Friday Bets: Picks for Opening Day Part 2
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.
Today marks a second wave of Opening Day ceremonies for the remaining clubs who are returning home from their respective early road trips, ready to welcome back their fan bases. This means we're likely to see more inflated values in the market that is ripe for the picking.
Let's dive into our Friday matchups that show betting value and make these early-season storylines a little more interesting.
Matchups I'm targeting
- Cardinals @ Red Sox
- Blue Jays @ Mets
- Dodgers @ Phillies
Cardinals @ Red Sox
Eric Fedde vs Walker Buehler
The first team looking to spoil someone's opening day ceremony is the St. Louis Cardinals. While I'm not high on this club from a season-long perspective, there's still a lot to like about this roster in daily matchups. Their lineup has a solid mix of youth and veterans, which at times can produce at a top 10 level, while there are arms on the pitching staff that show strong upside.
Cardinals Starting Pitcher
Eric Fedde, who is one of those pitchers, will toe the rubber today. After a stint in Korea, Fedde has been a top 40 starter in all of baseball, and that seems to be continuing here in 2025. In his first outing, he shined to the tune of 6 innings pitched, giving up only one run, and striking out two batters. He's never going to be someone who racks up K's or "wow" you with his advanced numbers, but he uses his sinker/cutter combo mixed with a slider to keep hitters off balance and away from hard contact.
This recipe is especially important to have when pitching at the hitter-friendly Fenway Park, so I see him finding more success and keeping his squad well in contention in this matchup.
Betting Analysis & Picks
Based on the starting pitching matchup, I see value on the Cardinals in the first five innings at plus money; Fedde has been strong since returning from Korea and shined in his first start, while Buehler is still working back.
The model also shows value on the Cards in the full game as their bullpen is rested after an off day while the Red Sox played in Baltimore on Thursday; looks like St. Louis are ripe to spoil the Sox's home opener here.
Picks: Cardinals F5 (+115), Cardinals Full Game (+120)
Blue Jays @ Mets
Kevin Gausman vs Tylor Megill
The Blue Jays just finished up a respectable home stand vs the Orioles and Nats, but will now face a tough test on the road in Queens to face the Mets on their Opening Day weekend. The story so far for Toronto has been their hitting ability as they currently rank 5th in team wRC+ at 132. However, as many runs as they've been creating, they've also been allowing as their team ERA sits 1oth worst at 4.43.
Will this trend continue on the road or will the Mets be able to bottle them up on both sides of the ball?
Mets Starting Pitcher
Tylor Megill: carried a strong spring training performance into a stellar outing on opening weekend vs the Astros,, going 5 innings and allowing only 1 run while racking up 6 K's. He's been a solid strikeout pitcher in his career with varying degrees of success overall as a run stopper. When he runs into trouble he's getting behind in counts and leaving the fastball in favorable positions for batters to hit hard in the air, resulting in extra base hits or home runs.
Blue Jays Starting Pitcher
Kevin Gausman: has struggled for the better part of the last year and has been a target to bet against given his advanced numbers. Per Baseball Savant, his actual numbers are much better than the underlying metrics suggest, largely due to the hitter's ability to barrel up a high percentage of pitches put in play. At his best, he's able to generate strikeouts on his splitter, but he regressed into a contact pitcher in the last year, which suggests the pitch is losing its luster. Per Fangraphs, his Stuff+ rating on the splitter decreased from 113 in 2023 to 94 in 2024.
Betting Analysis & Picks
As previously mentioned, I want to take any opportunity where the model shows value in fading Kevin Gausman. I believe this is a great spot to do so at a slight expected value edge of 2.93% in the first five innings on the Mets with Megill on the mound. Although the model shows the Mets winning this game, the expected value is not there for the full game, therefore, I'm only investing a half unit at this price.
Pick: Mets F5 (-135)