Rockies vs. Rangers: Why This Moneyline Is One Of Our Favorite Friday Night MLB Picks

Colorado Rockies vs. Texas Rangers Odds, Picks

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The Rangers open Globe Life Park for its first regular season game Friday night.

Neither squad is projected to make any noise in either the AL or NL this season, as the Rangers are 80-1 and the Rockies 125-1 to win the World Series. The reason both teams don't have much of a chance this season is due to their respective bullpens, which rank 25th (Rangers) and 26th (Rockies) in my model. Unless these two teams can win slugfests all season long, I don't see either of them making the playoffs.

Advanced Stats Glossary

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. xwOBA is a regressed version of wOBA that accounts for variables like park factors.

Colorado Rockies

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

BaseRuns is a formula designed to estimate how many runs a team would be expected to score (or allow) given their underlying offensive (or defensive) performance. In other words, BaseRuns is a context-neutral run estimator used to evaluate teams.

Probable Starter: German Marquez, RHP

German Marquez has above-average velocity on his fastball (features both a four-seam and a two-seam, both of which have pretty average movement). His four-seam is probably his more effective pitch, garnering a 13.3% whiff rate. His curveball is predominantly his best pitch, with only a .149 wBA against in 2019.

Marquez rates out really well in my model, with a 0.47 BaseRuns allowed per inning which ranks inside the top 40 starting pitchers in my model. He will no doubt have to feature his curveball more in 2020 if he wants to keep balls in the yard, especially playing at Coors Field.

Texas Rangers

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

Probable Starter:Lance Lynn, RHP

Lance Lynn is predominantly a fastball pitcher, and for good reason, as he has tremendous control and is effective at getting batters to swing and miss, producing a 30.7% whiff rate on his fastball in 2019. He's also mixed in a slider/cutter-type pitch that isn't elite by any means, but does give batters a different look and helps offset his fastball.

The top of the Rockies lineup feasted on fastballs and cutters in 2019. So, it'll be interesting to see if Lynn's elite level fastball will be able to keep the Rockies hitters at bay.

wFB = Weighted Fastball RunswCT = Weighted Cutter Runs

Matchup Analysis

In my opinion, the Rangers should not be favored on Opening Day. Marquez projects out better the Lynn and the Rockies have a better lineup. With the bullpen matchup being pretty much a wash, here are my projections for the game:

Projected BaseRuns

Projected Line

Based on those projections, I think there is good value on the Rockies to win on opening night.

The pick: Rockies +110

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