MLB Daily Betting Model, 5/1: Will Marco Gonzales Keep Winning for the Mariners?

On Tuesday, Carsten Charles "CC" Sabathia Jr. became the 17th pitcher in MLB history to record 3,000 career strikeouts.

The 3,000 strikeout club is about as exclusive as it gets for a pitcher. For context, 24 pitchers have more than 300 career wins, and 23 have thrown perfect games.

Fourteen of the 16 retired members of the 3,000 strikeout club (all except Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling) have been enshrined into Cooperstown. Sabathia now seems set to join that group someday.

He won one Cy Young award, with Cleveland in 2007, and had the combined stats to win another in 2008; but switched leagues after being traded — a death knell for any potential baseball award winner — from Cleveland to Milwaukee.

More than 3,000 strikeouts, nearly 250 wins, five top-five finishes in Cy Young voting, five times receiving votes for MVP, six All-Star Games, and an ALCS MVP award while helping the Yankees to win the 2009 World Series — Sabathia certainly has a Hall of Fame worthy resume:

Recapping Yesterday's Model

The model went 1-5 against full-game moneylines, and 0-1-1 against moneylines for the first five innings on Tuesday.

It was one rough evening, with a lot of blown leads.

My actual picks went 2-6-1, and I was down 1.94 units for the day.

It was an overall positive day in terms of generating Closing Line Value (CLV).

I gained 18 cents combined on the Pirates' lines (+112 to -101 and +100 to -105), 12 cents on the Giants' line (+147 to +135), five cents on the Angels F5 runline (-105 to -110), three cents on the Oakland line (+150 to +147), broke even on the Twins' line (+150), and lost five cents total on the Padres' lines (-105 to -101 and -115 to -114).

On Deck for Wednesday, May 1

All odds as of Wednesday morning (view live odds).

The model recommends three full-game moneylines and two moneylines for the first five innings (F5) on Wednesday.  

As of writing, the 4% trigger threshold officially marked the Baltimore Orioles (Game 1), San Francisco Giants, and Seattle Mariners as the full-game plays. It also likes the Orioles and Mariners in the F5 portion of their games.

However, also as of the time of writing, there are no lines listed for the second games of the doubleheaders between the Rays and Royals and the Orioles and White Sox.

On April 20, I established how I want to bet on doubleheaders this season: play the favorite in Game 2 if they won as the favorite in Game 1, particularly if they are the visiting team.

I'm even willing to go against my projection with these doubleheader picks, and I will be picking the Rays and Blake Snell today in Game 2 if they win in Game 1, regardless of the price.

The two model plays that I am making are on the San Diego Padres and the Seattle Mariners, and their pitchers Cal Quantrill and Marco Gonzales.

Quantrill, son of former major league pitcher Paul Quantrill, is making his major league debut for the San Diego team that drafted him No. 8 overall out of Stanford in 2016, despite missing his pre-draft season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Similar to Chris Paddack, Quantrill relies on his command of a low to mid-90s fastball and a plus changeup. He also mixes in a slider and curveball, which are still developing.

Quantrill likely won't be a big strikeout pitcher at the major league level (8.4 strikeouts per nine innings in the minors), but he should be able to fill a number four or five slot in the back end of a rotation.

Max Fried might be having a breakout season for the Braves, but the Padres remain undervalued today in Atlanta. Quantrill is more than capable:

Lefty Marco Gonzales will toe the rubber in Seattle as the Mariners look to bounce back from blowing an eighth-inning lead to the Cubs on Tuesday night.

Gonzales is 5-0, with a 2.80 ERA and a stellar 34:9 strikeout to walk ratio, and he is 6-1 on the F5 moneyline so far this season.

Despite a low strikeout rate (7.57 career K/9), Gonzales generates pop-ups (13% career infield flyball rate) and weak contact by absolutely pounding the strike zone (52% in 2019, up from 44.1% career) with his cutter, changeup, and curveball.

With three home runs allowed over 45 innings pitched, Gonzales has avoided the long ball so far in 2019. His HR/FB rate is 5.8% this season, but 11.3% for his career, a likely point of regression.

Seattle's offense (which contains potent right-handed bats like Domingo Santana, Mitch Haniger, Edwin Encarnacion and Ryon Healy) has also been better against left-handed pitching than right-handed pitching; with a team on-base percentage of .377 against lefties (3rd) and .329 against righties (13th), and an OPS that is nearly 100 points better against lefties than righties.

The Cubs bullpen is just as capable of blowing this game as the Mariners bullpen is, and although I have the Mariners as the moneyline favorite on paper I still see a bigger win probability advantage (roughly 3%) for the Mariners in the first half of this game.

Bets (So Far) for May 1

• San Diego Padres (+141) Game Moneyline
• Seattle Mariners (+105) F5 Moneyline

Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Wednesday, May 1.

Zerillo's Full MLB Model, 5/1: Moneylines & Over/Unders

Download the Excel doc with my projections to input odds from your sportsbook. These projections cover full game and First 5 moneylines and over/unders. A sample of one of the sheets is below.