2021 MLB thread

He had SL +109 earlier today, ending a 0-4 MLB run. For tonight:

MINNESOTA -1½ +116 over Chicago

8:10 PM EST. Justin Steele (LHP CHC) was a highly-regarded 5th round pick in 2014 out of a Mississippi high school and earned a $1 million bonus. He has spent the vast majority of his pro career as a starter, but he has only started three games out of 14 appearances at this level this year covering a lousy 26 innings. He underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2017 and returned in late 2018. An oblique injury cut short his 2019 campaign in June. At his best, Steele works impeccably with a fastball/curveball combo but as more film becomes available, MLB hitters are scorching him. Ever since moving to the rotation, Steele has posted a 6.39/6.44 ERA/xERA split with six walks and 11 K’s in just 13 innings. His swinging strikes have progressively decreased every game. In his last start, his hard hit ball % was 50% and his groundball rate was 10%. The Cubbies are desperate for rotation bodies so Justin Steele is starting not because he earned it but because of the process of elimination. Dude has a long way to go and he’s not very good to begin with.

Twins OF Nelson Cruz was acquired by the Rays Thursday, July 22, in exchange for RHP Joe Ryan and RHP Drew Strotman. Point being, Ryan is a product of Tampa’s incredible nurturing of quality starting pitchers. Make no mistake that Ryan’s minor-league numbers are gaudy. Across three levels, the 23-year-old dominated with a 0.84 WHIP, a 13.3 K’s/9 and .173 oppBA. He struck out 326 batters in 226 innings. This season at Triple-AAA, he struck out 92 batters in 66 innings to go along with a BAA of .173.

Just a word of caution about Ryan’s fastball usage remaining so heavy. Ryan was throwing fastballs about 76% of the time at Triple-A in 2021. Per Synergy, of the 160 swinging strikes Ryan garnered this year, 122 of them have come from the fastball, with hitters whiffing at the slider second most often, but just 18 times all year. There’s no current big league starter who throws their fastball this much. Among qualified arms, Frankie Montas has the heaviest fastball usage at 62%. Freddy Peralta’s usage was once in the 70% range but has come way down during his breakout. The good news is that the Cubs nine can be easily had once or twice through the order by Ryan. Regardless, we’re going to trust the Twinkies to score a bunch while the Cubs cannot be trusted to keep pace.

Cleveland -1½ +169 over KANSAS CITY

8:10 PM EST. After eight starts, Logan Allen (LHP - CLE) has an ERA of 7.93 to go along with his 1-5 record, thus, his curb appeal is awful. The efficient market thinks so too, as Kansas City opened at -120 at many joints and is up to the present price you see here. Logan Allen has a 64% groundball rate and a 14% line-drive rate. Although the sample size is small (29 innings), his pitching lines consistently show a strong groundball lean and it also shows that batters are not making hard contact. Dude has been on the extreme side of unlucky, with a ridiculous 56% strand rate. League average strand rate is 76%. Allen has a xERA of 2.60 over his last 14 frames and offers up the best value on the board today.

Jackson Kowar (LHP -KC) has made two career starts and has walked five batters in five innings while striking out two. His first-pitch strike rate is 48%. A former first-round pick out of the University of Florida, Kowar has pitched well at every minor league stop, including a dominant 0.85 ERA in 31.2 innings in AAA in 2021 with a K% of 33.9%. Kowar has always been known as a prospect for his fastball-changeup combo, but he’s a two-pitch pitcher with weak command and that’s a massive problem at this level. Kowar Jackson and the Royals are wrongly being billed as the chalk today.

 

Valuist

EOG Master
Is Joe Ryan going to be on some kind if a pitch count or something? His SO total at 4.5 seems ridiculously low.

13 minor league starts for 66 innings and I know he had a 6 inning outing in the Olympics. Crazy high strikeout rate for a guy who tops out around 93-94. Plenty of swing and miss in that Cubs lineup. I bet the over 4 1/2 k's (-125).
 
13 minor league starts for 66 innings and I know he had a 6 inning outing in the Olympics. Crazy high strikeout rate for a guy who tops out around 93-94. Plenty of swing and miss in that Cubs lineup. I bet the over 4 1/2 k's (-125).
They only let him go 5 but he still got there. The amount of hitters that he had down 0-2 and 1-2 that still ended up putting the ball in play was unreal.
 

Valuist

EOG Master
Unders now 61-88 since August 20 (59%). Hitter burnout? Or just numbers inflated from the past 3 months? Dodgers on a 1-12-2 under run, Detroit 1-9 to the under, Reds 6 straight unders and Atlanta 1-7-2 to the under.

Unders in 8 of the 14 games yesterday. That makes 67 overs and 96 unders since Aug 20. It will be interesting to see how long this can continue, and the much cooler, less humid air well only help the unders.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
How bout those Cubs? 5-3 in their last 8.


Hard to watch, though.

Cub announcer Jon Sciambi asked Ryan Dempster for his favorite flavor of ice cream the other day.

Dempster responded, "I like to order one scoop of vanilla and one scoop of chocolate."

Meantime, Jason Benetti and Steve Stone are doing an excellent job on the other side of town by discussing the finer points of the game with an exciting team.

The sharp Benetti recently asked the former MLB pitcher what makes a 3-6-1 double play so difficult to execute.

To which Stone responded without hesitation, "The split concentration necessary to time your steps accurately while simultaneously locating the ball coming from second base."
 
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FairWarning

Bells Beer Connoisseur
Power pitchers have owned the Cubs all year.
Hard to watch, though.

Cub announcer Jon Sciambi asked Ryan Dempster his favorite flavor of ice cream the other day.

Dempster responded, "I like to order one scoop of vanilla and one scoop of chocolate."

Meantime, Jason Benetti and Steve Stone are doing an excellent job on the other side of town by discussing the finer points of the game with an exciting team.

The sharp Benetti asked the former MLB pitcher what makes a 3-6-1 double play so difficult two nights ago.

To which Stone responded without hesitation, "The split concentration necessary to time your steps accurately while simultaneously locating the ball coming from second base."
Jason Benetti is so much better than Harrelson ever was. He and Stone may be the best announcing team in baseball.
 

Heim

EOG Master
Trout is going to be shut down.

I've never seen a calf injury shut down a guy this long.

MLB a stop and start sport. But he couldn't DH when he was
almost 100 percent a few weeks ago (according to local paper)!?

But one excuse after the other from Madden.

NYY Stanton playing on one leg.

Rumors aplenty about possible HGH positive.

MLB not going public re best player in baseball.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Power pitchers have owned the Cubs all year.

Jason Benetti is so much better than Harrelson ever was. He and Stone may be the best announcing team in baseball.


Agree completely.

If the Cubs were smart, they would recruit Benetti.

He's a star.
 

Valuist

EOG Master
Trout is going to be shut down.

I've never seen a calf injury shut down a guy this long.

MLB a stop and start sport. But he couldn't DH when he was
almost 100 percent a few weeks ago (according to local paper)!?

But one excuse after the other from Madden.

NYY Stanton playing on one leg.

Rumors aplenty about possible HGH positive.

MLB not going public re best player in baseball.

I don't think anyone would be surprised if it came out he was on roids or HGH.
 

ouch

EOG Dedicated
Keep an eye on the Phillies down the stretch:

THE GOOD NEWS.....21 of their 29 remaining games are against Miami, Colorado (in Philly and not Denver), Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. It's one of the easiest September schedules in MLB.

THE BAD NEWS.......They're the Phillies.
 

cheapseats

EOG Master
Trout is going to be shut down.

I've never seen a calf injury shut down a guy this long.

MLB a stop and start sport. But he couldn't DH when he was
almost 100 percent a few weeks ago (according to local paper)!?

But one excuse after the other from Madden.

NYY Stanton playing on one leg.

Rumors aplenty about possible HGH positive.

MLB not going public re best player in baseball.
Agree, no way it goes on this long.
 

Viejo Dinosaur

EOG Master
Keep an eye on the Phillies down the stretch:

THE GOOD NEWS.....21 of their 29 remaining games are against Miami, Colorado (in Philly and not Denver), Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. It's one of the easiest September schedules in MLB.

THE BAD NEWS.......They're the Phillies.

Just another bullpen meltdown…just brutal
 

MrTop

EOG Master
where would tampa be with tyler glasnow ? the dodgers with kershaw and bauer ? ok maybe they don't make the trade on scherzer. I bet the brewers noticed the trade first.


baseball prospectus has 4 of the 6 division selections correct so far waiting on the yanks and mets. Nobody has lost more people to free agency than baseball prospectus
 

FairWarning

Bells Beer Connoisseur
That was a special kind of bad the Pirates shown this weekend. Today there were three grand slams in the game, tied a record.
 
Tatis has become the ultimate two outcome player. He either hits one out or contributes nothing to the Padres. His maturity needs to include how to be a more clutch hitter and do more than swing for the fences.
 

FairWarning

Bells Beer Connoisseur
Tatis has become the ultimate two outcome player. He either hits one out or contributes nothing to the Padres. His maturity needs to include how to be a more clutch hitter and do more than swing for the fences.
Yes, it’s too bad because he’s so young and could be so much more.
 

Valuist

EOG Master
Break up the Cubs.....winners of 6 straight. OK, 4 were against Pittsburgh. No matter how bad the Cubs have appeared at times in the past 5 weeks, they won't get caught by the Pirates.

Is Frank Schwindel the modern day Roy Hobbs? Or will his agent be looking for work for him in the KBO a year from now? (Same could be asked re: Wisdom and Ortega).

Does Salvatore Perez hit a home run every day? It feels like he does.
 

boston massacre

EOG Master
Break up the Cubs.....winners of 6 straight. OK, 4 were against Pittsburgh. No matter how bad the Cubs have appeared at times in the past 5 weeks, they won't get caught by the Pirates.

Is Frank Schwindel the modern day Roy Hobbs? Or will his agent be looking for work for him in the KBO a year from now? (Same could be asked re: Wisdom and Ortega).

Does Salvatore Perez hit a home run every day? It feels like he does.

The N.Y. Mets Badly Want Theo Epstein.

Fixed The Red Sox and Cub Curses.

Working in Commissioner's Office.

He Could Get 15 Mil a Year From The Mets.

Only 47 Years Old.
 

FairWarning

Bells Beer Connoisseur
The N.Y. Mets Badly Want Theo Epstein.

Fixed The Red Sox and Cub Curses.

Working in Commissioner's Office.

He Could Get 15 Mil a Year From The Mets.

Only 47 Years Old.
Good chance Theo will be the next commissioner.

Besides winning in Boston and Chicago, he also left the next guy with major messes to clean up.
 

ouch

EOG Dedicated
Great pitching match-up in Milwaukee this afternoon.

Wheeler vs. Woodruff.

Feels like a playoff game. (Although the Phillies are hitting like a .500 team.....which they pretty much are.)

And by the way......American Family Field?......Really?

What's next?.......Small Puppy Park?

Couldn't Miller have come up with a few extra bucks to keep the naming rights?
 

MrTop

EOG Master
I took a long shot on the mariners to win the W.S.

this team cannot win the W.S but I think in the next few days we will see if they make the W.C.

I like their chances now to make the W.C.
 

kane

EOG master
I haven't been playing much baseball other than a few plays here and there, but today is a great spot to fade the Giants, SF is coming off the Dodger series and played last night, now they travel for a day game in Colorado, the line has dropped big time so a lot of value has been sucked out, but this is a really bad spot for the Giants. I was also planning on fading the Dodgers for the same reasons, the difference is they have Max going, to me that offsets everything, I so badly want to take the Cards, but fading Max never seems like a good idea, if it was anyone else but him I'm a Cardinal fan today, I just can't fade Max
 
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