Point Blank – August 29
The challenge of grading the 2015 Chiefs Defense…The challenge of not taking greatness for granted…Anti-Jose Fernandez is not quite automatic this morning (a lot of wild cards wearing Met uniforms today)…A version of “xFAV” is now available for your own tech device…James Shields is having the worst August of the modern era, yet there are folks out there backing him…Drinking and Driving is not a way to prepare for a football season...
All fronts are in play now on the first Monday of the NCAA full board - the NFL teams getting ready to make major roster cuts; 18 MLB teams within 3.5 games of a Wild Card; and of course if it is a Monday it means time to update the 2016 U.S. Election numbers crunching, though there has not been much happening lately on that front.
With so many items to sort through it is time to plug the jukebox in for some background to help you along, and the call is an easy one today, bringing up a mode of “handicapping” that extends beyond sports into how we view other aspects of life. Though it is indeed rare, there are times in which an individual or group do something so well for so long that they get taken for granted a bit, which means both the honor of heaving reached such a plateau, but also the idiosyncrasy of the plateau not being fully appreciated.
After a rather amazing summer across Europe, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band are back in the United States again, and played shows at Giants Stadium on Tuesday and Thursday. They just happened to be the two longest shows the band ever played in the U.S., getting to almost four hours to the second on Thursday. Understand that it is four hours without an intermission, a continuous engagement between artist/audience that it is difficult to find any parallel; and also understand that outside of Jake Clemons, there is no one on that stage younger than 58.
There is something there that we can all aspire to – the notion of genuinely getting better as we get older, and the understanding that if we are genuinely in tune to what is around us, that growth is attainable. I bring that up in particular here because Sports Betting is one of those endeavors in which one can continually aim higher – if you build the right foundation there is the opportunity to keep improving; age does not force you to “lose your fastball”. You can get more creative, not less, and as an example of that let’s go to Tuesday’s opening moments, the first time “New York City Serenade” was ever placed in the leadoff spot to begin an evening, with an added string section to bring back those important subtleties from the original recording.
Bruce and the Band are awfully good at what they do, so much so that ultimately their Power Rating may end not being as high as is warranted, because at a certain stage it became easy for many to take them for granted. Of course in sports taking anything for granted can lead to problems, which takes us next to the Kansas City defense on our NFL tour…
Item: The Chiefs Defense may have been really good in 2015, but…
It would seem that stamping the 2015 Kansas City defense would be easy. The group was riddled by injuries in 2014, Eric Berry and Derrick Johnson missing a collective 25 games, and of course that showed in their failing to make the playoffs. In 2015 Houston and Berry played every game, the latter winning NFL Comeback Player of the year honors, and you can see the upgrades on the Football Outsiders adjusted defensive ratings –
Chiefs “D” Total vs. Pass
2014 #20 #13
2015 #2 #5
Easy enough, right? Just stamp it and move on to the next team, and be prepared to really like them this season, especially with Berry back in camp now, and ready to be the leader of the unit once again.
But there is a slight problem with that. The 2015 campaign also brought some favorable rolls of the dice to the defense in terms of the QBs (and the Passer Ratings) that they got to face. When will be the next time a team gets anything close to a Manziel/Clausen cycle back-to-back?
HOUSTON: Brian Hoyer (91.4); Ryan Mallett (67.9)
DENVER: Peyton Manning (67.9)
GREEN BAY: Aaron Rodgers (92.7)
CINCINNAT: Andy Dalton (106.2)
CHICAGO: Jay Cutler (92.3)
MINNESOTA: Teddy Bridgewater (88.7)
PITTSBURGH: Landry Jones (77.3)
DETROIT: Matthew Stafford* (97.0)
DENVER: Manning (67.9); Brock Osweiler (86.4)
SAN DIEGO: Philip Rivers (93.8)
BUFFALO: Tyrod Taylor (99.4)
OAKLAND: Derek Carr (91.1)
SAN DIEGO: Rivers (93.8)
BALTIMORE: Jimmy Clausen (66.7)
CLEVELAND: Johnny Manziel (79.4)
OAKLAND: Carr (91.1)
NFL: 88.4
- • - First game after OC switch in mid-season
There were only three games all season against QBs that finished in the Top 10 in Passer Rating, and one of those was the contest against Detroit in London when the Lions had just made their change at OC, and did not seem prepared. In the other game against a Top 10 they actually got sliced up in a 36-21 road loss to the Bengals, Dalton having his single-game high in yards per pass and his #3 game in passer rating, the latter only trailing the two walkover wins vs. the Browns (Cincy beat Cleveland by a combined 68-13).
The Chiefs defense looks good on paper, and may indeed be good. There is a serious handicapping point to be made about facing an easy schedule that will be a lead topic early in the football season – You do not downgrade a team because their schedule was soft; if they handle bad teams the way they are supposed to they are on track. But what you do focus on is not blindly upgrading, and making sure the performances do bring the proper merits.
Kansas City did take advantage of those weak QBs in 2015, as the Chiefs were supposed to. I did not find many faults. The problem was that when they did have to step up it was not pretty, and also note that in what was a disappointing campaign for Rodgers and the Packers, his best yards per pass, and second best passer rating, came in a 38-28 win over the Chiefs. As such there is work to be done here; making easy assumptions about that 2015 KC defense could lead to problems as this season unfolds.
Item: Jose Fernandez is on the road, but it is too early to pull the trigger
There have been “In the Sights…” tickets in each of the last two Fernandez road starts, both ending up on the positive side of the ledger, and it has been a combination of two aspects in play – his continued Home/Away disparities, which may now be a psychological block for him, and also the fact that off of a shortened 2015, his stamina at this stage is an open issue. Let’s look at the splits first -
Career:
HOME 27-2/1.57
AWAY 8-14/3.99
2016:
HOME 10-2/1.91
AWAY 3-5/4.42
If we make stamina an issue, note that he has had four road starts since July 1, and they check in at an ugly 0-3/6.55, the Marlins losing the game in which he did not get a decision. Yet on mostly reputation, Fernandez is out there at -155 at New York tonight, backed by a Miami team that lacks form, and took a dent to their Wild Card hopes in losing a series vs. the Padres at home over the weekend.
So why isn’t another ticket being fired up? In this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words, Dan Warthen and Terry Collins being forced to accept that on this pass through the rotation it is not Harvey/Matz/deGrom, but instead Lugo/Gsellman/Montero. Who could have envisioned 2016 coming down to this.
And it isn’t just pitching issues for the Mets, but the fact that they were without Yoenis Cespedes, Neil Walker and Justin Ruggiano yesterday, then lost Asdrubal Cabrera in the first inning as well. I have to wait this one out for now until there is some lineup info, and even then it is not easy to trust Rafael Montero. Montero was demoted from AAA to AA after sporting an ugly 7.20 allowance across 16 starts, and while he did settle down after dropping in class, there are questions as to whether his stuff is really ready for The Show, and also if he is up to the pressure of this setting. For the moment continuing the anti-Fernandez parade is off to the side.
U.S. Election 2016 Power Rating: Democrats -675
Monday means time to go to the Political board as well, and the needle has not moved over the past week. There are some fascinating elements that continue to come across the desk through such a unique cycle, and as the state polls flow in there continues to be the flow that Donald Trump is performing better in many Blue states than recent Republican candidates, and Hillary Clinton performing better in many Red states than recent Democratic candidates. It creates a mix that can lead to market confusion, which we have already taken advantage of, and may yet again in the weeks to come.
There is some both fresh and good news out there for the Political Handicapper this week, however, and many of you may enjoy working with it. Earlier this month I went into detail about the “xFav” model that is our primary tool for developing the Power Rating, noting that the focus is almost never on the top line of any poll, but instead the particular percentages across the demographics, which we can then put into the model as assumptions are made about what the ratios will be in the final turnout. Now you can play along as well, with Reuters offering an on-line model that allows you to isolate many of those same components.
As is the case in sports, the key remains plugging the right numbers into the right places, but this gives you the ability to play around with those numbers, and perhaps be a step ahead of polls that often lack a precision when it comes to matching up to the likely electorate.
In the Sights, Monday MLB…
I did not expect to see money for James Shields when I began tracking the Monday morning trading, but there it is, to the point at which an opener of -205 has been shortened to -180, with all of the various attachments also dropping. That means time to play #918 Detroit Run Line (7:10 Eastern), that option now becoming available at an underdog rate of return, and good to -105 on my charts.
As bad as things have been for Shields over the full campaign, and at 5-16/5.98 it has been very, very bad, his August has been one for the ages, an 0-4/13.95 in which he has allowed 11 home runs in just 20 innings, along with 37 other base-runners. Yet it may be even worse than that – the last three starts were vs. the offensively inferior lineups of the A’s, Phillies and Marlins. It is not easy to envision where any kind of turnaround would come from, and while the Tigers had a disappointing offensive weekend, this will be their third look at Shields in five weeks, the first two bringing eight runs across 11 innings.
The form of Matt Boyd is fine for our purposes here, a 2-0/1.89 after having to be used in relief once in Seattle, that appearance not taking him out of rhythm. It has been nine straight starts of three earned runs or less, and for the full season a confident 3-1/2.82 from this mound. Those last two losses to the Angels also set up the bullpen well here for the latter stages.
In the Sights, MLB Part II…
Let’s let the markets create for us here. As the Pinny opener of -135 on the Angels drifts all the way to -170 there is a solid value opportunity being created, and I will attack it two ways, a split ticket of #925 Cincinnati Straight/Cincinnati Team Total Over (10:05 Eastern). The run up on the former has also helped to alter the charts for the latter, with 3.5 at -110 having become available.
There are no injuries in play here, with the Reds announcing no Zack Cosart, but he does not move any needs. And while there is the appearance of form for Matt Shoemaker, which may have led to some of this, take it with a grain of salt – his last two games produced wins, but no change in his overall trending. Shoemaker worked to a 5.5 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 across those wins, with a 46.1 GB%. That is basically who he is, with nothing special there, except for a .167 BABIP across the games. Asking for Cincinnati to get to 4 against his stuff, and a bullpen that is nothing special, is not asking for much, and I will split the tickets so that under-rated Dan Straily and the Reds offense can compete quite well, but if they get to four runs I don’t have to have the entire she-bang coming down to their own bullpen getting key outs on the road.
In the Sights, NCAA Week #1…
I am going to copy-and-paste from Friday for those that are just coming in fresh today for the opening of the NCAA season, and it is worth noting that there has been more bad news for Dan Mullen, the arrest of starting DT Nick James. There is no official word on his status for this game, but with this being his fourth arrest since enrolling at State, and the fact that it is a non-conference game, I would strongly expect him to be suspended. This one works at +28 or better.
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If the oddsmakers price the talent gap properly it can often bring us a setting in which there are motivational issues on each sideline that can be put into play, and I believe we have that next Saturday with #171 South Alabama (Noon Eastern) taking a generous +31 at Mississippi State. Not only can both sides of this equation work, but the starting time being moved up to 11 AM in Starkville makes it a far less hostile environment for the Jaguars than it could have been. Value extends down to +28 in this one.
Dan Mullen is one of the better coaches in all of college football going 55-35 at State despite coming from the worst recruiting outpost in the daunting SEC West. And Mullen is savvy enough to know that the scoreboard margin here doesn’t mean a damn thing for this program – with the SEC opener up vs. South Carolina next week, and then a trip to LSU, this is merely a “take care of business” setting, with the key cogs not playing much more than they have to, the HC looking at the scoreboard more to see the clock ticking than the points.
There are issues with some of those keys, however, which is a plus for our purposes here. Dak Prescott has quickly shown the NFL just how good he is, and after three seasons of his leading the Bulldog offense there is a major downgrade at the position, especially with the QB derby having four players in the hunt when spring practice began, which meant no one getting enough reps with the first team offense. Mullen could only reduce that to three in fall camp, and he will not name a starter from the Damian Williams/Nick Fitzgerald/Nick Tiano trio until Monday. Even then Mullen states that the battle is not over - “The problem is we come out Monday, OK, this guy is ready to start. Now we transition to game planning and they really don’t handle it well. I might have to flip and go back. The other aspect is getting into a game. Even though a guy’s a starter we’ll make sure that they’re ready when the lights come on. If he collapses, another guy really is much better when the lights come on and we’ve got to look at that aspect of the evaluation, too.”
This offense has gone from being set for three seasons to an awkward open audition – the three challengers have been splitting practice reps since fall camp opened (Elijah Staley, who was in the mix in the spring, transferred out), meaning that no one got nearly enough time with the first team, which makes it difficult to explode out of the gate. But the Bulldogs don’t just have an issue on offense, the CB position has also become a major problem. The secondary was already having to replace Taveze Calhoun and Will Redmond, who are on NFL training camp rosters trying to earn Sunday paychecks, but expected starters Tolando Cleveland and Cedric Jiles have both been lost with recent injuries, scrambling up that position. As such, Mullen might consider a scoreboard outcome far below this pointspread to still be a “win” in the grand scheme of his 2016 purposes, and note that it would not be something new – he is 3-7 ATS laying -20 or more in non-conference games. As long-time readers know I rarely talk about trends, especially those with small samples, but the Big Chalk/Big Dog roles do get seriously charted because so much of that can be attributed to a coaches intent.
South Alabama brings the ideal focus for a big dog in this range – the Jaguars have talked openly about how getting to play an SEC team in the opener brings a different energy to fall practice. The talent is just good enough to not be overwhelmed, and in particular there is a game planning consideration that brings the kind of factor that makes college football unique – the sort of edges that are not priced into the line.
Kane Wommack is the new South Alabama defensive coordinator, and the youngest in the nation at the age of 28. That age might be an issue at another time, but not here, because of a pedigree that matters – his father Dave is a long-time veteran that has been the DC at Mississippi the past four seasons, where Kane served as a grad assistant a couple of years ago.
Ole Miss, of course, is the biggest rival for State. The elder Wommack does not just game plan one week out of every year when facing the Bulldogs, but because of the magnitude of the rivalry likely thinks about the Mullen playbook for much of the off-season. So you can just imagine this scene around a picnic table on one of those hot and humid summer evenings – “Daddy what is the best way for us to game plan against State?” And the elder Wommack twists off a crayfish tail and says “Well son, here are some of the things that have worked for us…”
South Alabama has no chance to win this game, but with State lacking any interest in winning by five TDs, and the Jaguars bringing a greater sense of purpose than usual in this point spread range, there is value on backing the underdog to compete.
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