MLB Odds, Picks and Predictions: White Sox vs. Royals (Friday, Sept. 4)

White Sox vs. Royals Odds

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The White Sox will look to regain their lead in the AL Central on Friday night as they send Dane Dunning to the mound. The Royals will counter with Brady Singer, in hopes he can hold Chicago’s red-hot offense in check.

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.

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. Major League average for an individual batter per game is 0.50 BaseRuns and a for a pitcher its 0.52 BaseRuns per inning.

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White Sox Projected Lineup

The White Sox offense has been the primary contributor to Chicago’s success this season. Chicago has the third-best wOBA (.340) and wRC+ (118) in MLB. The White Sox have been especially hot over the last two weeks, accumulating a .361 wOBA. In fact, they’ve hit a whopping 24 home runs in their last 12 games, which leads MLB. Jose Abreu has been on fire, hitting seven of the team’s 24 home runs over that 12-game stretch.

The White Sox draw a fantastic matchup on Tuesday against Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer. Chicago’s batting lineup ranks in the top 10 in MLB against fastballs and sliders — which are Singer’s main two pitches.

White Sox Probable Starter

Dane Dunning, RHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (via Fangraphs)

Dane Dunning has been incredible through his first two starts in the big leagues, but he’s vastly outperformed his projections. ZIPS has Dunning’s projected ERA at 4.67 and his FIP at 4.74.

Dunning came over from the Nationals to the White Sox in the Adam Eaton trade. He was the 29th overall pick in 2016, but it’s taken him a while to get to the majors. The main reason he was drafted in the first round was his secondary pitches. Looking at some film on Dunning, his changeup and curveball have fantastic movement that can be effective at the major league level. However, his fastball has average velocity and not a lot of movement.

The Royals have mainly been successful vs. fastballs, so Dunning will have to utilize his secondary pitches a lot on Friday.

Royals Projected Lineup

The Royals offense has been below average this season, putting up a .305 wOBA and 90 wRC+. However, they have been fairly successful against fastballs (5.0 weighted fastball runs), which is Dunning’s main pitch, so the Royals could have some success on Friday night.

Royals Probable Starter

Brady Singer, RHP

Projected & Actual Stats (via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Brady Singer was the Royals’ first-round pick in 2018, but he’s has had a difficult time in first season in the big leagues. Through his first seven starts, he’s posted a 5.19 ERA and 4.31 xFIP. Singer is mainly uses a fastball-slider combination, but neither pitch has been very effective so far this year, surrendering a wOBA over .300 to opponents.

As mentioned, the White Sox are top-10 against fastballs and sliders, so Singer will have a difficult matchup on Friday night.

Bullpens

The Royals bullpen has been really fortunate to this point in the season as they have a 4.69 xFIP compared to their 3.87 ERA. They also traded away Trevor Rosenthal at the trade deadline, so their bullpen is due for some negative regression.

The White Sox bullpen has been required for 10.2 innings over the last two days, so they’ll be a little gassed on Friday.

Projections and Pick

With Dunning and Singer on the mound, I think we’ll see a lot of runs on Friday night. I have the total projected at 10.65, so I’m going to take over 9.5 runs at +100 and I would play it up to -110.

The PICK: Over 9.5 runs (+100, up to -110) [Bet now at DraftKings and get a $500 free bet on the White Sox.]