Aikido Picks 4/28
Broad agreement on the sides today, so it’s a small card. I backed off some marginal totals partly to avoid being too total-heavy, and partly to ensure that our edge was strong since we took some hits over the weekend.
Most of the games are very straightforward.
903 Reds/Dodgers Under 7.5+101
905/906 Cubs/Braves Under 8.5+105
909/910 Padres/Diamondbacks Over 9-117
911 Rockies +135
918 Rays -163
923/924 Tigers/White Sox Over 8+100
925 Royals -114
927/928 Mets/Nationals Under 7-109
927 Red Sox +1.5 +104
That leaves the DeGrom game, where we have a dilemma. DeGrom pitched the game of his life last time, and he’s making that a habit. He’s a substantially better pitcher than he was last year (and also the best hitter in the lineup, although that presumably won’t last). Velocity is up, command is fantastic, ability to adapt, recover and pace is unreal.
The Mets scored for him last time, but that’s still the exception rather than the rule, and I’ve stopped believing it’s an accident. Fool me dozens of times, shame on me.
When I saw that not only do we get a DeGrom under, we get a full half point, that makes this the best bet I’ve seen all year in terms of knowing we have the best of it. There have been worse lines, but none where I’m more confident that the market is messing up. We should not be getting a 7 here.
The question is the runline. We think the Red Sox are cheap, but DeGrom’s insanely good, better than the .327 line indicates, but you have to factor in the other DeGrom effects. There’s definitely a bit of a ‘feel like a schmuck betting against him’ vibe here, and I wouldn’t do this without the under in my portfolio, nor would I scale this bigger than the under.
If DeGrom does his thing again, and doesn’t allow more than one run and strikes out double digits again, I’m going to accelerate to us simply not being allowed to bet against the new ‘85 Doc Gooden while he’s doing his best Sandy Koufax impression.