10-22-14

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Matt Fargo NHL Pick

Flyers

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Goodfella Playoff GOY

3* KC

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Dave Aquino
PROBABLES: (8-6)


Today's probables - NHL: parlay - {Pittsburgh (ML) and Anaheim (ML)} (-112)


POD: (4-1) +2.50 units

Today's POD - NHL: parlay - {Pittsburgh (ML) and Anaheim (ML)} (-112)

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JR O Donnell

3* Philadelphia +1.5 -135

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Treyspicks

MLB

Kansas City

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Keith glantz

Royals

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Sportswagers

WORLD SERIES (GM 2)
KANSAS CITY -111 over San Fran

Our concern with the Royals is that Ned Yost is going to get badly out-managed and could easily cost the Royals the World Series. Anyone watching last night could see right off the bat that James Shields was in big trouble but Yost thinks he’s managing game #70 in a 162-game schedule. He should have pulled him in the first and brought in Danny Duffy. By contrast, Bruce Bochy will yank a pitcher after one pitch if he thinks that pitcher doesn’t have his stuff. In the NLCS, Bochy was quick to pull Jake Peavy after four innings despite Peavy only allowing two runs and despite the Giants having the lead. In playoff baseball, there is no tomorrow but that’s a concept that Yost hasn’t quite grasped yet. When a team is getting great pitching and the offense is scoring runs, Barbara Streisand could manage that team. That takes us us to Game 2 of the World Series, where we are not that concerned with Yost getting out-managed by Bochy.

The struggles of 33-year-old Jake Peavy started way back in May when he was with the Red Sox and posted a 6.59 ERA in five starts. June and July were not that much better before he was traded to the Giants and reunited with the manager he pitched for when he was dominating in San Diego. That was a long time ago. A major problem is that he's walking a lot more batters than usual, leading to the worst command in his 13-year career. Since Peavy's hit % and strand % are in the normal range, there aren’t many signs that his xERA of 4.22 will improve any time soon. He no longer has the oomph to blow hitters away. While he averaged 94 mph average fastball in his salad days, he’s been consistently at 90 mph for the past four years and rarely does he go over that number. The drop in skills tells the story of Peavy's slide over the past couple of years and now he’s in a Catch-22 position. If Peavy is not coming at hitters he’ll walk too many and we all know what happens when the Royals get base-runners. If he comes at them, they are likely to tee off on him. Current Royals have seen Peavy plenty of times and in fact, they have a combined 58 hits off him in 196 AB’s for a BA of .296. Alex Gordon has 58 AB’s against Peavy and is hitting.357. Billy Butler has 14 hits in 37 AB’s for a BA of .424 and Alcides Escobar is 9 for 22 for a BA of .409. In those combined 196 AB’s against K.C., Peavy has struck out a mere 39 batters. Unless the Royals get a little over-anxious, Jake Peavy is in big trouble here.

None of the Giants have ever faced Yordano Ventura, not even for one at-bat. That has to work in the kids’ favor and it sure doesn’t hurt that he has nasty stuff. When we last saw Ventura, he was leaving Kansas City's Game 2 American League Championship Series victory over Baltimore with tightness in his shoulder in the sixth inning. However, the medical reports are fine and it’s been reported that his side sessions have been absolutely dynamite the past few days. According to FanGraphs, Ventura ranked first among big league starters with an average fastball reading of 97 mph this season. He also has wipeout breaking stuff and if he’s throwing strikes, the Giants are likely to be chasing his stuff all night. In the end, we have a significant edge on the mound with the starters and pens, a significant edge on the base-paths and a significant edge at the plate as well. The Royals should be at least -127 to -135 here but they’re not and that provides us with some nice value spotting this cheap price.

Our Pick
KANSAS CITY -111 (Risking 2.22 units - To Win: 2.00)

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Falcon Sports

2 units Kansas City -110 listing Ventura/Peavy

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Sports pick Predictions

MLB

Giants/Royals OVER 7, -105 (2 units)

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NFAC

3* KC Royals -125

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VegasButcher (NHL) 5-0 (+5.7 Units)

Washington Capitals -145

Last season Edmonton was the 3rd worst team in the league with 67 points, a 29-53 record (35%), and -67 goal-differential, the 3rd worst mark as well. This year they are 1-5 with a -13 goal-differential, the 2nd worst number in the league (Buffalo -14 is the worst). What is interesting is that they’ve played the 2nd weakest schedule so far in the league. Doesn’t look to me like this team improved much this off-season. Oilers are playing tonight while coming off their first win of the season, after starting the year 0-5. Typically bad teams have a hard time sustaining winning streaks, and I’m going to fade the Oilers in this spot. Capitals are 3-2 but their two losses came in the shoot-out against very good Canadiens and San Jose Sharks squads. This team is 3rd in the league with a +7 goal-differential, has the top-10 ranked defense (based on Save %), and are fully rested having 3-days off prior to tonight’s game. Washington won both games last year by a combined score of 8-3, and I would expect a similar outcome between two teams heading in very different directions.

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VegasButcher - San Francisco Giants +114

Yesterday I discussed that the two key advantages for the Giants in game 1 were hitting and starting pitching, two key factors in winning baseball games. Well the offensive advantage is still there of course, and will remain in every game of this series. The question we need to answer for game 2 is do the Giants have a starting-pitching advantage once again? Clearly I’m making a play on them again because I think that they do, but let’s explore why.

If we compare season-long stats, I have Ventura ranked 79th while Peavy’s 125th. But I’m not sure comparing season-long stats is the right way to go here. Peavy changed teams more or less mid-season, pitching for the Giants in all of Aug/Sep. Clearly we are interested to see how he’s done while playing for them instead of Boston. In addition, Ventura is a rookie, and young guys tend to perform differently in the 2nd half of a long season since they are not used to the workload and fatigue could be a real factor. Yesterday I focused on Bumgarner’s and Shields’ season-long stats when making an initial comparison between the two, but of course both are seasoned vets who are used to throwing a ton of innings and of course neither changed teams mid-year. Today’s scenario is different, and I think focusing on 2nd half numbers is a lot more beneficial. When you compare just the 2nd half, I have Peavy ranked as my 78th starter while Ventura is 109th. Basically, the rankings are flip-flopped from their season-long numbers. Here are some key numbers for each:

Peavy: 19% K%; 6% BB%; 3.3 K/BB ratio; 0.5 HR/9; 10.6% SwStr%; 2.5 ERA with 3.3/4.0/3.9 FxS

Ventura: 20% K%; 11% BB%; 1.9 K/BB ratio; 0.6 HR/9; 9.8% SwStr%; 3.2 ERA with 3.7/4.1/4.2 FxS

The numbers are fairly close, but there are a few key differences. First, the BB-rate between the two really sticks out. Ventura’s 11% BB-rate is almost double Peavy’s. That’s an issue, especially since in the 1st half of the year his BB% was at 7%. Ventura has pitched 196 innings so far this year while throwing 150 last year, mostly in the minors (15 innings in the majors in 2013). That’s a fairly significant increase, and if he goes 4 innings today, he’ll break 200 for the year. An increase in BB%, could be a sign that he’s getting fatigued and his control is suffering. To go from 7% to 11% is an absolutely huge variance. Of course Ventura’s 9.8% SwStr% (Swinging Strike Rate) continues to be elite (7.5% is average), as hitters continued to have a hard time locating his stuff, which is to be expected when you can throw 100 MPH. What is interesting here, is that Peavy’s 10.6% SwStr% was even better, and by almost a full percentage point. Of course everyone knows that Peavy isn’t a flame-thrower that Ventura is, so he’s doing it in a very different manner. We’ll get to that in a bit. Finally, want to point out that Peavy’s ERA as well as FxS (FIP / xFIP / SIERA) are all lower in the 2nd half, albeit slightly. We all know that his performance improved greatly since he joined the Giants (compared to when he was with Boston of course) but was that just due to moving to the National League (no DH and pitchers’ at-bats) or did something change in the way Peavy began approaching hitters?

Comparing his “Boston stats” to his “Giants stats”, it’s easy to see that Peavy has become a much better pitcher since being traded. While his K-rate of 19% remained exactly the same, his walk-rate dropped from 8.5% to 5.2%, a 38% improvement. His WHIP improved from 1.42 to 1.02 and his HR/9 rate dropped from 1.4 to 0.4. Yes, some of these changes are due to pitching in the National League in addition to playing his home games in one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the league. Still that can’t be the only reason to explain why his FIP went from 4.7 with the Red Sox to 3.0 with the Giants. And even if that is the argument you want to make, let’s not forget that Kauffman Stadium is also a pitchers’ park, is very spacious just like AT&T, and most importantly this Royals lineup closer resembles a typical NL team (no power, speed at the top of the order, etc) than an AL one.

So what specifically changed with Peavy’s offerings to improve his numbers by this much since joining San Fran? I reviewed his velocity by each pitch and that stayed the same, no increase or decrease in any of his pitches. But what did change was the distribution of his pitches. When Peavy was with Boston he threw his mediocre fastball 55% of the time and his changeup (his worst pitch the last 3 years by the way) about 12% of the time. Basically he threw his worst two pitches 67% of the time while with the Red Sox. Since joining the Giants, he uses his fastball 48% of the time and his changeup 8%, for a total of 56%. That’s a huge decrease. Consequently his usage of his best three offerings increased: slider from 6% to 12%; cutter from 18% to 21%; curveball from 11% to 14%. This is significant because Royals rank 16th, 29th, and 24th offensively in the 2nd half of the season against Peavy’s top-3 pitches. Relying more on his off-speed stuff is what enabled Peavy to generate a SwStr% of 10.6% in the 2nd half of the year and you can expect him to rely on these offerings in today’s game as well. I didn’t like how Peavy allowed 6 BB’s in his first two playoff starts (9.2 innings) but he was facing Washington and St Louis, teams that rank 3rd and 5th in BB-rates respectively. Royals rank 29th on the year so I don’t see that being an issue today. They also don’t strike-out much (ranking #1 there), which is fine, as I prefer them swinging on pitches that they aren’t very good at hitting anyways for easier and quicker outs, assuming weak contact, as long as Peavy is on his game. His improvement with the Giants tells me that he should be and I expect him to really challenge these Royals hitters in game 2.

As far as Ventura is concerned, there are a few additional factors that are against him. I’ve already mentioned that ‘fatigue’ could be an issue for the youngster, as his walk-rate has increased drastically in the 2nd half. In addition, he was forced off the mound in his last start due to some ‘shoulder tightness’, which is not something you want to hear when you are relying on this pitcher to save the series. Who to say he won’t experience something similar tonight? At the same time, let’s not discount the high-pressure of the situation he’s in. This is a 23 year old rookie making his first WS start and being relied upon to save the Royals season. If KC goes down 0-2, for all intent and purpose, the series could be pretty much over. This is a scenario that isn’t easy for a lot of seasoned veterans with playoff experience to deal with mentally, but it could be especially difficult for a young rookie. Finally, the most important factor here is that Ventura’s matchup with Giants’ offense is NOT a favorable one. His three key offerings are fastball, curveball, and changeup. Giants are really poor against the ‘changeup’ ranking 22nd in the league (all of these rankings are for the 2nd half of the season) but they are top-10 against both the ‘fastball’ and the ‘curve’. Ventura’s best pitch is his 97 MPH fastball, which he threw 65% of the time this season. If he struggles with his changeup, similar to what happened to Shields yesterday, he might be forced to rely on his fastball even more than usual. The Giants ranked 6th against the pitch, but what is even more impressive is that they lead all the teams in the post-season batting .377 against pitches of 95+ MPH, striking out only 6 times in 68 plate appearances (from ESPN.com). While most teams could have a hard time with a flame-thrower like Ventura, San Fran could potentially have a lot of success against him.

Bottom line is that there are a number of reasons to believe that starting pitching is in San Fran’s favor once again tonight. Peavy’s improvement is due to him changing his approach on the mound and we shall see if the Royals can hit his above-average off-speed stuff. At the same time, there are a lot of question marks when it comes to Ventura, and most importantly this particular matchup just isn’t a good one for him. I’ve already explained yesterday why Giants have the superior offense, and these two factors in San Fran’s favor is enough for me to make a play on them once again tonight.

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Sheep

KC Royals -125

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Topshelfpicks

Carson K - Royals

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DannyB

SFG/KCRoyals Over 7