For what It’s worth, yesterday was an incredibly stressful day for me, but as it turned out it was also a very good day for me. I finally had a second straight big winning day. It’s been a while and I.m telling you that it felt damned good.
I used eight teams and a total of twelve five sides on my round robin parlay card, the Rays full game, the Dodgers 1st 5 and full game, the Marlins 1st 5 and full game, the Yankees 1st 5, and full game, the Blue Jays 1st 5, the Mets 1st 5 and full game, The Angels 1st 5 and the White Sox 1st 5. Only the Marlins full game and the Blue Jays 1st 5 lost. The Marlins 1st 5 and the White 1st 5 both pushed and the rest all cashed.
I also had three teams, the Giants 1st 5, the Astros 1st 5 and the Phils 1st 5 as separate side bets with the Giants and Phils both cashing. When I finally finished up. I was exhausted any my ass was sore form sitting in that damned chair at my desk all day. I spent the rest of the evening sipping on a single malt and switching between the Yanks and Mets games. I got the result that I needed in both games. The Yanks jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on the O’s and hung on for dear life with a close 3-2 win and the Mets broke open a close 2-2 game with the Cards in the bottom of the 5th rolling to an 11-4 blowout win.
My friend Padrick had this to say in one of my posts from yesterday”
“Look at the size of that Insanely Large Card, RF. I want to hear how you did and why so Insanely Large.”
As to the first part, when the smoke cleared, I had picked up another 16.99 units for the day. That leaves me +14.73 units for the season. At least for a day there was a light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn’t a speeding freight train that was about to knock me back on my ass.
The second part is more complicated, but I’ll try to answer as best as I can. Why such an insanely large card?
Allow me to briefly elaborat4e. The first thing that I do every night is look at the next day’s card. Based om what I know about the teams and the listed pitchers, I break them down into the games that I have interest in and the ones I want no part of. For example. today I want no part of the Reds @ Pirates or the White Sox @ Royals. They are all bad team with bad or mediocre pitchers going, making them an easy pass. By the same token I am definitely interested in the Cards @ Mets game. I really like this Mets team and at first glance, Chris Bassitt looks to be a hell of a lot better than Dakota Hudson.
Next, I run the numbers and they either confirm my initial thoughts and I have a play or they don’t and I pass. It’s really that simple. Yesterday, I ended up with way too many games that I liked and that the numbers supported the play. That’s where it gets dicey. All the plays should win according to the numbers, but some won’t. That’s reality and I have no way of knowing which ones will win and which ones won’t. I don’t have a crystal ball. Whatever I ultimately decide, I’m guessing. I suppose I could say it’s an educated guess, but without any data to support it, it’s still just a guess and I hate guessing, so I choose to play them all and let the chips fall where they may. As Padrick pointed out a couple of days ago. It’s a “high variance strategy”. When it works, it ’s a wonderful thing and when it doesn’t it feels like I just booked passage on the Titanic, but at least by doing two-team ML parlays, I’m getting some great odds, so I don’t have to be right as ofter to make a profit. That’s all I’ve got. I hope that answer the question.
Today we have a very small slate to chose from and there is very little that I like. Here’s the card as it stands now. I might add an evening game later, but I’m not sure. Right now this is it.
ML Parlays
|
Team 1
|
Tean 2
|
Odds
|
Units
|
|
NYY ML
|
NYM 1st 5
|
133
|
2
|
|
NYY ML
|
NYM ML
|
135
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
Side
|
ARIZ 1st 5 ML
|
|
-110
|
2
|
Here’s my write up on the first game.
NYY @ BALT
Starting Pitchers
12:35
|
SP
|
GS +
|
GS -
|
WHIP
|
ERA
|
xERA
|
FIP
|
xFIP
|
SIERA
|
wOBA
|
xwOBA
|
K%
|
BB%
|
BABIP
|
LOB%
|
GB%
|
NYY
|
Montgomery - L
|
(5/7)
|
(2/7)
|
1.08
|
3.06
|
3.56
|
3.57
|
3.76
|
3.70
|
0.284
|
0.318
|
20.0%
|
5.5%
|
0.267
|
79.4%
|
48.5%
|
BALT
|
Zimmerman - L
|
(5/7)
|
(2/7)
|
1.21
|
2.72
|
4.19
|
3.31
|
3.76
|
3.76
|
0.317
|
0.342
|
20.5%
|
6.0%
|
0.311
|
76.6%
|
37.9%
|
Edge – NYY slight
Bullpens
Team
|
W-L
|
SV/SVO
|
R/IP
|
Rank
|
WHIP
|
Rank
|
ERA
|
Rank
|
LOB%
|
Rank
|
K%
|
Rank
|
BB%
|
Rank
|
NYY
|
(15-6)
|
(14/19)
|
0.30
|
1
|
1.15
|
6
|
2.50
|
1
|
79.1%
|
2
|
25.2%
|
9
|
9.8%
|
21
|
BAL
|
(8-11)
|
(7/8)
|
0.43
|
10
|
1.20
|
13
|
3.40
|
9
|
72.1%
|
13
|
22.3%
|
23
|
9.4%
|
17
|
Edge – NYY
Offenses
Team
|
RPG
|
Rank
|
wOBA
|
Rank
|
wRC+
|
Rank
|
ORAA
|
Rank
|
BB%
|
Rank
|
Hard%
|
Rank
|
Barrel%
|
Rank
|
K%
|
Rank
|
NYY
|
4.89
|
4
|
0.329
|
2
|
122
|
1
|
29.6
|
1
|
10.0%
|
5
|
47.2%
|
1
|
12.1%
|
1
|
22.4%
|
14
|
BAL
|
3.21
|
29
|
0.292
|
22
|
93
|
20
|
-8.0
|
20
|
8.0%
|
19
|
40.0%
|
11
|
7.1%
|
18
|
24.5%
|
24
|
Edge – NYY big
Conclusion: The Yanks again seem to have all the edges in this one, but if there is a game in this series that they lose, this is the one. They’ve already won the first three games of this series, so they could ease up here. First of all, theYankees do have the vastly superior offense. They rank in the top 5 in almost every single offensive category that I look at, the one exception being a 14th ranked K rate. By contrast, the O’s mostly rank in the bottom third.
As for these two bullpens, the Yanks pen is elite, with 15 wins and 14 saves in 19 opportunities. They rank in the top 5 in R/IP, WHIP, ERA and strand rate and they only used Clay Holmes last night. Every other reliever had the day off, including phenon Michael King. The O’s pen is much improved this season and currently ranks as an above average unit, but they’re not in the Yanks class.
As for the two starting pitchers, that looks very close, which is why I’m not palying a 1st 5 on the Yanks.
Jordan Montgomery has now started 7 games for the Yanks this season with 5 grading as above average and just 2 grading s below average. In his first start against the Red Sox, Montgomery had to deal with left knee inflammation after he was hit by a comebacker. He did pitch through the injury, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk while striking out 4 in 3.1 innings, so it wasn’t an awful outing and it was the only start in which Montgomery gave up more than 2 runs Montgomery has given up a total of just 12 runs on 30 hits and 8 walks over 35.1 innings, while striking out 29. Montgomery has a great WHIP and ERA, and while his ERA metrics are about half a run higher than his ERA, they are still very good. That discrepancy is at least partially because of a low BABIP that is around 25 points lower than his career average. We see the same pattern with his xwOBA being about 35 points higher than his wOBA, but still below league average. In his two previous starts against the O’s Montomery has given up just 2 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks over 10.2 innings. Since that first shaky start, Montgomery has pitched very well for the Yanks.
Bruce Zimmerman has also started 7 games for the O’s this season with 5 grading qs above average and just 2 grading as below. Zimmerman has given up a total of 14 runs on 35 hits and 9 walks over 35.1 innings with 32 Ks. His WHIP and ERA are both very good and while his ERA metrics are mostly about a full run higher than his ERA, they are all still decent. The same pattern applies to Zimmerman’s xwOBA, which is about 25 pints higher than his wOBA. Zimmerman has a very solid statistical profile for a guy that was so bad last season, but even back then, 4 of his last 6 starts were above average with 1 being average and 1 being below average, so there was hope and right now it looks like that hope was justified..
Of the two, Montgomery has the better WHIP, xERA, wOBA and xwOBA, so I guess that I’ll give him a small edge. .
The Yanks have all the edges here and most by a wide margin. They should win again.
Pick – NYY full game ML in a series of parlays
Next game coing soon.