Zerillo’s MLB Daily Betting Model, 8/10: Back Reynaldo Lopez, White Sox vs. Athletics?

The White Sox (51-63) are playing host to the Oakland Athletics (66-50) this weekend in the role of a potential spoiler with the A's sitting a half game back from Tampa Bay in the AL Wild Card race.

Though the Southsiders won't be making the playoffs in 2019, the development of their young players down the stretch and into next season will determine whether their rebuild is a year ahead of schedule, or still at least one year away.

With Lucas Giolito and Michael Kopech slated to lead the White Sox 2020 rotation, if Reynaldo Lopez can develop into a reliable third rotation piece for this team, they will have a big chance to surprise next season.

On a different note, the Dodgers have a talented rotation and offense top-to-bottom, but their bullpen leaves a little to be desired — and it reared its ugly head on Friday night:

Thanks to Carson Kelly, the Diamondbacks won the game despite going 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position. Kelly joined a pretty exclusive list of catchers in the process:

Recapping Yesterday's MLB Model

At writing yesterday, the model would have gone 3-4 against full-game moneylines and 3-3 against moneylines for the first five innings (F5).

My plays went 7-4-1, and I finished up 2.31 units for the day.

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

I gained 67 cents against the sides I played, netting as much as 46 cents against Oakland's game spread (-120 to -166), and the Mariners-Rays under dropped from 9.5 to 9.0.

MLB Betting Model for Saturday, August 10

All odds as of Saturday morning (view live MLB odds). Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Saturday. 

Today, the model recommends four full-game moneylines and four moneylines for the first five innings (F5).

As of writing, the 3.5% trigger threshold officially marked the Diamondbacks, Marlins, Orioles and White Sox as full-game plays. The model also likes the Marlins and White Sox, in addition to the Angels and Mets, as F5 plays.

I ended up playing the full-game moneylines for the Diamondbacks and White Sox, and also played the Angels, Indians and Reds, each of whom narrowly missed the 3.5% cutoff.

The Angels will welcome Andrew Heaney back from the disabled list, and despite a spike in his ERA and fielding independent metrics from 2018, the rest of his numbers under the hood show an improvement upon last season, when he posted a 3.99 FIP and 3.68 xFIP.

Heaney's velocity is up from 92.0 mph to 92.6 mph, and his swinging strike rate has increased by over 2% from 2018. He's been harmed by the longball (1.76 HR/9) as a result of an increase in flyball rate of over 10%.

Adam Plutko has pitched to contact for the Indians, allowing a microscopic 1.37 walks per nine innings. Plutko allows a high number of flyballs (career 52.5%), so a career 15.8% HR/FB rate is less than ideal in concert.

Cleveland spent the offseason trading offense for defense after they lost Michael Brantley to the Astros, before re-adding offense in the Trevor Bauer trade prior to July 31.

They have played excellent team defense all season — a proper pairing with Plutko's skillset:

Oscar Mercado and Tyler Naquin play some of the best outfield defense in MLB for the Tribe:

As for the Diamondbacks, Alex Young will make his seventh start on Saturday against Kenta Maeda and the Dodgers.

It's worth noting that, with all of their left-handed bats, the Dodgers offense has struggled against southpaws since the beginning of June with a 96 wRC+ (18th).

Young has succeeded with his secondary pitches, throwing his fastball less than 40% of the time. Thus far, all four of his pitches (fastball, slider, curveball, changeup) show positive pitch values.

The slider, which Young throws nearly 30% of the time, is likely his best offering:

Among starters who have thrown 30 innings or more this season (a purposefully selectively sample!), Young ranks in the top 26 in both swinging-strike rate and first-pitch strike rate.

In other words, he gets ahead of hitters and also has the stuff to put them away in favorable counts.

Lastly, to get back to Reynaldo Lopez and the White Sox, note how Lopez's velocity has trended upwards throughout the 2019 season:

That's a bottom of 92.4 mph to a peak of 96.9 mph, and Lopez's year-to-date performance has tracked with the velocity uptick.

Lopez has also increased the whiff rate on three of his pitches this season — fastball (15.8% to 18.4%), curveball (15.2% to 32.9%) and changeup (26.4% to 33.3%) — and I still think he has room to improve:

Bets (So Far) for August 10

• Arizona Diamondbacks (+172) Game Moneyline
• Chicago White Sox (+158) Game Moneyline
• Cincinnati Reds (+100) Game Moneyline
• Cleveland Indians (+135) Game Moneyline
• Los Angeles Angels (+128) Game Moneyline
• Over 8.5 (-105), Athletics at White Sox
• Under 10.5 (-115), Twins at Indians
• Under 11.5 (-110, Angels at Red Sox
• Under 11.0 (-120), Astros at Orioles

Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Saturday, August 10.

Zerillo's Full MLB Model, 8/10

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