Zerillo’s MLB Daily Betting Model, 7/14: Value on Angels-Mariners Over/Under?

Dodgers-Red Sox is the marquee matchup on Sunday, and Hyun-Jin Ryu vs. David Price is an ideal pitching matchup for the Sunday Night Baseball game.

There are plenty of other tasty pitching matchups on Sunday afternoon, including Shane Bieber vs. Jose Berrios and Marcus Stroman vs. Masahiro Tanaka. Let's dive into a couple of these top pitchers.

But first, a recap of yesterday. Saturday was a night of late lead changes.

Juan Soto ripped the hearts out of Phillies backers (myself included) with a two-run home run in the ninth inning:

Ronald Acuna Jr. launched a late blast to pull even with the Padres before the Braves won 7-5 in extra innings:

The four teams I bet on blew seven leads on Saturday, and only the Astros ended up winning.

Nothing but variance… let's move on.

Recapping Yesterday's MLB Model

At writing yesterday, the model would have gone 4-5 against full-game moneylines and 0-2-3 against moneylines for the first five innings (F5).

My plays went 2-6, and I finished down 2.35 units for the day.

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

I gained 16 cents against the three individual sides that I played and saw the two sides of my parlay move by a combined 60 cents.

I only missed on the Under 10 in Oakland, which moved up to 10.5, but two of the other totals that I played each moved by a half run in my favor.

MLB Betting Model for Sunday, July 14

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

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

As of writing, the 3.5% trigger threshold officially marked the Blue Jays, Giants, Marlins, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Reds, Twins and White Sox as full-game plays. The model also likes the Blue Jays, Giants, Marlins, Phillies, Pirates, Reds and White Sox, in addition to the Twins as F5 plays.

I like Marcus Stroman and the Blue Jays quite a bit in this spot against the Yankees. The Astros and Yankees are supposedly in hot pursuit of Toronto's 28-year-old righty, who will be a free agent after the 2021 season.

He's the rare pitcher in 2019 who gets by with an arsenal that is more than the sum of its parts. Standing just 5-foot-8, Stroman has a solid fastball-cutter combination (average 93 and 91 mph, respectively) but has mostly put away his cutter in 2019 in favor of his curveball.

Stroman threw the hook less than 14% of the time in 2018. In 2019, he's using the pitch 32% of the time, and he's throwing it 3 mph faster (from 82.8 mph to 85.9 mph).

But he is also a master of guile, messing with the timing of his opposition:

And changing the speed on his pitches:

While his FIP and xFIP between 2018 and 2019 are comparable, his xwOBA has plummeted from .329 to .290 — something that began towards the end of 2018.

The average exit velocity against his pitches is at a career-low of 87.3 mph (down from 88.8 mph both in 2018 and for his career).

Stroman has a staggering 59.6% career groundball rate and is finding ways to generate less hard contact after ranking in the bottom 8% of pitchers in hard contact rate for the past two seasons.

He's also being targeted by two teams in the Astros and Yankees who are completely unafraid to modify a pitcher's arsenal. I'm excited to see where he ends up and what tweaks (if any) his future organization makes to his arsenal.

Stroman is 0-4 with a 7.52 ERA at Yankee Stadium over the past three seasons, and perhaps the Long Island, New York native has struggled when pitching in front of his friends and family.

But he also knows that this could be his last start in a Blue Jays uniform, and I expect a full array from the Stro Show on Sunday afternoon:

I also want to briefly discuss another pitcher who I like quite a bit: Jose Berrios of the Minnesota Twins. Berrios was always a highly-regarded prospect, and his breaking ball is extremely eye-catching:

Visually, it's an impressive curveball. On paper, it's shown a negative pitch value in 2019 and a total value of +1.9 for his career.

Berrios' best pitches are actually his two fastballs, which rank 12th in combined fastball value on a per-pitch basis in 2019, and which have earned a combined value of +30 over his four-year career.

His indicators with regards to control over the strike zone are all trending in the right direction, and Berrios has cut his walk rate to a career-low of 4.7% in 2019.

That pairs well with the Twins' league-best defense.

Berrios has steadily improved his first-pitch strike rate and his ability to get batters to chase at pitches outside of the zone, while drastically cutting his walk rate:

Bets (So Far) for July 14

• Cincinnati Reds (+103) Game Moneyline
• Minnesota Twins (+130) Game Moneyline
• Philadelphia Phillies (-107) Game Moneyline
• Toronto Blue Jays (+185) Game Moneyline
• Under 10.5 (-105), Seattle at LA Angels
• Under 8.5 (-115), Arizona at St. Louis

Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Sunday, July 14.

Zerillo's Full MLB Model, 7/14

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.