Point Blank – March 31, 2017
Oregon/NC – The Game Inside the Game…On the slings and arrows for Chris Archer…The Rockets shooting could blast off again
It is a rather exquisite weekend on the betting boards, the Final Four set to go, more NBA shuffling for playoff positioning (there isn’t a single seed in the Eastern Conference close to being locked up yet), and then on Sunday the sounds of spring, as baseballs either contact leather or wood shortly after leaving the pitcher’s hands. Kudos to MLB for laying out a nice triple-header on Sunday.
An extra busy weekend naturally means the jukebox in play, and the timing is ideal to run a bit longer – with the current focus on the guitar mastery of Steve Howe, coinciding with Yes being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next Friday, let’s make it a fitting Part II today. With many of you likely needing some catch-up work to be ready for the MLB openers a longer and softer background is needed, which brings the ideal time for an extended session of Howe unplugged, live from the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1979 -
OREGON/NORTH CAROLINA – On Bell and whistles…
I’ll stay with “The Game Inside the Game” focus of narrowing to one talking point here because the talking point is such a significant one. In Jordan Bell, Oregon has a player with just the kind of tenacity and physical tools to compete with the talented North Carolina front line. You absolutely need that against the Tar Heels, who were #1 in the nation in both net rebounding and in offensive rebound percentage (and #1 by wide margins).
That is the good for Dana Altman. The bad is that he only has Bell, and that sets an important perspective here. Does a player that is successful because he is aggressive as a natural part of his game (84 blocked shots and 48 steals, the latter count especially impressive for a guy that is 6-9/225), run the risk of losing that aggressiveness because he has to constantly be looking over his shoulder for fear of a referee’s whistle?
Bell doesn’t have many fouls to give, and while that seemingly hasn’t been a problem for Oregon in the tourney so far, much of that can be attributed to the particular matchups. So let’s dial back a bit, from the time that Chris Boucher was lost in the Pac 12 tourney. In the league championship game vs. Arizona it was Bell more than holding his own against a tall Wildcats front-court, scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, yet the Ducks lost the battle of the boards 35-25 anyway, and of course the game.
In the Big Dance it has been the luck of the draw not so much in terms of strength of the opponents, but style. Iona was a walk-over on talent, and Rhode Island, Michigan and Kansas are nothing all that special either on the boards, or in terms of having a low-post scoring threat. As such Bell has made his presence felt, 50 points, 50 rebounds and 11 blocked shots, while only committing four fouls across 122 floor minutes.
Is some of that foul count an awareness Bell has that he needs to stay on the floor? The only other option Altman has is Kavell Bibgy-Williams, who has the size at 6-11/230, but not the polish. He only played 16 minutes in the two wins last weekend, with two points and three rebounds.
North Carolina brings a couple of seasoned veterans inside that not only pack muscle on their frames, Kennedy Meeks at 6-10/260 and Isaiah Hicks at 6-9/242 (there is also 6-11/240 Tony Bradley, although he has only played 26 minutes the last three games), but they are also seniors that have been through the battles, which heightens their toughness
This will be one of my major focus points for In-Running – will Bell be his natural energetic self on the court, or perhaps be a bit passive to avoid early fouls. And if he does have a quick whistle go against him, the finger goes on the In-Running trigger at that point any time foul #2 might be on the way – you will want to react quickly before he gets substituted out and line adjustments are made.
And if Bell does not get into foul trouble? Then it has all the makings of one helluva game.
Item: And about that Final Four venue
There were some links posted here earlier in the week on some good research that Greg Guglielmo and the folks at Eldorado had done on the impact of football stadiums being used for NCAA tournament games, and much of that research has been detailed in a good think piece at Nylon Calculus a place you should be visiting regularly anyway.
MLB 2017 – On the slings and arrows for Chris Archer
My MLB season will begin slowly, largely because that is how so many of the players and managers approach it. With 162 games being such a long haul there is a focus on gradually working players into shape, instead of hitting the opening series with all guns blazing, and there is also the matter of no particular outcome being all that important. This ain’t the NFL.
Where I do get into play early sometimes is trying to catch a value notion in the marketplace, which makes Archer a case study right off the get-go. His recent arc has been a study in frustration, but might that open a window of opportunity?
Let me set the base. From a career W/L standpoint Archer is sitting at 41-51, which is simply wrong for a pitcher with a 3.51 ERA. And yes, there will not be much talk about W/L records here this season because they just don’t mean all that much, but they do in terms of a pitcher’s own psyche.
What should a 3.51 equate to in terms of wins and losses over the sample size of those seasons? Let’s look at all starters that were in between the 3.41 and 3.61 range across that span:
Pitcher W/L
Gray 38-31
Iwakuma 54-32
Zimmerman 55-31
Carrasco 34-31
Colon 62-40
Santana 37-36
Keuchel 47-39
Verlander 49-41
Liriano 43-38
That comes out to a 56.9 win percentage, which shows how much of an outlier Archer’s record is, especially given that no one else in a comparable range sports a losing mark.
2017, of course, was particularly dark – it wasn’t just Archer leading the MLB in losses in going 9-19, but the Rays going 1-4 in his no-decisions as well. But he never let it get to him, and it is especially worth noting how he kept his focus after the All Star break, as the losses continued to mount –
K% BB% ERA xFIP
Pre-Break 26.9 9.9 4.66 3.62
Post-Break 28.1 5.2 3.25 3.15
Archer was damn good after the break, getting better instead of letting the frustrations impact his pitching, yet was rewarded with only five wins for those 14 starts. And guess what? His season was also spent working against a tough schedule – if we use opponents OPS as the standard, which I will all season, of the 76 starters that worked at least 150 innings in 2016, only Kevin Gausman faced a tougher slate of hitters, just barely (.759 vs. .758).
There is also an additional factor built in this spring that I believe is important in terms of Archer clearing his head – he got a start for the United States vs. Colombia in the World Baseball Classic, working four strong innings without allowing a hit or walk.
“Coming together and doing something that’s bigger than just you. You’re representing a lot. You’re representing what America’s about, with the diversity. You look on the team and there’s Puerto Rican-American guys, there’s black American guys, there’s Cuban-American guys. That’s very unique, because other countries are usually one-dimensional when it comes to ethnicity. So, just representing what we’re all about, and representing the Rays’ organization, representing my family and representing myself. It was just special on all those accounts.”
That may turn out to have been a positive break in his routine, and he breezed through his spring training games with a 1.98 allowance over 13.2 frames. That leads me to believe his confidence is in the right place, and the lack of recent success in terms of wins and losses may not be weighing that heavily.
The question now is how the markets will deal with this. One of the problems with outcomes that are inverse to performance, as has been the case with Archer, is that the modern marketplace is much shrewder on this front, especially with the Fantasy crowd doing their part to rate Archer purely as a pitcher, not worrying all that much about team outcomes. 20 years ago there would have been substantial play-on value with a pitcher coming off of the kind of campaign Archer had last season, perhaps 10 years ago you could still win pretty well with it. The question is what the 2017 traders allow.
How about this for a Sunday opener – Archer was dead last on the 2016 MLB money charts, a wager on each of his starts returning -15.5 positions. Who was #1 at the opposite end of the spectrum? Masahiro Tanaka, his Sunday opponent, at +14.8. Play ball!
Propping Up the Final Four
I will likely have something on this front coming up on Saturday morning, but Brad Powers is ready to fire now -
North Carolina Joel Berry UNDER 15.5 points
I am not sure I understand this point total prop as Berry for the season only averaged 14.6 ppg. Recency bias should also say that he will score less than his season average in this one as Berry has averaged just 12 ppg in his last 5 games only topping this total once in the win over Butler. Berry is also dealing with not one, but two injured ankles. As of Thursday's practice, Berry has done nothing in full-court drills all week. Head coach Roy Williams on Thursday afternoon said, "If he feels good (Thursday night), we'll try for (Friday). I can't let him play on Saturday if he can't do anything full-court — because we play a full-court game."
Berry, sprained his left ankle early in Sunday's Elite Eight game against Kentucky, and Williams revealed after that game that Berry had re-aggravated his injured right ankle in last Saturday’s practice. That right ankle was sprained during North Carolina’s first-round game against Texas Southern. Berry said Thursday in the North Carolina locker room that he was feeling a lot better and, "even if I'm not 100%, I'm still playing."
In summary, we have a individual player prop bet that has a higher point total than the season average. It's a higher point total than his recent stat averages and we have a player that will most likely be less than 100% because of not one, but two injuries. Add it all up and North Carolina's Joel Berry UNDER 15.5 points is one of my favorite prop bets of the Final 4.
From
Steve Fezzik -
SC Thornwell UNDER 22 points.
This Prop went 15-7 during the year pre Tourney.. SC went NUTS with Points during the tourney and Thornwell is 4-0. They won those games, in 4 games where they scored well over the 66 they are projected to get here. They likely lose this game, don't get late foul shots, and score 66 not 80. Further, no doubt the Zags focus will be on SC's leading scorer who is red hot.
UNDER
And one from my own pockets - Dillon Brooks (Oregon) over 18.5 points.
In the opening lead there was a concentration on the issues that Oregon faces defensive and on the boards because of a lack of size and depth around the basket in this matchup, but there is a flip-flop in the floor balance on the other end of the court. North Carolina ins predominantly a man-to-man team, and that means that Roy Williams has to use Kennedy Meeks or Isaiah Hicks to chase Brooks on the perimeter. Because Brooks is so comfortable from 3-point range (41.0 percent this season) that means some good looks from the outside against slower defenders, and if they do try to stay with him near the arc he can also get past them and into the lane. I expect an active and effective offensive game from Brooks.
For your listening pleasure…
This week’s Final Four Podcast is up – do not be daunted by the run time, much of the closing stretch was spent talking about the vote to approve the Raiders moving to Las Vegas. If you just want your hoops, those wishes will be granted long before that part begins.
The complete Point Blank Archive
@PregamePhd (a work in progress, feedback appreciated)