heavily taxed late Thurs evening which will further help this total push over the listed line.

Pick: Over 8.5 (-115 or better)

Phillies @ Cardinals

Andre Pallante vs Aaron Nola

Keeping with the spillover effect from the delayed late-night Phillies vs Braves matchup from Thursday evening, I'm targeting a similar betting edge for the other team involved in that affair. As previously mentioned about the Braves, the Phillies also were forced to use extra arms out of their bullpen, which will inevitably impact the outcome of Friday's game in St. Louis vs the Cardinals. This is especially important because they may be called on early in the game due to Aaron Nola's early-season struggles.

Aaron Nola has been one of the most effective pitchers in baseball over the past 10 seasons as the ace of the Phillies' staff. However, over the past few seasons, and continuing in 2025, he's seen his K/9 rate decline (10.32 to 8.82) while his BB/9 rate (1.27 to 2.76) and HR/FB rate (15.6% to 22.9%) increase. He's laboring in counts, unable to put hitters away with the strikeout, filling the bases with walks, and then allowing costly home runs.

This decline in effectiveness is shown to be correlated with his Stuff+ grades per pitch, which measures release point, velocity, vertical and horizontal movement, and spin rate. Since 2022, his fastball, slider, and cutter have been consistently less effective, per Sutff+. With this overall decline becoming a steady trend, its predictable at this point that it will continue, and therefore his starts will progressively grow shorter and lead to increased bullpen usage on his start days.

Analysis & Pick

So far this season, the Cardinals have been a top 5 hitting unit in baseball as they sit with a 123 wRC+ and .782 OPS as a team. Their starting pitcher, Andre Pallante, has been solid in two starts thus far in 2025, posting a 2.20 ERA / 3.38 FIP with a ground ball rate in the 96th percentile per Baseball Savant. I believe he's well suited to keep this home run hitting Phillies lineup in check while his offense digs its heels in versus Nola and the taxed bullpen.

According to my model shows a 2.39% edge at the current price; therefore, I'm very comfortable backing St. Louis in this spot.

Pick: Cardinals (+120 down to +100)