Diamondbacks at Nationals analysis

Due to a request from mtndew146 I will try to post some plays of mine to the forum. Here is my first attempt, which I wrote for a Danish betting site and translated for you guys:


Tonight the team with the best team ERA in MLB at the moment, Washington Nationals, goes up against the pitcher who has MLB's best ERA, Joe Saunders, so this looks like a true pitcher's duel with few runs.

Pitcher Match-up

The Nationals may have the best team ERA, but that is primarily due to their 3 other starters, Gonzales (ERA 1.82), Strasbourg (ERA 1.12) and Zimmerman (ERA 1.89), pushing their ERA down to a total of 2.40

Tonight's starter for the Nationals, Edwin Jackson, only has an ERA of 3.16 - which isn't too bad, but only ranks him 4th at Nats. He last pitched on Thursday against the batting-weak Padres, where he went through 6.2 innings and got 6 hits against him and gave up 3 walks, but no runs.

D-backs is starting Joe Saunders, who is off to an outstanding start with an ERA of just 0.90 and a WHIP (Walks + Hits per inning pitched) of 0.87 over 30 innings and has a 2-1 record to show for it.

He comes from probably the best outing of his career against the Marlins, where he pitched a complete game and only gave 3 hits away - no runs. He has not yet given up a single run away from home this year. He is thus one of the hottest pitchers in MLB at the moment and must be boosting with confidence and he should be able to help D-backs well on their way to a victory today.


Team Match-up


Nationals began the season at full steam with 14 wins from 18 games, but has now entered a bad streak and have lost 5 games in a row. As mentioned, the Nats have MLB's best ERA, but their bad streak is caused by miserable batting. They have in their last 5 games only managed to score 7 runs. In desperation perhaps, they called up one of their young talents (Harper), who supposedly have great career prospects, to try to get some runs in, but pressure has probably been too high (or the talent is overrated) because he is only 2 for 9 so far.

Nationals had hoped to turn things around yesterday when they returned home to play D-backs, but got a 5-1 beating again and does therefore not look to be out of their slump.
 

D-backs have been more consistent and have won 13 and lost 11, but is just now in a good streak, where they have won 3 games in a row, including yesterday's 5-1 victory over the Nationals. D-backs have won 5 out of 6 possible away from home in their last 6 games and are also 5 out of 6 as underdog away from home.

D-backs have also won the last 4 games the two teams have played in Washington.

Based on form and today's pitcher-setup, I think the game is much more open than the odds suggest and I put my CV to 50-50 and thus fine value at 5Dimes giving odds of 2.16 (+116) at time of writing. That gives a betting value of 108%.

The odds have been rising during the night and it could well continue a little longer, as many punters would expect the Nationals to turn around things today. I believe they will have to wait until tomorrow, where pitcher-duel is more favorable to the Nationals, to turn things around.

There is about 30-40% risk of rain in Washington tonight.

Apologies for the use of the CV abbreviation. I just noticed that.

It's a Danish abbreviation which translates to Chance Estimates, i.e. the chances I've put on each of the outcomes.
Bookies use the same, if they have a 50-50 chance estimate they'll give you even odds (minus their commission).
I try to find chance estimates that are higher than the bookies estimates to get value in my bets. Like in this case 8% higher than what the bookies estimate.
Theoretically that should give me 8% earnings over time.

Nice write up. I am all over the under.

The under was also a big consideration of mine, but I think the bookies have it pretty much right on with 55% chance of the under 7, so I don't see much value there.

BOL with the under though, it sure smells like an under and if I wasn't so true to my bet-value betting, I would likely follow you.

Good analysis... my hunch, though, is that Saunders may be currently a bit overvalued.

I posted the below in another thread last night:

Saunders has pitched great but be careful here... he has a ridiculous .214 BABIP and 89.8% strand rate. These are simply unsustainable numbers and he's due to regress hard soon.

Thank you.
I had not noticed those ratings. They are indeed a bit scary and likely indicates he has had quite a bit of luck also - or keeps very cool with players on bases. But then again, he have only had 19 hits and 7 walks in 30 innings, so the numbers are probably too low to really use the BABIP and strand rate as an indication for his quality.

I don't expect him to stay at an 0.90 ERA after tonight. It likely moves my chance estimates 1-2% in favor of Nats though. Still good value in D-backs.

I have added a couple of other plays on underdogs today:

Royals RL +1.5 @ +210 - too good an odds for a RL underdog against a Tigers team struggling with lefties.

Indians ML @ +220 - with Damon and Choo likely starters and a 7-2 road record

That obviously should have said +110 for Royals RL and +120 for Indians.
Sorry about that, I'm not used to converting to US odds from EU odds.

what do EU odds look like, similar to baseball here? 

Baseball I get odds like 5.00 = +100, -5.50 = -110, -6.00 =-120 etc

Best of Luck 

EU odds are decimal odds. So you simply multiply your stake with the number. E.g. odds 2.0 gives you 100 in winnings for 100 staked, which is +100 in US odds. Here is a conversion tool: https://oddsconverter.co.uk/

Good start on my evening btw, Royals not only won with RL they won overall so already up 1.1 units for the evening.

Let's go Indians and D-backs!

SportsFreak69, thank you and best of luck to you too.

Sir Ragnar,
Nice analysis. Arizona is streaking now while the Nats are coming back to normal. Nats are hitting .199 against lefties this year. Good spot to bet a hot team...maybe we'll cash! Like the Indians play too...

RT2

Thanks, RebelTell2

I might be adding Pirates if the odds goes up a bit more. Waiting for the Dodgers game to end and the losing punters on that match to start trying to win their money back on Cardinals.

I looked hard at the Bucs but stayed off...the Redbirds are too hot right now. I took the Mariners as a big dog plus 1st 5 at +125 (+1/2). Just liked the spot for them with Longoria out and with their success against Shields. BOL man...I liked the excellent way you broke down the Zona/Nats game!!

Thanks a lot. I appreciate that.
I make an analysis like that 4-5 times a week for a Danish betting site (depending on good value bet availability), so I'll continue to put them up here as well - translated of course.

I am only taking Bucs if the odds hit 2.60 (+160). Otherwise I'll leave it as well. Alternatively if the +1.0 line hits 2.05 (+105) - I'd prefer the latter, but find it unlikely unless all the Dodgers punters that will lose their bet in that game in a bit goes tilting and pours money into Cardinals.

You got your wish...and an hour for them to drive it up some.

It did go up a bit, yes, but It did not go to my desired levels at any of my bookies, so I stayed clear of the Bucs - good thing I see now. I still think there would have been good value in an odds of +160.

Sadly, the day I decide to poke Bryce Harper for lack of talent he starts shining and pretty much single-handedly drive in a close win for the Nats in the 9th, so my analysis was off on that point. It seems the Nats have found someone that can finally hit for them.
Always sad to lose in the bottom 9th though, but you win some and you lose some in the 9th.

Royals RL and Indians went fine though, so went 2-1 with +1.3 units so an acceptable debut night on covers if I should say so myself