Welcome to Opening Pitch, our daily column that you'll find throughout the 2024 MLB season.
The goal for Opening Pitch is to highlight top daily projection edges for MLB moneylines and totals, share favorite bets and provide some betting notes and analysis.
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Here are my MLB picks and predictions for Saturday, June 8.
MLB Predictions Saturday | Expert Picks, Odds, Preview Today (June 8)
London Stadium should play like a high-scoring ballpark.
It’s only around 390 feet to the center field wall, and the weather report calls for near-double-digit breezes out toward right-center field. Last year’s across-the-pond Cubs-Cardinals series featured 22 runs across 18 innings, with Statcast projecting a 106 Park Factor and 130 Double Factor, playing fairly close to Fenway Park.
These two lineups rank among the top seven in wRC+ against left-handed pitching, which should pose problems for Ranger Suarez and Sean Manaea.
Suarez is a stud, but he’s still over-performing his expected run indicators (1.70 ERA, 2.44 xERA, 2.65 xFIP).
Meanwhile, Manaea has lost velocity on his fastball, forcing him to nibble around the edges more, leading to a career-high walk rate (10%). He’s also due for plenty of homer regression (5.6% HR/FB rate in 2024, 13% career average), which could come in a hitter-friendly London ballpark.
On 0-2 counts this season, opposing hitters are slashing .305 / .344 / .475 off Kevin Gausman. He’s allowed three 0-2 home runs this year, only two short of the all-time single-season record.
He’s lost some velocity on his fastball, and he’s lost a lot of vertical movement on his splitter. So, he’s lost the velocity differential between the two pitches that create deception, and he’s lost the splitter movement that forces strikeouts.
Gausman is still throwing his splitter nearly half the time in two-strike counts, but he’s on pace to post a career-low putaway rate (16%) and career-high outside-contact rate (60%, nearly 14 points higher than his career average) on the pitch.
The results have been disastrous. He’s allowed six earned in a start four times this season. Unless he fixes his splitter, fastball, or both, or makes a drastic arsenal change, I’m willing to fade him as much as possible.
Meanwhile, Luis Medina posted a pretty solid start against the ever-dangerous Braves in his 2024 debut (5.2 IP, 0 ER, 6 K, 2 BB), and I’m willing to back him against Toronto’s upward-trending-but-still-mercurial offense.
Tyler Anderson is among the most overvalued pitchers in baseball.
He pairs a 2.37 ERA with expected run indicators pushing five. He’s stranded almost 90% of runners this season. His fastball is checking in under 90 mph, he’s striking out nobody (16%), walking everybody (11%), and allowing plenty of barrels (10%).
He’s due for serious negative regression. I hope it finally comes against the hard-hitting Astros, who boast a top-five lineup against both sides behind the ascending Kyle Tucker (176 wRC+, 3.3 fWAR).
I think the Astros are going to put together a dominant second half once the pitching staff gets healthy and sees positive regression. Hunter Brown is certainly among those positive regression candidates, given his expected run indicators (3.73 xFIP, 4.14 xERA) are over two runs lower than his current ERA (6.18). Advanced pitching model metrics still peg him as an above-average arm (104 Stuff+, 101 Location+).
Houston’s bullpen has finally seen positive regression, posting a 2.65 ERA over the past two weeks, mainly by holding opponents to a meager .187 average behind a 31% hard-hit rate.
