Tuesday, June 24
Contrary to public perception, you can find value on a favorite in baseball. I found one Monday. It lost.
And it was damn painful.
On my first go around through yesterday's baseball card late Sunday night, I found an underdog I liked - the Nationals. They were catching the Brewers fat and happy returning from a week-long road trip at Colorado and Arizona with a pitching matchup of Gio Gonzalez against Matt Garza that in my view favored the Nationals.
I should have stopped there. But I didn't because as I further studied the menu I was struck by the low price the Giants were laying at home to the garbage Padres, the worst-hitting team in the majors.
San Diego had scratched scheduled Monday starter Andrew Cashner. The Padres had made that decision on Sunday. It was common news. The Padres were going to pitch Odrisamer Despaigne, a Cuban defector with a 6.03 ERA in seven minor league starts.
This sure smelled like a give-up game on the Padres' part as San Francisco has the third-best record in baseball while the Padres entered the matchup 12 games below .500 with rumors about a massive housecleaning taking place. San Diego general manager Josh Byrnes had just been fired.
Yet the overnight lines on this game ranged from Giants minus $1.25 to minus $1.35. Matt Cain has had an injury-filled, rocky season, but pitching at home in a ballpark suited to his style against the Padres - who are on pace to finish with the lowest batting average since 1968 - sure seemed like a massive bargain.
So I got down at minus $1.30 and put the play out as a Triple Star urging clients to get down ASAP. I also lowered my Nationals play to one unit. Putting four units into action was enough since I had just lost two units with the Dodgers laying 1 1/2 on the run line to the Padres on Sunday. Naturally, the Dodgers won that game by one run. San Diego's previous 15 losses were all by more than one run. Enough about that, though.
Let's return to Matt Cain and Monday's Padres-Giants game.
It didn't take long for the marketplace to get involved. By 9 Vegas time Monday morning, the Giants were steamed past $1.50. Soon they were up to minus $1.55 then $1.60. Rapidly the value was diminishing. I amended my write up on the game to suggest two units now rather than three units. I had anticipated some line movement upward, but this was an avalanche.
I sent an email to Pregame's crack customer service team headed by Johnny Detroit asking if the play should just be taken down completely. We agreed it should. By 10 a.m. - around nine hours before game time - the package was down replaced by a new one headlining my Nationals underdog play. Nobody much cared about a one-unit underdog play, though.
Sure enough a shutout occurred in the Padres-Giants game. But it didn't come from Cain. Doing an Orlando Hernandez "El Duque" impersonation, Despaigne probably pitched the game of his life allowing four hits and no walks while throwing seven scoreless innings.
The line on the matchup had gotten as high as $1.75. The books had put out a bad number and gotten away with it. Some outlets dodging a 40-to-50 cent move.
Live and learn. One opinion that has crystallized for me is that Cain should now be considered a bottom-of-the-rotation type starter rather than a good, dependable pitcher of near All-Star caliber. I doubt if he'll ever be worthy again of a Triple Star wager.
Cain's strikeouts per nine innings are at a career low this year in seasons where he has made more than seven starts. So is his swinging strikeout rate. His walks per nine innings are at his highest in seven years. Another alarming category is that for the third consecutive year, Cain's home run and fly ball ratio has risen. Cain is on pace to surpass his career-high 23 homers given up last season.
Cain would really be at a disadvantage if he pitched in a hitter's park being a fly ball pitcher. Cain is lucky to pitch in San Francisco and be in the NL West where three of the five stadiums are pitcher's parks.
Cain is 0-3 away from spacious AT&T Park with a 5.11 ERA this season. He was brutalized two starts ago when pitching on the road against the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field, which can be murderous to fly ball pitchers especially on humid nights like when he pitched.
Now, in is 10th year and with more than 1,800 innings thrown, Cain clearly is wearing down. He has the highest ERA of his career right now at 4.82.
Those into Sabermetrics use Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) to measure what a player’s ERA should have looked like over a given time period, assuming that performance on balls in play and timing were the league average. Cain has an FIP above 5.00, which is more than a run higher than any other full season he's had.
Will I ever bet Cain again? Perhaps if he's pitching at home, or in Los Angeles, or San Diego and the price is right. Otherwise, I'm staying away.
(Editor's note: Stephen Nover has been on the sports gaming scene for 30 years. Stephen has parlayed a 20-year career as an award-winning sportswriter, part-time oddsmaker for legendary linesmaker Roxy Roxborough, co-host of the former Sunday Night Stardust Line radio show, teacher of a football handicapping class at UNLV and author of two sports gaming books and a book on fantasy football, into becoming one of the top handicappers in the country.
A native of Wisconsin, Stephen covered college and pro sports for daily newspapers in the Midwest, South and West, including 13 years at the Las Vegas Review-Journal where he covered sports gaming and UNLV sports. Stephen is The author of two sports gambling books, "Las Vegas Sports Beat" and "Sports Gaming Beat", along with a book on fantasy football titled, "Winning Fantasy Football."
Stephen taught a football handicapping class in the fall of 2004 at UNLV and was the co-host of the Sunday night sports betting radio show "The Stardust Line" for many years building up a lifetime of outstanding sources and connections. It's helped him produce winning NFL seasons in 18 of the last 20 years, including cashing 67 percent of his NFL plays in 2012.)