MLB Betting Edges for 8-28-23

The Unwritten Rules

I pride myself and think of myself as a man of great betting wisdom… as there’s a drive to left by Castellanos, it will be a home run. So, that will make it a 4-0 ballgame. I don’t know if this is going to be the last time I offer betting advice again. I don’t know how this is going to be received by others. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out for my own personal bankroll. To anyone who feels misguided by past, present, or future recommendations -- I want to apologize immediately for your losses.

Disclaimer

What you are about to see are recommendations derived from a mathematical projection system that should be treated purely as a guide to help inform betting decisions. It does not tell the future, it likely won’t make you rich overnight. When used in tandem with a consistent strategic approach and effective money management utilization, the model may prove to return a profit.

My Strategy

You won’t see me blindly tailing each edge my model spits out at me. Once a matchup is run through my model (technical analysis) and provides a value, I want to perform a fundamental analysis of the matchup which basically accounts for anything that is not included in the calculation of the model (i.e weather, recent hot streaks, or advanced analysis of pitcher arsenal stats/batter arsenal hitting or any other statcast metric that isn’t perfectly quantifiable).

Key Metrics to Know

FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching measures what a pitcher’s ERA would look like if the pitcher experienced league-average defense and luck. xFIP is a regressed version of FIP that adjusts or “normalizes’ the home run component based on park factors.

wRC+ or Weighted Runs Created Plus takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for critical external factors — like ballpark or era. It’s adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average, and 150 would be 50 percent above league average.

wOBA or Weighted On-Base Average is a catch-all hitting metric with more predictive value than on-base percentage. An average MLB hitter can be expected to post a .320 wOBA.

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Monday Night Baseball

Modern-day sports enthusiasts argue the 162 baseball season is too long and that MLB should consider shortening their season to increase entertainment value. The concept being that if you decrease the total number of games played it will increase competitiveness in regular season by adding more weight on wins and losses day in and day out. Well don’t tell that to this year's Seattle Mariners who have taken advantage of the long season to claw back into playoff contention after a disappointing start. After the completion of Sunday’s slate of games the Mariners have officially taken the AL West Divison lead, and are helping make the case for baseball purists that “theres a reason why you play 162 games.”

Tonight’s slate shows value on several teams who are fighting for playoff contention but have slim hopes of matching the Mariners monumental accomplishment.

Matchups I’m Targeting for the Day

• Yankees @ Tigers
• Angels @ Phillies
• Astros @ Red Sox
  

Yankees @ Tigers (Severino vs Olson)

Neither of these squads have much of a chance to make the playoffs or win their respective division, so both are essentially playing for next season. While I try not to put much emphasis on fundamental betting tactics like team motivation, its hard to ignore that the Yankee lineup is not playing for much down the final stretch of the year.

Luis Severino takes the mound for the Yankees who possesses an xERA over 7.00 but the xFIP is rendering at a respectable 5.21. He’s struggled in large part due to his lack of regaining the velocity he once had and not being able to create enough deception in his pitches to keep hitters off balance. 44% of the contact he’s giving up fall under the “hard hit” category while his barrel rate is up at 10.5%.

Meanwhile, Detroit will have Reese Olson on the mound who’s xERA is pacing lower than his actual ERA (4.93 and 5.29 respectively) which spells there may be some positive regression looming. Each of his top three pitches have negative run values which have led him to a series of successful short outings, where he’s averaging less than 4 innings per appearance.

The offense has also shown some bright spots lately, with hitters like Spencer Torkelson and Parker Meadows pacing the group. Though the total group ranks 28th in wOBA vs right handed pitchers this season, my model projects them to have a good day against the reeling Severino.

Bet the Tigers at home -113 or better. I would back them all the way up to -120.

Angels @ Phillies (Giolito vs Walker)

While the Angels have all but mailed in their playoff hopes yet again, the Phillies are in the midst of a playoff race in the Wild Card. Philadephia got off to yet another slow start to the season but has since regained composure and is looking like they’ll make another strong push in the postseason. Can the Phills keep their focus and take care of the disappointing Angels?

Lucas Giolito enters this matchup having faced the Phillies earlier in the year when still with the White Sox. He took the win in that outing after going 6+ innings while giving up only 1 run. But now he must face these Philly bats at a time when they’re hot. He’s going to need to keep the ball in the yard by keeping the hitters off balance using his changeup and locating the fastball well.

My model projects the Angels win this game 50% (-101) of the time, which is a 4.35% edge on the current line at +117.

Bet the Angels to cool off the hot Philly bats behind a solid outing from Lucas Giolito.

Astros @ Red Sox (Javier vs Sale)

Just 5 days after the Red Sox tagged Chrisian Javier in Houston they face him again at home behind the big left handed arm of Chris Sale. I think there’s reason to believe Boston can achieve a similar result and grab the win at home and continue their hopes of climbing back into the AL East race.

The Red Sox might just be a bad matchup for Javier who relies heavily on his fastball which he uses nearly 60% of the time. This Red Sox lineup is 3rd best in baseball at hitting the fastball so I expect the trends we saw last Thursday to continue here on Monday night.

My model projects the Red Sox at closer to -150 which is a 5.93% expected edge over the current line at -130.