Aikido Predictions 9/2

With two unders we legitimately like, I’m no longer worried about the over bias, and I’m willing to take the Padres/Angels over much thinner than I would have been willing to a few days ago.

Here are the picks, as listed above:

952 Rockies -131 is strong enough that it’s suspicious, as favorites don’t offer this level of edge often. But the Giants didn’t make a move at the deadline, so this is about us thinking Webb is actively bad. The usual check is, let’s assume the total is accurate, what happens then? In this case, we still have value. I don’t know anything about Webb, but it seems from the stats that thinking he’s below replacement is at least reasonable, although some projections seem relatively optimistic.

957 Cubs/Pirates Under 9.5-109. This is a large disagreement. These are relatively bad offenses, and Hendricks is very strong as reflected by the moneyline odds, which the line agrees with, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. Sometimes you have to watch out for Cubs totals because weird weather in the past can mess things up, but I don’t think that’s a worry right now.

962 Yankees -102. The Yankees have multiple key pieces back recently, and Montgomery seems very good. I was highly impressed when I watched him and the lines agree. I’m confused how we are getting this price - again, the Rays if anything sold at the deadline, and the Yankees did nothing.

972 Twins -149 is another case of going up against an especially bad pitcher. One guess is that whoever is opening the lines isn’t willing to write pitchers off as much as the betters, and would rather watch them prove it, because that’s the less painful mistake for a book to make - a pitcher can only be so bad most of the time, although at some point I need to tell the story of Limatime.

973/974 Rangers/Astros Under 9+102. This is only an 11 cent edge, which is a little thin for an evening total, and I’m a little worried that we’re underestimating Rangers scoring because of the park factor and carrying that over to their road games. I’m still willing to take it in order to get more balance.

975/976 Angels +156 and Padres/Angels Over 9.5-102. The Angels have not won that many games. Classically, a team that has great players but hasn’t been winning will offer good value, especially here as a large home underdog, at least until they start to quit. The Padres offense was already very good and didn’t improve. Did the Angels selling make them substantially worse? That’s the question.