Point Blank – April 13
What a “Bettor Better Know” – The MLB & NBA Weekends
Time for a look back at the weekend results from the MLB diamonds and NBA hardwoods, focusing on finding those key edges that can put you ahead of the game in the days ahead…
Item: About that #2 seed in the Western Conference
So here is where it sits heading to the final three days of the regular season:
San Antonio 55-26
Houston 54-26
LA Clippers 54-26
Memphis 54-26
And of course outside of the Clippers, the other three teams on that list are also competing for the Southwest Division title. In another season it might not seem like a big deal, but this time around finishing atop this list absolutely matters.
What does the #2 seed get in the West? A home court advantage against Dallas, a team that each of those four would relish facing. It is going to be a long and difficult grind to get out of this conference, so naturally the easier the opening round draw is the better. And what happens to the teams that do not finish with that #2? They have to face one of the others on the list, or Portland, with two of the teams opening the playoffs on the road. That is a rather substantial difference.
The one team that may have to bow out of the chase is Memphis, and that will be one of Monday’s prime storylines. Marc Gasol, Mike Conley and Jeff Green are all dealing with injuries, on top of Tony Allen already being out, which raises the question of whether David Joerger might mail this one in at Golden State, not forcing anyone into action that is not ready to go. It would be a difficult enough game to win if all hands were on deck, so he might be better served giving them all the night off, perhaps even Wednesday’s home game vs. Indiana as well, to be as fresh as possible when the grinding begins next weekend.
The others on that list will be going hard to secure wins, but as always make sure you grasp exactly what that means. The Clippers absolutely want to beat Denver tonight, but is there any motivation to win by a margin? None – they hit the road to play the Suns on Tuesday, so Doc Rivers and Chris Paul will be viewing this as a two-game sequence. Monday is only about winning, nothing more.
Houston is also on the Monday board, traveling to fading Charlotte, with the Bobcats not having put up much fight in losing 220-157 to Atlanta and Detroit over the weekend (-45 ATS). But Charlotte was out of the game so early at Detroit yesterday (down 30-10 at the end of the first quarter) that the minutes were distributed pretty even between the starters (130:11) and reserves (109:49). Meanwhile the Rockets had a tough loss to the Spurs on Friday that went to the final possession, and did not have an easy time putting New Orleans away last night. James Harden toiled 75:28 and Trevor Ariza 80:59 across those victories, so while the win is needed badly tonight, there will be a degree of physical fatigue in play. Even with all of their incentive, building a margin into double figures will be a task.
The early markets are not giving us much to go on, with most key precincts just opening up, and partly because of that this will become the time to transition Point Blank to an hour later in the day – Noon Eastern will become the target beginning on Tuesday, largely so that MLB First Half lines can be incorporated better into the thought processes (the cement will be starting to dry on those lines around that time each day).
Item: Ubaldo Jimenez was scary good
There wasn’t anything fluky in the way that Jimenez fell off the table in his Baltimore debut last year – 13-9/3.30 for Cleveland in 2013 turned into 6-9/4.81 for the Orioles, with K/9 falling from 9.6 to 8.3, and BB/9 rising from 3.9 to 5.5. That did not bring much reason for optimism this season, for a pitcher that has had moments of brilliance throughout his career, but has been consistently inconsistent. But at $50 million over four seasons, the franchise can not help but give him a long hard look. As such, his showing in Spring Training was extremely encouraging, working closely with Baltimore special assistant Ramon Martinez, enough to make his 2015 debut a major setting for the eye test. He passed it with ridiculous ease.
Jimenez retired 17 of the first 18 Blue Jay batters he faced before allowing his first BB of the evening, and dealt his way through seven scoreless frames at 13.7 PPI. The latter was a level he had not reached a single time in 22 starts last year, and the one hit/one BB/eight K bottom line shows how difficult his stuff is when it is finding the strike zone. Take this, from Oriole C Caleb Joseph - “He was awesome. He was like a video game out there. … It was fun to be a part of.”
It reminds us of why he got that big Baltimore contract in the first place – there was the sparkling 1.75 over his last 12 starts in 2013, allowing two ER or less in 11 of those games. Yes, we should not get too excited too quickly because of his past mechanical issues. But if those sessions with Martinez turn out to be meaningful, there can be an opportunity to jump ahead of a marketplace that may still be hesitant to get behind him.
Item: The 76ers did not have a PG, or Nerlens Noel, on Saturday (and still scored 107 while challenging the Bulls)
The return of Derrick Rose, and his impact on the NBA betting landscape, became a topic here last week, and will remain so because of the possibilities of the markets getting carried away, largely through Sports Mediaverse perceptions. And so there it came on Sunday morning, with ESPN Sports Center showcasing that Rose had 20 points and eight assists vs. Philadelphia on Saturday night, leading to a 114-107 win that takes the Bulls to 16-5 when the full starting lineup is intact. Sounds like great stuff, right?
Be careful with that. The 76ers did not have a healthy PG on the roster, with Isaiah Canaan and Ish Smith sitting out, and key cog Nerlens Noel also DNP. Yet they hung around, never trailing in double figures, and scoring at least 25 points in every quarter. Let that latter sink in – an 18-62 team, without a PG, rang up 25 or more in every quarter on the road against a team in a major fight for playoff positioning, and one desperately trying to build a chemistry. This was Brett Brown’s lament - “When I hoped to be an NBA coach, it wasn’t my wish to go play the Chicago Bulls with no point guard. But that’s where we’re at. We’re left with nine players. Other than, we’re doing great.’’
Rose was a little more active, grabbing three steals, and showed better stamina, but he continues to settle too much for long jumpers – since his return 14 of his 43 FG attempts have come from beyond the arc, only two of them made. Despite the perceptions, there just was not anything special from that Saturday win, given the level of competition they were up against.
Item: The Rear View Mirror, and Jered Weaver
Welcome to what will be a regular phrase over time here – the Rear View Mirror (RVM), and the particular notions it brings. It is most valuable in the sports wagering arena, because the notion that “Objects in the rear view mirror may appear close than they are” is a powerful one. Bettors savor past performances as one of the key tools in anticipating the future, but when change happens quickly they not only need to discount their own memories, including the Eye Test, but also be prepared to deal with the bombardment of statistics that will try to keep that past alive.
Which takes us to Weaver. He is a savvy veteran that has had an outstanding career, with his 18-9/3.59 of 2014 a tribute to his guile, because his stuff was ordinary. But the fact that he was that successful so recently means that the Betting Markets are allowed to keep liking a guy that has cashed a lot of tickets through the years. And no, this is not an over-reaction to his 0-2/8.71 opening to 2015, but rather a sobering tale of what is left in his tank.
First, it must be acknowledged that much of his success was right-place/right-time oriented. He was a fly ball pitcher well-suited to his home ballpark, where well-hit balls in the air often end up in the gloves of outfielders. A most-favorable career .271 BABIP is a tribute to those fly balls becoming outs, and compare his 69-29/2.71 in Anaheim to 62-42/3.94 from opposing mounds. But all of that is a history further in the past than his current abilities are able to connect to, something that the markets may struggle with.
On Saturday night Weaver’s fastball sat in the 85 mph range, and not only did he allow a pair of HRs to the Royals, but he had four BB over just 4 1/3 IP. To some it may appear to only be a couple of bad games off of that seemingly solid 2014, but the truth is that his decline has been a steady one –
ERA FIP
2011 2.41 3.20
2012 2.81 3.75
2013 3.27 3.82
2014 3.59 4.19
2015 8.71 6.67
2014 was not the resuscitation of his career, but rather a W/L anomaly. His SwS% fell from 9.9 in 2013 to 8.8 in 2014, and is down at 7.4 this season. Weaver still has a rare level of experience, and will be able to out-think some hitters, but the gap between his fastball and changeup has narrowed too much for him to maintain anything near his past success rates. He will not go into a complete tailspin, but the downward trending for ERA, FIP and SwS% should continue, and particularly watch that latter category as the telltale sign.
Item: The Twins have been very, very bad
Before you shrug off that headline with a “no kidding”, take the time for a deeper look. Yes, a team that is 1-5, and has been out-scored 33-13 despite the opponents having 15 fewer outs, is having difficulties. That .197/.257/.258 slash line explains the offense well, with no runs being scored in 46 of their 54 innings at-bat. Hitters slump, sometimes all at once. And beyond Phil Hughes, do you want to take a guess at who will be in the starting rotation two months from now? But don’t stop your analysis there – as bad as the hitting and pitching have been, the defense has been atrocious as well.
Minnesota comes out of the first week of play #28 at PADE (Park Adjusted Defensive Efficiency), with only the Indians and Cubs getting off to a worse start with their gloves. This bears watching closely, because the mound staff brings a lot of pitch-to-contact guys (the 30 Ks so far is a league low by a wide margin) that are going to need some solid defense behind them. This is not just the result of a bad week – the Twins were #29 in that same category last year.
Batted balls are turning into hits at a .327 clip against Minnesota so far, after the Twins were MLB’s worst at .315 in 2014. This was not just a difficult opening week, but perhaps a warning that a lineup that has not been put together well is going to create a challenge for the oddsmakers and betting markets to adjust down to over the weeks ahead.
In the Sights…
One of the more interesting MLB storylines of 2014 involved Brandon McCarthy, who went through an extensive off-season workout regimen to boost his game, off of a disappointing 5-11/4.53 with Arizona in 2013. And he came out of the gates with something special for the Diamondbacks, with his K/9 making a dramatic climb from 5.1 to 7.6, and GB% increasing from 50 to 56 percent. But all that added up to was a 3-10/5.01 over his first 18 starts, which cemented his reputation as a dud with the betting markets, thought actually intriguing folks that were watching him pitch, and not just viewing box scores. The Yankees were among those that saw the good stuff, and he worked to a 7-5/2.89 while wearing pin stripes, good enough to get him a decent contract with #978 Los Angeles, where the story continues tonight.
McCarthy’s first outing in a Dodger uniform was a win, but not one that will impress anyone off of the basic box score. Yet dig deeper and there was plenty to like – he struck out nine of the 25 batters he faced, while issuing only one BB, and there were also five GB outs, at a 53.3 percent GB rate. But he was tagged for HRs by Justin Upton and Will Middlebrooks, on a rare night in Chavez Ravine on which the ball was traveling (that was the evening that Adrian Gonzalez knocked three out of the park for L.A.). McCarthy’s stuff was better than the box score can show, and it mirrors where he was in 2014, when his FIP was more than a full run below his ERA for the full campaign. He was Top 20 MLB in both GB%, and K/BB rate, and ground-balls and strikeouts are a combination that wins games.
McCarthy is being sold in a more than fair range tonight against a mound opponent in James Paxson that may not be ready to stretch out and eat innings yet, a problem for a Seattle bullpen that will likely be without closer Fernando Rodney (36 pitches the last two days, most of Sunday’s not being very good).
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