The Payoff Pitch podcast MLB experts break down their favorite picks from the day's slate every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, including each analyst's favorite underdog on the slate, and they've got two more to recommend today.
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Marlins vs. Reds, 6:40 p.m. ET
Braxton Garrett vs. Luke Weaver
Sean Zerillo: I like the Cincinnati Reds in both halves. I didn't think there was enough room on this last night to make it a play worth writing up; I thought it would have come out of range by this morning, but it is still there. You can take Cincinnati down to about +120 for the first five innings and the full game. I have the same price target for both halves.
Luke Weaver has gotten bombed in his past few starts, which is obviously concerning. In his last three starts, he's allowed eight, six and eight runs. However, his pitching model weighted ERA is around 4.50.
The Reds' splits are a little bit interesting. It is difficult whether to say they project better against lefties and righties. It's kind of swung back and forth throughout the season, and, every time I check it, I feel like it flip flops. I don't really see a big split necessarily with the Reds offense against lefties and righties.
Braxton Garrett is one of these guys who seems to go up and down. I keep thinking he's a breakout candidate because of his first-round pedigree. You see his performances go up for a month where he has a bunch of quality starts, and then he dips back down into a 4.25-4.50 xERA type range.
I don't necessarily see a big difference between these two starting pitchers. I would give the pitching advantage to the Marlins. I think Weaver has a much lower floor, and Garrett has a higher ceiling. However, I projected the Reds to about even money in this matchup. Like the Orioles, I doubt you get them at plus money too many times at home.
Pick: Reds Moneyline |
Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks, 9:40 p.m. ET
Julio Urías vs. Brandon Pfaadt
Anthony Dabbundo: I'm running into the buzzsaw that is the Dodgers offense. Since the trade deadline, they've been dynamite. They're hitting a lot of balls out of the yard, crushing everybody and running away with the division. However, I think they're a little expensive here with Urías, who continues to be inconsistent.
The problem for Julio has been the home runs. You can look at this one of two ways. For years, Urías has been a guy who outperformed his expected metrics, kept the ball in the yard despite not really having the stuff to do that and kept his home run to fly ball rate way below the league average.
That rate has slowly ticked up in the last couple of seasons, and I think that's just regression closer to what I think he is in the long run and what the projection systems have always said about him. For example, this year, he has a 1.67 HR/9 rate. Over the last three years, he's had HR/9 rates of 0.82, 0.92 and 1.18.
The reality is somewhere in the middle of that. However, some of these projections have him between 1.4 and 1.5 HR/9 rates. There are some reasons to think that this is just who Julio Urías is.
He has struggled with injury as well, which has definitely hurt him trying to be his best. I was also not all that impressed with his start against Oakland. I know his final line was good, but he was not at his best in that outing either. This is a classic example of a big-name pitcher being a little overvalued.
As bad as Brandon Pfaadt has been, I am still a believer in him. He also has a major home run problem, and he is sure to give up one or two tonight. However, he has changed mix coming off his last start, which was the best start of his career, and he has consistently gotten impressive strikeout numbers in the minor leagues.
The projections don't really like him to replicate that in the majors, but his strikeout rate was over 10 per nine innings in Triple-A. I know he had a really rough ERA in Triple-A, but most of that was driven by the altitude effects. The rest of the season, he projects out to a 4.30 ERA.
I only think Pfaadt is marginally worse than Urías, so at +140 at home, I like Arizona tonight.
Pick: Diamondbacks Moneyline |
Payoff Pitch Underdog Picks for Tuesday, August 8
- Reds moneyline
- Diamondbacks moneyline
At FanDuel, this parlay would pay out at +429 at the time of this writing.
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