MLB FanDuel Sportsbook Betting Picks with Lines & Odds – 7/17/19

Tuesday’s Results: 0-3
All-Time Results: 47-54-1, -6.35 Units

Chicago White Sox (+120) @ Kansas City Royals

Pop quiz for the learned degenerate. Let’s say you happen upon a roulette wheel that has struck 16 Red times in a row. Now roulette – being one on of the easiest, simplest, most straight forward games of chance – has by far the worse odds of any game on the floor. So it is wise to generally not engage in the game. However, let’s say on this occasion you are given a freeroll. A $50 bill to bet the outside. If you win, you get the $100. If you lose, your buddy covers the $50 with no attachments. What do you bet?

Wiseguys I’ve heard such as RJ Bell and Steve Fezzik of the FS1 Network make the following case. You play Red. You play on the anomaly. Because if it is just a coincidence that Red has come up 16 times in a row – then at your worst you have a fair bet on Red. However, if it’s not a coincidence that Red keeps hitting – if the wheel is broken for example – you could have a potentially great bet on Red. Asymmetric risk. Based on the results it is reasonable to conclude there is a non-zero chance that there is a bias on Red. There is clearly a 0 chance of bias on Black.

The same mentality might conclude that when you find a team like the Chicago White Sox – losers of 5 straight – you should look to bet against them until they can turn it around. I disagree on this occasion because I believe in the grit of this group. Principally, people are not automated parts. It sucks to lose a few in a row – I’ve lost 6 straight in this column. The difference between humanity and a roulette wheel is that we don’t have to be broken to make a change. We can stick our foot in the ground and give our best effort to reverse our fortunes.

Chicago has been a better team than the KC through ~100 games by a significant margin. Not only despite but also because of their recent losing streak, I like the White Sox to get right here and beat the Royals on the road.

NY Yankees (-147) vs. Tampa Bay Rays

I’ve been the first to point out that Domingo German has gotten lucky with run support this year. His gaudy 11-2 record says a lot about his team, as well as him. Well, even if that is true, let me the 45,000th person to say ‘hey this kid has been pretty good’. Reminds me of the Cy Young argument between Felix Hernandez and CC Sabathia back in the day. Hernadez dominated the analytics argument. CC won a lot more games, while Hernadez was .500. I’m sympathetic to both sides of the argument. However, CC Sabathia in his prime I always thought was slightly better than his ERA would indicate. The reason was that he pitched context-dependent.

Sabathia was always a direct pitcher in general. But at times I thought he was mort direct to batters because it helped his team. When his team was ahead, he prioritized putting the ball in play. Generating outs often becomes more important than preventing hits later in ball games. If you pitch around batters, there is a higher chance of base runners and the tieing/winning run comping to the plate. So if he was up 4-0 in the seventh. He might allow a run – but he would workhouse his way through the inning, giving his team a stranglehold on the game.

I think Domingo German might be built in a similar kind of mold. He has given up 4 runs once and 3 runs three times this season in victories. He has also recorded 6 wins where the Yankees failed to put up more than 4 runs in the game. I’m starting to come around to the idea that German is a big game pitcher – whose gamesmanship and resolve makes his stuff more potent and valuable than a pitch report would otherwise indicate.

Therefore I assert that in German the Yankees have a real pitching advantage over Yonny Chorinos. Given that they are the better team all around as well, and at home, the price makes sense here to fire on the favorite.

Seattle Mariners @ Oakland Athletics Over .5 Runs in 1st Inning (-128)

Homer Bailey somehow has been the biggest name pitchers to move so far this season – (not counting Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel, who didn’t play for another team this season prior to their debut). I guess he’s an upgrade at starting pitcher because he can eat up innings, but in truth, he has been below average so far this season.

Bailey (7-6, 4.8 ERA) was traded hours before he was set to start against the Tigers last week. After preparing to pitch all week, he went back into a week of preparation. Historically this hasn’t been good for him in his career. His ERA with 6+ days rest is 5.22 – far worse than under any other scenario. Bailey has only pitched twice in Oakland, and I think the odds of him being slightly off in his mid-season debut for a new team is high enough to give this bet value. The Mariners give up a lot of 1st inning runs themselves – so there are several ways I could see this bet hitting.