Aikido Predictions 8/29 (second half)

For the other half of the slate see here. Still some games missing from the listed slate.

951 Mets R. Gsellman Over 10.5+102

952 Yankees J. Happ 109

955 Braves J. Tomlin Over 10.0-110

956 Phillies Z. Eflin -109

957 Royals B. Singer Over 9.5-108

958 White Sox D. Cease -136

959 Rays J. Fleming Over 8.5-101

960 Marlins P. Lopez 117

961 Twins R. Dobnak Over 9.5+105 (it thinks this is 9 innings)

962 Tigers M. Boyd 152

963 Cubs Y. Darvish Over 8.0-102 (it thinks this is 9 innings)

964 Reds T. Bauer 101

965 Orioles A. Cobb Over 10.5+102

966 Blue Jays T. Walker -112 (see notes, Walker just got traded)

975 Padres A. Morejon Over 13.5+104

976 Rockies A. Senzatela 136

979 Mariners J. Sheffield Over 9.0+107

980 Angels D. Bundy -182

The program looks for a second game to decide if there are 7 or 9 innings, and the source I’m using hasn’t listed the second game of the doubleheaders yet, so it still thinks both are 9 innings long. There are (obviously) ways to force the program to know such things, or to ask it about any hypothetical matchup - if I was gambling right now, or was charging for my numbers, I’d make one or both happen.

So, how’s it look?

951 Mets +105 seems very right to me, if anything I think this is even better for us than Aikido thinks. The Mets offense is a very good fit for Yankee Stadium. Without fans, giving the Yankees much home field here when the Mets are sleeping in their own beds is likely a mistake. The Yankees are very hurt, and their lineup is the opposite of deep. In some famous last words, Mets should be favorites here.

957 Royals +147 is the traditional solid value on an underdog. Completely not scary, also completely not impressive. A lot of winning in baseball is finding good prices on such games day in and day out.

962 Tigers +152 Less innings has to be good for the underdog in such spots. That pushes this over the top. Worth noting that typically I’d look to find a +1.5 line on this game rather than take the Tigers to win outright, because the math favors that, although especially with seven innings I’d want to check to see what size adjustment is being made for there being runners on second in extra innings. That’s presumably going to cut down at least a little on road teams winning by one, but I haven’t run a simulation on that. Adjustments in behavior by both teams makes it hard to use historical parallels - there’s never been a world in which you knew the home team was going to start with a runner on second, so we can’t just run “someone doubled to lead off the 9th or later” as our data sample, even adjusted for which games are more likely to have have lead off doubles.

965 Orioles A. Cobb +148 is a pretty big disagreement. This is about handling a recent trade. The Mariners bullpen is very clearly abominable. Once you factor the bullpen in, even their good pitchers are bad, and their bad pitchers are the worst in baseball aside from Kennedy on the Royals (the program dislikes Harvey, in my opinion not nearly enough) and Houser on the Marlins. Whereas the Blue Jays have a substantially better pen. So it’s clear that the program is underestimating Walker here. What’s the right adjustment? I like to look at the total for guidance. The line is a flat 10, whereas with the bad Walker we have it at a slightly weak 10.5, and we have a slight bias over. Combine that with the various pitcher ratings and my guess is that we’re looking at a 15 cent adjustment near zero, so we can adjust -112 to about -130. I still like taking Cobb at that level, but it’s no longer a crazy number. Looks like it moved to a weak 10 as I wrote this, so maybe -135 now as the new fair?

975 Padres -124 seems solid enough.

975/976 Over 13+103 is still a Coors Field special I can get behind.

979/980 Over 8.5+101 seems fine with me as well, the edge is not small.

I do wish I had more time to devote to why my numbers are a little high - for now, I’d mentally subtract 5-10 cents from every over I post, to maintain balance, but I would consider looking at the Over on the Salami, as well, if it looked like all the games might somehow get played one day.