MLB Betting Guide for Tuesday 4/11/23: Expecting Regression at Coors Field
Betting on baseball can be a grind that reaps an enormous reward.
Day-to-day outlooks can be vastly different by starting pitchers, and a wealth of advanced stats can let us know an individual pitcher or team is due to positive -- or negative -- regression.
Which MLB lines from FanDuel Sportsbook are most appealing today?
Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. All stats come from FanGraphs unless noted otherwise. Please check here to make sure you're seeing the most updated information.
Seattle Mariners at Chicago Cubs
Mariners ML (+102)
In what could be a wild night at Wrigley Field, it's easy to justify the Mariners at the longer price.
In this split against righties, Seattle's 97 wRC+ is a bit ahead of the Cubs' (91) thus far, and the Mariners' active roster has a career .757 OPS against righties compared to .742 for Chicago. The short and long-term samples both point toward the M's.
As a result, we'll latch onto that rather than a shaky pitching match between Chris Flexen and Cubs rookie Hayden Wesneski.
Flexen is drawing a spot start as a reliever, and his two appearances have been rather pedestrian, ceding a 6.09 (skill-interactive) SIERA despite allowing just two actual earned runs. Wesneski was chased before five full innings in his season debut, holding a 4.77 SIERA himself.
Samples are small and volatile with both of these pitching situations tonight, so I'll back the slightly better offense as a 'dog.
St. Louis Cardinals at Colorado Rockies
Over 12.0 (-106)
It's always a good day when the over at Coors Field is sharp.
Public bettors have apparently seen enough from Kyle Freeland, who still holds a 0.00 ERA through two starts for the Rockies. While 63% of bets are on the under, 66% of the money is on the opposite side.
The problem is that it's almost certainly a house of cards waiting to tumble. Freeland's SIERA is an ugly 5.69, and he's not missing bats, according to a dastardly 3.8% swinging-strike rate. He's leaving too much to chance at a palace for making that strategy implode.
However, I'm no believer in Miles Mikolas despite his SIERA (3.46) being so much lower than his actual ERA (9.46). Mikolas has the same issue of not missing bats (10.6% swinging-strike rate), and his hard-hit rate allowed (40.0%) is much higher than the sinkerballer Freeland's to this stage. Whatever improvement we get with whiffs could be offset by taters.
These two hurlers have solid reputations, but the Rockies and Cardinals' offenses -- with at least a .161 isolated power (ISO) in these splits -- can absolutely make them pay.
Milwaukee Brewers at Arizona Diamondbacks
Over 8.5 (-106)
This game features another case where perception trumps pitching results at the moment.
It's hard to trust Corbin Burnes when many of the former Cy Young winner's best traits have left him at this moment. His 5.23 SIERA does state that he's been a bit unfortunate to accumulate an ERA approaching 10, but Burnes' signature swing-and-miss ability has been absent (6.3% swinging-strike rate).
Arizona's Merrill Kelly is the other side of the coin. He's taking the mound with a modest ERA (3.86), but he's hiding a monstrous 6.26 SIERA behind it. Kelly has had periodic issues in his career with hard contact, and the start of 2023 would fit that bill (46.2% hard-hit rate allowed).
Both of these teams are in a decent split, too. The Brewers and D-Backs have a 111 and 78 wRC+, respectively, against right-handed pitching. Arizona's number isn't ideal there, but it was 96 last year and might have room to grow.
Like at Coors, there's a split on public sentiment and sharp action for this game. 58% of bets are on the under, but 74% of the handle is on another high-scoring night for these two pitchers.
