MLB Daily Betting Model, 5/10: Trust Luis Castillo in San Fransisco?

For a brief moment last night, it looked like Hunter Pence would be playing hero for the third time in two days.

After hitting a game-tying grand slam on Wednesday, he gave the Rangers the lead against the Astros with an opposite-field two-run home run:

In the ninth-inning, Pence launched another opposite field shot as the potential go-ahead run:

Holding both a Rangers moneyline ticket, and an Under 9 ticket, I had a brief moment of panic with the ball in the air. Ultimately, I decided that I was fine with the catch. Had it gone out, the Rangers would have no doubt blown their small lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, and I would have lost both bets.

How hot is Hunter Pence though? There's now a club with just Hunter Pence and Lou Gehrig in it. That hot:

Recapping Yesterday's MLB Model

At writing yesterday, the model would have gone 0-3 against full-game moneylines, and 0-1-1 against moneylines for the first five innings (F5).

My actual picks went 3-3-1, but I was down 0.47 units for the day.

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

I gained 24 cents on the Oakland moneyline (-143 to -167), 10 cents on the Diamondbacks line (+105 to -105), and a few pennies on the Pirates F5 line, but lost 14 cents on the Rangers moneyline (+151 to +165) and finished neutral on the Rangers F5 line (+135).

The Astros total closed where I played it (Under 9, -115), but the Yankees total dropped by half of a run (9.5 to 9)

On Deck for Friday, May 10

All odds as of Friday morning (view live odds). Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Friday, May 10.

The model recommends four full-game moneylines and one moneyline for the first five innings (F5) on Friday 

As of writing, the 4% trigger threshold officially marked the Baltimore Orioles, Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres and Texas Rangers as the full-game plays. It also likes the Orioles as an F5 play.

The only one of those picks that I selected today was the Padres. However, I do see encouraging sharp action on Baltimore and Texas, and will consider those plays. 

Based upon opening lines, the Tampa Bay Rays would have been marked as a play at -135, and I'm comfortable playing them to -145.

I gave the Rays out on Twitter at that price (1.35 units to win 1 unit) as soon as I played them, and then I played it again a second time at -140 (0.7 units to win 0.5 units); reaching my self imposed limit for a single baseball game (2 units).

People still aren't treating the Rays like a true-talent 95-plus win team, even though they won 90 games last season, have the highest run differential in baseball and all but one of their wins have come by two or more runs; covering the spread in all of their victories.

They also now have two legitimate Aces, with reigning 2018 AL Cy Young Winner Blake Snell, and 2019's current AL leader in both ERA (1.47) and WHIP (0.86), Tyler Glasnow.

Glasnow's xFIP (2.95) ranks sixth, one spot behind Snell (2.75), and one spot ahead of Jacob deGrom.

Glasnow, just 25-years-old, is 6'8", and his mechanics and confidence took time to gel at the major league level. He consistently posted high strikeout totals throughout his minor league career (785 K's in 593.1 minor league innings) but mostly dominated with his ridiculously nasty stuff rather than having to locate the ball.

Now he can do both:

Upon reaching the major leagues, Glasnow posted unworkable walk rates with the Pirates; 5.0 walks per nine innings (BB/9) in 2016, 6.4 in 2017; and 5.5 in 2018.

After being traded to Tampa Bay last season (along with Austin Meadows for Chris Archer, who Glasnow is clearly already better than), the free passes plummeted to 3.1 BB/9.

In 2019, Glasnow has walked seven batters in 43 innings, a 1.5 BB/9. His first-pitch strike rate is up nearly 5% from his career average (63.8% vs. 59.1%), he's hitting the zone 50.1% of the time (vs. 45.3% career), and batters are chasing outside of the zone more than ever (29.3% vs. 26.4% career).

Interestingly, he's mostly doing it with two pitches, the fastball (64% usage, 96.7 mph), and curveball (31% usage, 83.4 mph); and a ray tank full of swagger.

Glasnow ranks 7th amongst all starters in both fastball and curveball usage, and 4th in average velocity on each of those pitches too. He has a simple gameplan that he's uber confident in, and is quickly becoming one of the most entertaining pitchers to watch:

The Rays are a particularly Curveball heavy team; Charlie Morton ranks 1st in usage (34.8%) and Blake Snell ranks 6th (31.9%).

As a staff, the Rays have saved 14 runs with their curveballs; the next closest team is the Rockies, at 6.9. The Yankees offense has been average against Curveballs (14th) both by total and weighted value.

No pitching staff has saved more runs with their changeups than the Reds (16.1), and that is in large part through the efforts of their Ace Luis Castillo.

Castillo ranks 11th amongst qualified pitchers by xFIP. His changeup was worth about 9.5 runs over each of the past two seasons; but it's already saved him 11 runs in 2019.

Castillo faced the Reds in his last start and he wasn't at his sharpest (7 IP, 4 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 9 K), getting into a lot of deep counts. However, the Reds also faced Giants starter Dereck Rodriguez in his last start, and Rodriguez has really been struggling over his last few outings. He gave up eight runs and four homers over five innings to this Cincinnati lineup the last time out.

This also isn't your typical roadtrip for the Reds; they played in Oakland yesterday afternoon and didn't even change hotels before their series begins against the Giants this evening.

Meanwhile, the Giants are flying back from Colorado after burning through their bullpen in a 12-11 loss yesterday, and will be looking for Rodriguez to eat innings today no matter how he performs.

Instead of laying the moneyline juice, I'll take the Reds on the F5 spread due to the pitching matchup and the spot advantage.

The Rays are also in a good spot today, at home on a day of rest, getting to play a Yankees team (that is still less than 100%) who had to play a game and then travel yesterday.

As for totals, I will be playing more of them now at lower unit sizes (to win 0.25 units) than I do for moneylines in order to lessen their impact on my bottom line. I will typically play any slight leans in my projections which line up with sharp action; but will continue to monitor how they perform overall.

Bets (So Far) for May 10

• Cincinnati Reds (-0.5 Runs) F5 Spread
• San Diego Padres (+160) Game Moneyline
• Tampa Bay Rays (-135, -141) Game Moneyline
• Under 10, Seattle at Boston
• Under 9.5, Philadelphia at Kansas City
• Over 9.5, Chicago (AL) at Toronto

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

Zerillo's Full MLB Model, 5/10

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.