March 25, 2025 • 52 mins
The real Opening Day for Major League Baseball is this Thursday, an annual Rite of Spring for fans and sports gamblers alike. Joining his Action Network colleagues Chad Millman and Simon Hunter is baseball betting expert Sean Zerillo, fresh off his panel at the prestigious MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference earlier this month. Together they discuss betting on MLB this season, the dreadfulness of the Chicago White Sox, how to embrace rule changes from a betting perspective, and so much more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast presented by BET three
sixty five. We are part of the Volume Podcast Network.
I am Chad Millman of the Action Network, live from
my Tommy John Holmes Studio.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm joined as always.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
By my co host, my companion, my Campadre, and my
BFF professional better Simon Hunter.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, So I am in.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hello Chad, But do we have four days until we're
in Chicago having drinks? Brother?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Can't wait, can't freaking wait. It's a great town, my
favorite town. I'm going to see a lot of friends
when we're there. It's going to be great to get
people together. For anyone listening to the show who doesn't
know what I'm talking about, I will give you the
heads up in a moment, because right now, while folks
(00:55):
are talking a lot about March Madness and the Sweet
sixteen starting this Thursday, a very chalky Sweet sixteen. This
Thursday is also an annual write of Spring Baseball's opening
day fourteen games, ten uninterrupted hours of Major League Baseball
(01:17):
as seven months of America's pastime. Let sports fans and
sports gamblers know Spring is truly here. Simon, way back
in the day, like when you were when we were
just starting to do this show together, our producer Matt
Mitchell used to do one of my favorite things in
the history of Action Network content. He used to do
(01:40):
a video, no joke, I think, every single day from
any place he could find in Milwaukee to talk about
what he was going to bet on a day baseball
game that day.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It was the most.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Funny, passionate, exciting video that Matt Mitchell could possibly put together.
It was when he was learning how to do video.
He's trying to figure out how to make himself so
valuable to the Action Network team.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Matt, do you remember those?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I sure do.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Sean Zerlo had to provide the picks because no one
wants my peck, So I'd get a pick from Sean
on every weekday day game. So if there's a day
with a weekday day game, I would get on my
roof or you know, go to the lake or get
on a boat or do something and give out that pack.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It was great.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
It was great, and I'm glad you mentioned Schanzerla. Matt,
I want you to start doing those videos every day
for the next seven months. I think it'd be really
fun because you don't have much else going on. It's
not like, you know, football season's not happening, so you
don't really have anything else happening. You know who's going
to be busy for the next seven months. Our guest
action network go Gi. He is the engine behind our
(02:52):
baseball picks and projections, co hosts of the Wonderful Payoff
Pitch podcast, a co panelist with me at the recent
MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in early March, Hello with
Seawn Zarrillo.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
What's that brother?
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Hey you guys doing. I wish Opening Day was on Wednesday.
I wish baseball, you know, had some foresight to actually
put Opening Day on a day where there's not some
Sweet sixteen games going on. God forbid. They gave themselves
an advantage and just took advantage of day games during
the summer instead of stacking all the games at night,
or did anything to separate themselves and give some attention
(03:35):
to itself as a sport. So unfortunately, I know you
said ten hours of commercial free baseball chat, I'll be
flipping back and forth to the Sweet sixteen games, so
it won't be commercial free for me or uninterrupted baseball
for me. If I'm going to be paying attention to
college basketball. I'm sure the average fan, the average sports
fan certainly will be too.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Zarrillo, like I said, he joined me at Sloan this year.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And for those who don't know, and I can't imagine
anyone who listens to the show doesn't know what Sloan is,
but it's basically this incredible. I think Bill Simmons called
it nerd Apalooza years ago. Was this conference that's been
going on for I don't know, fifteen sixteen years at
this point, maybe longer, almost twenty years. That happens at Sloan,
(04:16):
the Business school at MIT that started there and is
now at a convention center in Boston.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Two days of panels with.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Star studded speakers, all about sports, media, sports team sports management,
how to win at betting, how to win a TV.
It's got an incredible, incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Slate of content.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And I was hosting a panel this year about how
to adjust your model, specifically betting when everything is going
wrong in real time. As Simon, it was really based
on why the fuck are all these favorites winning in
the NFL and how do people manage that over the
course of season when your model needs to change and
You're not used to changing your model on a dime.
(05:05):
So I asked Ariala to join the panel, and the
other panelists were Nate Silver, best selling author known creator
of five point thirty eight, can be antagonistic on Twitter
at times, and Jeff ma who is famously known as
one of the guys who was the Blackjack card counters
(05:27):
in the book of Bringing Down the House. He went
to mit brilliant guy, long time better. I've known him
for a long time, and so these guys are super smart,
very well versed in being on a panel, and this
was Arrillo's first time on a panel. The dude fucking
crushed it, like going back and forth, challenging Jeff, challenging Nate,
(05:49):
raising good points that both of them had to acknowledge
and then follow up on.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
He was so good.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
He also had my favorite anecdote of the entire panel
and speaks to how inside he is on baseball and
why everybody should listen to him. Simon, I know you
love when Zarilla comes on, because I know you love
Betton Baseball futures. Sean, do you remember the specific anecdote
you mentioned in the panel that stopped me in my
(06:16):
tracks that I had no idea you were going to
say that. I had to have you follow up on.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
I assume it's the Guardians shipping container issue from last year.
I had several people come up to me after the
panel talking about how interesting that was. They hadn't heard
of it. Baseball betters, you know, who paid attention entire
last season, had no idea this happened. So the Guardians
last year made an aesthetic change the concourse and right field.
They removed a bunch of shipping containers, which I believe
(06:41):
we're serving as concession stands. I'm not really sure. They
wanted to open up the concourse and they removed all
these shipping containers, which opened up a tunnel basically a
wind tunnel out to right field. Now they've made some
changes behind home plate this year. We'll see if it
ends up sticking. I think they removed some suites behind
home plates. We'll stay see if the park stays the same.
But essentially, in mid May, Jose Ramirez hit a fly
(07:04):
ball to right field that left the park at ninety
two point nine miles an hour. MLB classifies a hard
hit ball starting at ninety five miles an hour, and
it's not like this was the softest hit home run
this year or last year. It's not like it was
the softest hit home run of Vermirez's career, but it
was his softest hit home run in about three years.
And considering the state of the baseballs last year and
(07:25):
the reduced flight of those relative to twenty nineteen, and
the win the weather for that day, that ball should
not have gone out of the park unless something had
changed in that park. And looking at the park factors
for last year in Cleveland comparing it to prior years
now that we have more sufficient data, that's a park
that used to play about seven percent below the major
league average in terms of left handed power. Last year
(07:48):
was one of the best parks in baseball for left
handed power. It played about sixteen percent above the major
league average. So it's very obvious in hindsight that there
was a win tunnel effect out to right field in
Cleveland last year. Ver was cashit at sixty percent clip
through August, and then I think the market caught onto
it a little bit because they went one to twelve
in September. So just worth noting that that happened, worth
(08:10):
acknowledging it when we have outlier data points or outlier results.
It's worth investigating as to whether something changed, either a
rule change or a park dimension change, or something in
the park changed or the ball changed that could cause
this effect. I have some thoughts on the NCAA tournament
and the Unders hitting at a ridiculous rate using the
new basketball. It's not something I expected to see in
(08:32):
a different support, but baseball, they seem to change the
ball every year, and it's something we have to pay
very close attention to. This was a bit of a unique.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Circumstance, Simon, Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It is, but it's very baseball like. It's just this
is like the random thing that happens with this sport
that there is no You can do whatever you want
with your stadment, can design any way you want, you
can make the field designed any way you want, and
teams they'll just do that stuff, and guys like Sean,
we're smart enough. They'll take advantage where the common fan
will just be like, oh, look at that they made
a whole and left field or right field, you know,
like they don't want to think much of it, and
(09:02):
it's like, no, you can profit off of that move,
and yeah, that's That's really interesting though, the fact that
you know they can do that stuff and there is
there isn't there is no repercussion, right, They can just
do that and it's it's their stadium, right, So that's
interesting in football, I know, it's a big deal if
you want to change the stadium and move things around
just because teams think it's an advantage or disadvantage, especially
(09:24):
when it comes to kicking. So definitely really interesting. I
didn't even know that about the Guardians. Obviously, I'm not
too keen in on what's going on in Cleveland. So
that's crazy. That actually happened.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Again the Orioles. Orioles last year moved their left field
wall back in an effort to decrease or mars or
I said they moved it in in an effort to
They moved it in two years ago. They moved it
back last year to try to decrease some runs because
it was too many two years ago. Now they found
a midpoint this year. But this is a team with
a lot of young right handed hitters, and it's like, oh, like,
(09:54):
you guys are clearly trying to gain the system for
the roster bill that you currently have. There's nothing against it,
but they could keep doing it every year if they
want to. But at some point Major League Baseball may
have to step in and be like you guys can't
keep touching it every single year. So just is very interesting.
Like you said, Simon, there's no there's no rule against
making these changes. So if teams want to change their
park every year based upon their roster construction, they technically
(10:17):
can do so.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Uh, that's why we gots Arilo on the show. We
got more of that.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
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(11:14):
Simon mentioned, we are.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Headed to Chicago.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
This is the last week to r SVP for our
free Favorites live show event in Chicago. This will be
for the Elite eight March Madness Games Saturday, March twenty ninth,
Joe's on Weed in Beautiful Chicago, Illinois. Free event, free drinks,
(11:38):
free live show with Stucky, the guys from Three Man
Weave Me and Simon. Will Duke be playing Will It
Be Arkansas? R SVP now to reserve your spot by
following the link in the episode's description, or just google
Favorites Podcast Event Chicago and the website will pop right up. Okay, Sean.
(12:00):
One of my other things that I love about the
Sloan Conference is that it is a subculture of people
who are so geeked out and focused on a singular topic.
Passion levels the playing field. It's insane to me. At
(12:21):
one point, Simon, we were at a cocktail party, that is,
the Thursday night before the conference begins for speakers, and
I saw Sean there, and I was talking to a
buddy of mine who is wildly successful, like venture capital
billionaire successful. And I introduced Sean to the guy and
(12:42):
they start talking, and within two minutes, I don't even
think Sean knows who this guy is, knows nothing about
his background. They are in a very intense conversation about
the dollar value of war assigned to players, they shouldn't
be assigned to players, and how people like Juan Soto
(13:04):
and Aaron Judge, Wansta who just signed a seven hundred
and sixty five million dollar contract and Aaron Judge they
actually might be under paid.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Zarillo, explain what you mean.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
There, Yeah, so baseball players in the market, the free
agent market, obviously, salaries are suppressed. When guys are coming
up their for six years, they have to go up
your arbitration, et cetera. Final three years of arbitration, they're
making about sixty to eighty percent of what they would
make on the open market. So Once guys hit the
open market, teams are usually willing to pay them eight
(13:39):
to ten million per win per win above replacement. Now
Aaron Judge was worth last year, if you're assuming eight
million per win, about ninety million dollars in terms of
on field value. Forget the marketing. You know, all the endorsements,
the ticket sales that your team can bring in as
a result of that player. Just his on field value
(14:01):
was ninety million dollars. He makes forty million dollars in salary.
So Aaron Judge could theoretically not play at all this
season and still be worth what they paid him last
year in this year, just based upon his production last year,
Shohyotani is deferring sixty eight of his seventy million dollars
salary annually. Now the Dodgers will have to put that
(14:22):
bill at some point, so it's not like you could
say they're gaining a huge advantage on his annual salary.
But Otani was worth about the same as Judge last year,
about ninety million dollars. So who's the most valuable player
in baseball relative to what they actually make on the field.
Gunner Henderson and Eli de Racruz are both still in
their pre arbitration years. They were both worth about fifty
(14:44):
to sixty million in terms of on field value last year,
making the Major League minimum of seven hundred and eighty
three thousand. So these guys were worth about seventy five
times what they're actually being paid on the field. Now, Tani,
you can factor in again the ticket sales, the inroads
to Japan for all future stars, right, what o their
Japanese star isn't going to want to come and follow
(15:05):
in Otani swittsteps. Rookie Sasaki was considering going to the padres.
He idolizes you Darvish. He still ended up going to
the doctors. So the opolo Tani has, you know, the endorsements,
the marketing in Japan, all the Jersey sales, all that. Like,
you don't factor that into the equation. But if you're
just talking about our and field value, you know this
isn't football, right. You don't need a cheap quarterback in
(15:26):
order to be able to build your roster. You have
unlimited funds essentially, if you're willing to pay into a
luxury tax. But for a team like the Reds more
a mid market team who can't afford to go into
that luxury tax threshold. Having a guy like Lado Cruz
who's making seven hundred eighty three thousand and providing fifty
million dollars in on field value. That's the kind of
player you need when you're a team like the Reds
(15:48):
in order to be able to make a run and
make the playoffs. And I think the Reds are a
team who could surprise this here. So having an MVP
type candidate making minimum money essentially, you know, in any sport,
that's going to be valuable. In baseball, I actually think
it's less valuable than other sports because you can just
spend on limited money, but still worth considering in Gunner
and Eliot are the two guys who are near the
top of the league still making the minimum.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Usually those teams already signed those guys like that. The
Gunner is usual, like most smart teams try to pay
him before at the big contract. So it's interesting that
they let her run down to the wire here. But
you know, me and chat have talking NASA about how
last year I didn't put enough emphasis into the new
kickoff rules and the changes the NFL happened. What are
(16:28):
the biggest challenges for you heading to this made this
major league season with capping baseball because it is different.
Right coming to this season, there are things that are
going to be different. So I would love to hear
what your perspective head into the season.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Two parks in particular, the A's and the Rays are
going to be playing in minor league parks. The Rays
are playing in the Yankees minor league park and Tampa Bay.
It's the same dimensions in the Yankee Stadium, which people
normally assume is the hitters park. Yankee Stadium is not
a hitters park. Yankee Stadium is a pitcher's park with
a very short right field. So because the outfield is
a little bit smaller, you're actually able to rob more
(17:01):
base hits. There's fewer singles from center field than right field,
and when those home runs get hit, there's fewer guys
on base. But if you're putting these games in Tampa now,
you're increasing all the runs scoring because you have warmer
weather in Tampa, especially April, May, et cetera. September when
it would start cooling down a little bit, and you're
gonna have different wind patterns as well. Yankee Stadium doesn't
(17:22):
really have dramatic wind blowing out to right field necessarily,
so the wind and the weather going to be completely
different in Tampa because it's normally played in a dome.
The Rays typically Tropic Hata Field played about ten percent
below the major league average. Yankee Stadium is about three
percent below the major league average. But if you figure
another five percent for win and weather, now you're talking
(17:42):
about going from a park that was a clear pitchers
park to maybe a slightly hitter leaning park. So not
just betting right, but fantasy dfs all of these purposes,
the Rays will probably score more runs and their pitchers
will probably give up more runs this season. And then
the other is the Athletics who are now playing in
Sacker I know is compared to Oakland, way different weather
in Sacramento compared to Oakland, but also the A's park.
(18:05):
The Coliseum is one of the best pitchers parks in
baseball two, not only because of the weather being a
little bit cooler at night, giant dimensions, but also the
foul territory in that park is enormous. The amount of
pop ups you could generate in that park that lead
to free outs, that lead to quicker played appearances compared
to minor league park with almost no foul territory is
(18:27):
just going to increase the balls and play, going to
increase the run scoring.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
What have you.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Brett Rooker is a guy who I think is actually
a potential viable Major league home run leader candidate this season.
He has twenty eight homers at home forty one on
the road the past two seasons. So if you're giving
him an entire season of upgraded offensive park at home
and then factoring those road games too, I think he's
a guy who probably easily surpasses forty home runs this
(18:52):
season when he's been sitting in the mid thirties the
past couple years. So in general, I think Rays and
A's overs maybe early could be undervalued. We'll see how
quickly the market accounts for that. I think at most
you'll get two or three weeks out of it if
they don't adjust right away. Just you know, in general,
those teams scoring more runs and allowing more runs this season.
For fantasy purposes as well, I think you can upgrade
(19:15):
the run scoring for both those teams.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Everyone make a note Brett Rooker, Oakland A's what is
he going off at to lead the league in home runs?
Because I don't want to miss that very tangible betting advice.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
He's about thirty to one. I took eighty to one
earlier in the offseason. He's really come down. I've been
talking about the park factor thing a bunch. I think
other people have caught onto the facto that projections baseball
projections are usually going to take a weighted three year
average of production. They're going to take like sixty percent
of the previous year, you know, thirty percent of two
years ago and ten percent of three years ago. But
(19:55):
if you're waiting an average of a guy who is
now competing in a completely different part, in a completely
different offensive environment, the weight that average may be missing
some of the upgrades that are built into that. So
I think in terms of like his home run overprop
et cetera, there's probably value on Brooker across the board
and on a lot of A's players this season. But yeah,
third to one or better on Rooker to lead the
(20:15):
league at home runs, I think it's definitely worth a poke.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
When you're looking at those park metrics, how are you
deciding where to even start? You just mentioned everything from
foul territory to weather patterns to warmer weather to win
to the how that stadium of the exact same dimensions
(20:45):
plays in New York and what that does to decreasing offense.
It's a lot of time, it's a lot to unpack.
The data points are infinite. How are you deciding what's
going to matter.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I'm not doing all the work on my own, right
It's something that I'm at to figure out why these
parks may play different than one another. But we do
have park factor adjustments based on these samples of games
played in the minor leagues and the way those are calculated.
It takes the average production of guys when they play
in their park and then calculates the average production of
those teams when they travel to away parks, and it's
(21:19):
trying to figure out what percentage increase or decrease they
have in various areas to both fields, right to right
field or to left field, to right handed hitters left
handed hitters, in terms of improving or decreasing the chance
for singles, doubles, triples, homers, and from there also strikeouts
and walks. Different batter's eyes in different stadiums can increase
(21:40):
strikeouts or increase walks, depending on how easy it is
to see the ball. Seattle very well known for this.
Hitters really struggle to see the ball in Seattle, and
as a result, their pitchers perform better and hitters generally
perform worse. Willie Damas and Tampa Bay, he struggled to
see he had an eyesight issue. He struggled to see
the ball with the white in Tampa Bay. He went
(22:01):
to Milwaukee and broke out as a hitter. So there's
a lot of like little nuanced things the guys home
versus road. But even the batter's eye is something people
don't really think of. From one park to the next.
It's actually just easier to see the baseball coming out
of the pitcher's hand. But it's not work that I
have to do manually. We have park factors over multiple years.
Generally three years is enough to have a sufficient sample,
(22:22):
so we'll use rolling three year samples. But you can
basically just take the differential between how teams perform at home,
how they perform on the road, how teams coming in
there perform in their home park and then perform coming
in and we know roughly compared to league average, how
to adjust things up or down. We talked about the
tokyodom a bunch last week, you know, on the Payoff
(22:44):
Pitch podcast, in terms of the games being played there,
we have Japanese averages for that park, and we know
based upon the dimensions that that park should increase home runs.
We clearly see that increase in the park factors because
the outfield walls there, from right field to center field,
it's more of a line. Most major league parks are
going to be a little bit more rounded. The Tokyo
Dome is a little bit more diagonal to center field,
(23:06):
so those power allies are a little bit shorter, and
sure enough in the data you see an increase in
home run factor, but a decrease for both singles and
doubles because outfielders able to get to more of those
balls because the power rallies are not as deep. So
you want to see the numbers and the data, but
then you want to actually look at the park and
make sure it checks out intuitively with the data you
(23:27):
actually have. And when the Jas, for example, played in
a a ballpark in Dunnadean a couple of years ago,
we didn't have a sufficient sample going into that season,
and that park ended up playing like a severe offensive park.
Once you put major league hitters in it, you'd have
to remember that too, and that's something to factor in
as well. These are minor league hitters with minor league
(23:48):
power and minor league pitch velocities playing in this park.
Once you've got pitchers throwing a little bit harder, once
you have hitters swinging the bat a little bit harder,
the balls are in general are going to fly a
little bit further. So you do have to upgrade the
offensive environment slightly based upon the major league velocities, but
in generally, do you know how the parks in those
leagues play relative to one another?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
All Right? A lot of rule changes every year in baseball.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Maybe next year, the automated ball strike last year.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
They're always fucking with something yep, right, or.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
The rules, pitchclock last year.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Everything, So the pitchclock, which I thought was great.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
And there's always going to be unintended consequences. And this
is what I found most interesting about last year. With
the pitchclock, there's less time to reload for pitchers and hitters. Right, So,
as MLB changed the baseball in twenty nineteen, we set
a record for home runs. MLB said, this is too
many home runs. Let's introduce humidors, let's change the baseball.
That became like a two or three year process. They
(24:48):
introduced new baseballs several times. I'm constantly monitoring the drag
coefficient data on baseball savant. That said, we've had proof
based upon baseballs that they've in the stands and people
have sliced open, that they've used different batches of baseballs simultaneously.
You may have had a batter come to the plate
and within the same plate appearances get fed different batches
(25:11):
of baseballs that some may fly ten feet further than
the others. So it's almost impossible to account for everything.
That said, we do our best with the information we
have available. And something I noticed last year is you
always have to pay attention to unintended consequences of rule changes.
For example, with the pitchclock, I think batters and pitchers
(25:31):
did not have as much time to reload and get
back to their maximum swing velocity or pitch velocity between pitches.
So even though last year the baseball stayed exactly the
same based on the data that we have, and that
means the home ru on a fly ball rate should
have remained steady, it actually decreased. Why will It's probable
that when you have pitchers who are throwing ninety seven
(25:54):
percent of their maximum velocity or hitters who were swinging
ninety five percent of their maximum swing velosc be because
they don't have forty seconds to reload between pitches. They
only have thirty seconds. You're just going to see a
slight reduction in how hard those balls could be hit. Typically,
a bat ball is about eighty percent pitcher twenty percent hitter.
So if you're just taking a little bit off of both,
(26:14):
you know the ball is going to fly five feet
less ten feet less, and you're going to end up
with a few more fly balls instead of hommers. But
then you also have the two year data sample where
they got rid of the shift, and as a result,
you're going to have batters trying to hit the ball
and play more right, not trying to put the ball
out as much. Necessarily, maybe the construct of these rosters,
the type of players that comes into the league may
(26:36):
change a little bit. You're going to get guys who
are a little bit more contact oriented who can handle that.
So I think, you know, regardless of the rule changes,
regardless of the impact, you think it might have, there's
always going to be downstream effects as a result that
you can't account for, and those are the things that
you can actually try to mine from the data, And
that's going to be where your edge is because people always,
(26:58):
you know, by the time people are talking about an
that they see in the market, the Guardians thing for
example last year, that means it's likely already factored into it.
If you want to mind data points yourself, be very
quiet about it, and you know, act upon those edges
as long as you can. But usually, as I said,
you're never going to get more than two or three
weeks out of that edge.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I mean, what an insane time that was a baseball fan, Like,
I know you just casually mentioned it, but the fact
that we're in a sport that from stadium stadium, the
balls are different and there's different things inside these said balls.
Any other sport, I feel like people be taking to
the streets, but Baseball, lucky for them, it's the most relaxed,
laid back fans. I mean just outside of Philly, of course,
(27:39):
But like, seriously though, like I can't get over how
casual you just said that, where it's like that's insane.
That is insane to think they're messing with the balls
that way, because I knew that was true and I've
heard the rumors about it, but that's like last year.
I remember what you're talking about. People are cutting the
balls open. Everyone was like, what the fuck is going
on here? So that's crazy. That's where I with baseball,
(28:01):
like I hate it, but at the same time, I
love it because it's the most bizarre sport. Like, as
someone that tries to explain the sport to people that
come over from England, I'm like, it's like cricket, but
it's not. It's it's it's such an American sport and
it's so bizarre in so many ways. But let's let's
get back to this season. What team do you think
has improved the most since last season headed to this year.
(28:21):
There are any teams that really jump out to you.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Than replacement, It's the Mets in terms of the I
knew you.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Go to the Mets, Sean, I knew you're gonna go
to the Mets.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
Well, but it's not a team I actually have bets
on this season, and by all projections right now, the
under is the play on the Mets. I think the
market is clearly factoring in them making additions throughout the season.
This is the best farm system they've had in the while.
Uh there's multiple guys go and sees lose Robert who
are good fits for them, who they may go out
and acquire. So I think the market is expecting the
(28:50):
Mets to make additional moves. By my you know, this
is nothing to do with me. By independent like wins
of replacement projections, they have improved the most. The teams
that I like the most compared to Mark coming into
the year are Texas, Atlanta, Arizona, and probably Cincinnati. Arizona
seems to be a pretty sharp play amongst people who
(29:13):
I trust in the betting space, you know, people at
a high level, and I view them as a very
safe playoff team. The problem is they have almost no
path to winning division. There's about a sixteen win gap
between them and the Dodgers across every projection system, and
even accounting for like the widest level of standard deviation,
there's almost no path. Moogie Betts continues the wigh one
(29:34):
hundred and fifty pounds, you know, and that remains a
concern for the Dodtors certainly livens it up a little
bit for Arizona. But I think Arizona is very live.
I mean, they're basically top five in lineup. They finished
first in running scored last year. They have the fifth
or sixth best rotation, their top five bullpen. They might
be the best base running team in baseball. And they're
(29:55):
probably a top five defensive team too. So they don't
do anything wrong. Solve in the World Series two years ago.
So the team they were with who beat them, the
Texas Rangers, had a down year last year. Arizona also
didn't make the playoffs. Texas completely retooled their bullpen. They
have seven new relievers in their bullpen. They have two
high end pitching prospects who they drafted in the first round.
This is also the healthiest Jacob deGrom has been in years.
(30:18):
You know, Jacob megram as the widest range of outcomes
of many player in baseball this year. If you could
tell me the final season stat line for one player
this year in advance, I'd want it to be Jacob
g Graft because I think you could do a lot
with that information in terms of betting Cy Young or
strikeout leader, or just knowing how good the Rangers are
going to be during the regular season. But Texas across
the board, I think is the best team in the
(30:39):
AL West. I think they're the second best team in
the American League. I like them to get a buy.
I like Texas to potentially win the American League. And
I think those two teams, as I said, who made
the World Series two years ago together, who kind of
surprised Texas and Arizona down years last year. I like
it both a lot coming into this year. And then Atlanta.
You know, Atlanta won eighty nine games last year without
(30:59):
Akunyo or Strider for most of the season. They lost
Max Freed. They have pitchers who I'm a little bit
more confident in replacing lost innings than I think the
market is. But across the board, the public projection market
views Atlanta as a value bet. The lowest projection on
them has them at like plus one zero four to
win the division. The average projections have them about sixty
(31:20):
percent and minus one to fifty, and you can still
get plus money. I think plus one thirty. I took
plus one seventy earlier in the offseason, So Atlanta should
bounce back this year. If Strider and Acud had come
back healthy, and I think that's the biggest World Series
threat aside from the Dodgers.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Simon, the best part about baseball is it offers so
many ways to participate. Some people play baseball. They wind
up to deliver a pitch. They squat deeply to catch
a low fastball. They slide headfirst into home. Others are
watching baseball. They adjust themselves on a bleacher, They swivel
(31:59):
on a bar stool, or, like our producer Matt Mitchell,
they're furiously peddling an exercise bike as they sweat an
ill advised first inning bet. Regardless of how you participate,
whether you're winding up or squatting, or sliding or swiveling,
you can only perform at your best when you're comfortable,
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and nobody keeps you comfortable from the dugout.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
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Matt Mitchell opening up the pun playbook for today's Tommy
(33:15):
John ad read Sean before Thursday arrives.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
You've mentioned some of.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Your favorite futures bets. Give us your absolute favorites you've
made so far.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
Corbyn Carrol runs later. It's my favorite player prop to
lead the Major League in runs. I made this about
nine to one in terms of projecting it out modeled
these you know, ran it through ten thousand sims. He
wins this about ten to eleven percent of the time.
He was awful at the start of the year last year.
I think he came into this season banged up. He
still finished fifth in baseball with one hundred and twenty
(33:52):
run runs scored. He led the league in the second half,
and what he started doing in the second half was
pulling flave balls in the year. It's the best way
to get to your power in baseball. You can find
the stat on Baseball Savant now pull air percentage. It's
a great stat to look at to find guys who
are increasing their power raising that percentage throughout the season.
It's very evident Carol was trying to get to more
(34:13):
pulled fly balls later in the year, and because he's
so fast, he gets the second or third automatically all
those pulled fly balls to red field. So Carol walks
a ton, not a guy you want to bet for.
Hits leader, but he should be on second base basically
every time he gets on base because he steals it
or because he hits a double down the line. Love
him to believe the league in runs this year, bet
at twenty to one. I take that at ten to
(34:35):
one or better. Jacob de gram I mentioned the Alsy
Young also lead the league to strike outs of forty
to one. I just think that's a fun long shot
prop considering his upside. When you're betting bets like this,
you're assuming everybody is gonna get hurt, right, I'm factoring
in an injury percentage to every single player. Even the
safest guys are still going to get hurt twenty percent
of the time. Even if you assume Degram gets hurt
(34:57):
seventy percent of the time, he's still a decent bet
at ford to one to lead the league in strikeouts.
I think the Jay's are a value team the Al East.
You know, I'm kind of down on the Yankees this year.
Yankees to miss the playoffs in general, the under now
that Garrett Cole's hurt, there's really not a lot of
depth on the Yankees. I think there's a real chance
that you get like a goofy group of three teams
(35:18):
from the Aleas to make the playoffs, like the Red Sox,
the Orioles, and then one of the Razor Js. There's
a lot of value projected value on the Jays right
now in the betting market. I would bet their win
total over seventy nine and a half seventy eight and
a half. But if you want to bet longer shot
props on them, lad to win al MVP at fifteen
to one to be the HITS leader at around the
(35:38):
same price, RBI leader at thirty to one. Their divisional
odds are about twelve to one, eleven to one. I
think if they're going to get there, vlad is probably
going to need to catch cash some of those props
or get very close to it. So I'd rather take
the better numbers. Very similar betting approach the Cincinnati Reds,
who I mentioned before, they're about five to one to
win the division. Terry Francona in a lot of markets
(36:00):
is a better number to win NL Manager of the Year.
I just think a lot of these bets are sort
of correlated, highly correlated to one another, where if the
Reds they may not even need to win the division,
they may just get in with the wildcard and frank
ConA wins Manager of the Year. So there might be
some ways to bet these teams that you can find
player markets or awards markets that are almost directly correlated
(36:24):
to those outcomes happening that you can bet better numbers on.
Just want to talk about a couple three more player
props before we get out of here. Logan Gilbert alsy Young.
He was the second half strikeout minus walk leader. His
velocity increased last year. He changed his pitch mix love
Gilbert this year. Chris Sanchez Enelsayag at fifty to one.
It seems like a long shot, considering he's probably the
(36:44):
second or third best pitcher on his team behind Zach Wheeler.
This is a guy, though his velocity is up three
miles an hour in spring training. Again, you know you
could project all this stuff out right, take averages, et cetera.
You have to keep a close eye on improvements guys
are making mechanically in terms of velocity or pitch mixes
in spring training. That's where you're gonna find. The real
value in these bets is combining the math with the scouting.
(37:08):
I try to blend it as much as I can
and rocket the year. Jacob Wilson of the A's I
talked about them being in a big offensive park this year.
This guy could hit three hundred. He blew through the minors.
I think he only played seventy games in the minor leagues.
He hit over four hundred and the miners last year.
Came up to the Bigs second game towards hamstring or
(37:28):
strained his hamstring and is basically out for the rest
of this season. So this is the guy who's hitting
like four thirty in Double A and Triple A it
looked like he was going to be a Rookie of
the Year candidate last year hamstring set of back. I
think he's primed to go for twenty twenty five in
a park that I think is going to really score
a lot of runs. So yeah, those are some of
my play favorite player props. As I said, the Yankees
to miss the Phillies under, and then the best bet
(37:49):
on the board is the Guardians to miss the playoffs.
I'm the highest in the market on the Guardians. I'm
at minus two forty on them to miss. I'm at
twenty nine percent for them to make it. Everybody else
is it twenty five percenter below. So you know, just mathematically,
the Guardians is a massive edge. That's like a fifteen
percent edge at minus one forty compared to an average
projection of minus two seventy five minus three seventy five.
(38:12):
If you throw a mine away, Yeah, that's definitely worth
betting into. I added it back to the action that
we're got for a third time today. It's the third
time I bet at this offseason. It's still a substantial edge.
I bet at minus one twenty, minus one ten, and
now minus one forty. So if you're going to place one.
Bet Guardians missed the playoffs, I think is a huge edge.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Let's get to it, Sean. Everyone knows I'm Northeast biased.
NL East the best division in baseball. The storylines are crazy,
Like as a Phillies fan, I think as a fan base,
we're sick of underachieving and not getting in the World Series.
And I think ownership is kind of the same view.
They've spent the money, we got the players. The excuses
(38:50):
are gonna a little wear thin. We're old now, like
most our guys are above thirty, which in baseball you
don't want to be at. I mean the Mets, obviously,
you know they've spent the money. The ownership has come in,
they've spent the money. They've built an incredible team. Obviously
they went to a World Series. They're a great team now.
Like you said, Atlanta, they might be the best team
(39:10):
in the division. And there were horrible injury luck like
their injury luck. I don't know what their ownership, whoever
did something over there has done something wrong in their past,
but they have the most insane injury luck I've ever
seen for a baseball team, Like literally their best players
would have season ending injuries like brutal, brutal losses. And
from your perspective, what are you seeing in this division
(39:32):
specifically that's everyone's just talking about Dan at least so much.
Is it just me being Northeast bias or is this
really a really top heavy division right now?
Speaker 5 (39:40):
I believe by odds they've three the top five World
Series favorites. The Braves, the Bets, and the Phillies are
all in the top five for World Series odds. So
I think that's justified in terms of talking about these
three teams. The Phillies won it last year. I think
most people projected them in his third best or the
second best going into last year. I have them third
best going into this year. I'm in eighty five wins
on the Phillies. I think they're on the downslope of this,
(40:03):
you know, competitive window. Harper, Turner, Schwarber, casteanos Reo, Muto,
Willard Nola. They're gonna turn thirty three on average this
year on average, so you have a year maybe two
left at best of championship window. I think Sanchez, like
I said, is emerging, you know, gives them another guy.
But there's really not many spots that this team can improve.
(40:24):
There's not many areas where they can go out and
trade for somebody to improve it, like the rotation.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Sars is already on the DL.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
Yeah, Suarez on the d L. They have Andrew Painter,
who's one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. So
you know that that can like supplement that loss. But
the bullpen is probably only going to get worse relative
to last year. They have one of the best bullpens
in baseball last year too. Bullpens are one of the
least sticky things year to year. You know bullpen variants.
Your bullpen doesn't throw that many innings, so bullpen's fluctuate
greatly from one year to the next. That's you know
(40:54):
another reason why the Guardians I think I'm down on
them this year. The Brewers why I'm down on then
this year. Those are two teams I bet last year
upon boltank quality. I think both are likely to take
a step back this season. I kind of view the
Phillies in the same way. The Phillies are one of
the best win total underbets on the board. In my opinion,
nobody has them higher than ninety wins. I have them
(41:14):
at eighty four point seven. The lowest out there aside
for me, is at eighty six, but again eighty six
to ninety the average is about eighty seven. You can
bet an under ninety one and a half. I think
that's fine, or just bet the Braves to win the division.
And as I said, the Mets are also a little
bit overvalued right now, but they are likely to add pieces,
likelyer to add pieces than almost anybody else in season
this year. So yeah, it's it's Braves, Mets, Phillies right now.
(41:37):
I'd probably put it Braves, Phillies, Mets, but I'm forecasting
additions for the Mets at some point.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I love Sorry, Simon, did you have a follow up?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
There? No, no far away.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I love listening to Simon talk about the Phillies because
you're such a dead eyed pro to me, and even
though I know know you have such a deep, abiding
passion for the Eagles and it doesn't come out during
the season because you're so professional about the numbers you make,
(42:12):
the bets, you make, the conversations we have that it's
not the same as when you're talking about the Phillies.
I might want to do a hockey podcast only to
talk about the Flyers and here you go full Flyer
fanatic like, because that would be pure joy because I
can see it.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
I know you're willing.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
You're wearing your Phillies jersey today. I've been to Phillies
games with you before. I feel like you've gone to
the Didn't you go to a Phillies World Series game
when they were in it?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Right? Yeah? Brother, I was at the Phillies no hitter.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Against that, that's right, Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Most painful memory as a Phillies fan in my life.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
And so like hearing you like ask questions as a
fan and not a better is actually just pure joy.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Because I was sewing the on fired up. It's like
it's a really small window that they they've done themselves
into here, like we basically burn the boats like it's
this is it. All of our guys are super old
in baseball. Seawn even talked about it's the most random
thing ever. A guy can be perfect the minors come up,
he runs too hard because he's too excited in his
second game in the league, tears a hamstring like it's
(43:20):
so fickle in this sport. So yeah, to me, obviously,
Sean can probably see it. I'm scared of them Mets.
I'm scared of Atlanta, Like as a Phillies fan. They're
younger and on paper they're kind of better. A lot
of them, like a lot of the nerds I know,
are kind of preaching what Shawn's preaching here. It's like, no,
these are undervalue teams. The Mets are, of course, can
be overvalued just because the market they're in. But Atlanta,
(43:43):
that's they're the perfect sleeper team to what Seawn's talked
about when the division make up runner the World Series.
And I hate it. I hate Atlanta Braves. So it's
it's painful to hear, but it's like everything he says
just feels like the truth.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
I mean, it's the last year Atlanta and the Daughters
were both projected across the market for about one hundred wins.
They were like neck and neck with each other. There
were some projection systems that thought the Braves were a
better team going into last year than the Dodders. Now,
all of their offensive players were coming off of careers
last year. They all had you know, struggling seasons or
got injured or down seasons. Right, So if they find
(44:17):
somewhere in the middle of those two years where careers
versus everything went wrong, they still won eighty nine games
in a year went everything wrong. I mean, the floor
for this team is extremely high. The floor for the
Phillies is pretty high too. You know, there's projections out
there that say the Phillies are a good bet to
miss the playoffs. It's not something I'm betting just because
the floor for this team is so high. The rotation
is so deep. You know, even if these offensive players
(44:40):
decline like this team still wins eighty five games pretty comfortably.
I just don't know if they have the ceiling to
win ninety five again, if the Braves are going to
be healthy, and if the Mets are going to be better.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
I need the Phillies to be great for TikTok because
they're my favorite TikTok. Is Phillies fans in the playoffs
reacting to game winning hits by Bryce Harper It's just
my and Nick Castianos like those are my favorite tiktoks ever.
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Before we get out of here, we talked about bet
(46:27):
three six five. It just went live in Illinois. I'm
not going to ask you about the Cubs. I'm going
to ask you about what was a Chernobyl of a
season for the Chicago White Sox.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
I would go.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Home, like visit family during the summer, and my dad
still subscribes to the paper version of the Chicago Sun Times.
And when I was there in the summer, they were
in the midst of the most epic, historic record breaking
losing streak, and for like three days I was reading
it every morning just for the pure comedy and like
(47:03):
dark comedy.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Of all of it.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Explain how historically inept the White Sox were last year,
how rare that was, and could they be this bad
this season?
Speaker 5 (47:14):
Yeah, I believe they did. They finished with the worst
or the second worst winning percentage of all time. I
can't recall if they ended up breaking the record or not,
but coming into the year, they were projected by basically
every system to win like sixty games. They underachieved by
twenty plus wins. Now, the Giants, you remember a couple
of years ago, ended up winning the NL West. They
(47:36):
won like one hundred plus games in that season. They
beat the Dodgers. They overachieved compared to public projections by
about the same number of wins. Bye about twenty twenty
four wins. So the White Sox underachieved last season by
about as much as the Giants overachieved two years ago
when they won the NL West. That's just like an
interesting parallel to think about about how far above or
(47:58):
below expectations you have to play. Because with the Daughters
and Dbacks this year, it's about a fifteen win gap
on average between those two teams. That's like roughly what
the Giants had to overcome two years ago, maybe even
a little bit more than that. These are one percent
outcomes in terms of these things actually happening, maybe even
less than one percent. You know, the Giants were a
ninety ninth percent of outcome. The White Sox were a
(48:19):
one percent ou outcome last year. Now, everybody sees them
winning at like at least fifty five games this year,
sixty games this year. I think I have them at
around fifty five to fifty seven wins. A thirteen win
fifteen win improvement would feel like a fucking miracle with
that team. Like Colin Richard, our resident Chicago White Sox fan,
used to be on Payoff Pitch podcast with me, our
(48:41):
formal MLB editor, he thinks this team is worse than
the team that they had coming into last year. I
believe that they've had six pitchers get Tommy John surgery
this month. Six that's a lot. Sean Burke, who's starting
for them on opening Day, I think as the Rookie
of the Year candidate. He looks really solid. They traded
Garrett Crouch though to the Red Sox for Kyle Teal
(49:02):
and other prospects. Crochet was like most of their Yeah,
he's by far their best player. Last year, Lewis Robert
didn't play a lot of time. They may trade Luis
Robert this year. So by the end of the year,
this team probably is worse than the team that they
had last year. It's just a question of, like these
young pitchers that they have coming up, these young position
players they have coming up, what they actually produce Because
(49:23):
last year there was no guys on the team. Basically
we're going to be part of their next competitive team.
This year, they're starting to move in younger guys who
they plan to actually be part of their futures. So
for these younger guys actually give them contributions at the
MLB level, it's a bit more difficult to project because
we haven't seen them and they're coming up for the Miners,
but by all accounts they're expected to be as good
(49:46):
of a team as they were last year on paper,
I just have no interest in betting they're over. But
you know, compared to the public average projection out there,
there's like a nine to win value on their over
I think they're at fifty three and a half and
the average public projection is that like six two and
a half. No, thank you, I'm not interested. And if
you want to lay like minus ten thousand the White
(50:07):
Sox to miss the playoffs, I actually think there's a
slight edge on that this year, but you won't find
me laying that money for seven months.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Right before we came on the air, we were talking
about how we're going to Chicago for our bet three
six five event, and Simon was saying how he had
looked for tickets for Cubs games and there weren't any
because they're not home this weekend. But then he was
looking at White Sox and immediately Matt Mitchell and I
were like, no, you're not spending a second of your
(50:35):
time in Chicago in March going to a White Sox game.
I'm glad we dissuaded him of that notion. As a
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Speaker 1 (51:09):
Ordinary at Bet three sixty five, especially in Illinois. Must
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and restrictions apply. I want to thank Sean Zarillo for
his amazing, in depth, excellent, thoughtful analytical baseball analysis. Simon
and I will return with our next episode of The
Favorites on the Action Network You two page Thursday, eleven
am Eastern talking about the Sweet.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Sixteen with Stucky.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Preview of what we'll be doing in Chicago at joson Weed,
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Speaker 2 (52:04):
Whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time.
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(52:25):
hundred gambler
Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast presented by BET three
sixty five. We are part of the Volume Podcast Network.
I am Chad Millman of the Action Network, live from
my Tommy John Holmes Studio.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm joined as always.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
By my co host, my companion, my Campadre, and my
BFF professional better Simon Hunter.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, So I am in.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hello Chad, But do we have four days until we're
in Chicago having drinks? Brother?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Can't wait, can't freaking wait. It's a great town, my
favorite town. I'm going to see a lot of friends
when we're there. It's going to be great to get
people together. For anyone listening to the show who doesn't
know what I'm talking about, I will give you the
heads up in a moment, because right now, while folks
(00:55):
are talking a lot about March Madness and the Sweet
sixteen starting this Thursday, a very chalky Sweet sixteen. This
Thursday is also an annual write of Spring Baseball's opening
day fourteen games, ten uninterrupted hours of Major League Baseball
(01:17):
as seven months of America's pastime. Let sports fans and
sports gamblers know Spring is truly here. Simon, way back
in the day, like when you were when we were
just starting to do this show together, our producer Matt
Mitchell used to do one of my favorite things in
the history of Action Network content. He used to do
(01:40):
a video, no joke, I think, every single day from
any place he could find in Milwaukee to talk about
what he was going to bet on a day baseball
game that day.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It was the most.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Funny, passionate, exciting video that Matt Mitchell could possibly put together.
It was when he was learning how to do video.
He's trying to figure out how to make himself so
valuable to the Action Network team.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Matt, do you remember those?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I sure do.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Sean Zerlo had to provide the picks because no one
wants my peck, So I'd get a pick from Sean
on every weekday day game. So if there's a day
with a weekday day game, I would get on my
roof or you know, go to the lake or get
on a boat or do something and give out that pack.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It was great.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
It was great, and I'm glad you mentioned Schanzerla. Matt,
I want you to start doing those videos every day
for the next seven months. I think it'd be really
fun because you don't have much else going on. It's
not like, you know, football season's not happening, so you
don't really have anything else happening. You know who's going
to be busy for the next seven months. Our guest
action network go Gi. He is the engine behind our
(02:52):
baseball picks and projections, co hosts of the Wonderful Payoff
Pitch podcast, a co panelist with me at the recent
MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in early March, Hello with
Seawn Zarrillo.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
What's that brother?
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Hey you guys doing. I wish Opening Day was on Wednesday.
I wish baseball, you know, had some foresight to actually
put Opening Day on a day where there's not some
Sweet sixteen games going on. God forbid. They gave themselves
an advantage and just took advantage of day games during
the summer instead of stacking all the games at night,
or did anything to separate themselves and give some attention
(03:35):
to itself as a sport. So unfortunately, I know you
said ten hours of commercial free baseball chat, I'll be
flipping back and forth to the Sweet sixteen games, so
it won't be commercial free for me or uninterrupted baseball
for me. If I'm going to be paying attention to
college basketball. I'm sure the average fan, the average sports
fan certainly will be too.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Zarrillo, like I said, he joined me at Sloan this year.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
And for those who don't know, and I can't imagine
anyone who listens to the show doesn't know what Sloan is,
but it's basically this incredible. I think Bill Simmons called
it nerd Apalooza years ago. Was this conference that's been
going on for I don't know, fifteen sixteen years at
this point, maybe longer, almost twenty years. That happens at Sloan,
(04:16):
the Business school at MIT that started there and is
now at a convention center in Boston.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Two days of panels with.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Star studded speakers, all about sports, media, sports team sports management,
how to win at betting, how to win a TV.
It's got an incredible, incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Slate of content.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And I was hosting a panel this year about how
to adjust your model, specifically betting when everything is going
wrong in real time. As Simon, it was really based
on why the fuck are all these favorites winning in
the NFL and how do people manage that over the
course of season when your model needs to change and
You're not used to changing your model on a dime.
(05:05):
So I asked Ariala to join the panel, and the
other panelists were Nate Silver, best selling author known creator
of five point thirty eight, can be antagonistic on Twitter
at times, and Jeff ma who is famously known as
one of the guys who was the Blackjack card counters
(05:27):
in the book of Bringing Down the House. He went
to mit brilliant guy, long time better. I've known him
for a long time, and so these guys are super smart,
very well versed in being on a panel, and this
was Arrillo's first time on a panel. The dude fucking
crushed it, like going back and forth, challenging Jeff, challenging Nate,
(05:49):
raising good points that both of them had to acknowledge
and then follow up on.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
He was so good.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
He also had my favorite anecdote of the entire panel
and speaks to how inside he is on baseball and
why everybody should listen to him. Simon, I know you
love when Zarilla comes on, because I know you love
Betton Baseball futures. Sean, do you remember the specific anecdote
you mentioned in the panel that stopped me in my
(06:16):
tracks that I had no idea you were going to
say that. I had to have you follow up on.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
I assume it's the Guardians shipping container issue from last year.
I had several people come up to me after the
panel talking about how interesting that was. They hadn't heard
of it. Baseball betters, you know, who paid attention entire
last season, had no idea this happened. So the Guardians
last year made an aesthetic change the concourse and right field.
They removed a bunch of shipping containers, which I believe
(06:41):
we're serving as concession stands. I'm not really sure. They
wanted to open up the concourse and they removed all
these shipping containers, which opened up a tunnel basically a
wind tunnel out to right field. Now they've made some
changes behind home plate this year. We'll see if it
ends up sticking. I think they removed some suites behind
home plates. We'll stay see if the park stays the same.
But essentially, in mid May, Jose Ramirez hit a fly
(07:04):
ball to right field that left the park at ninety
two point nine miles an hour. MLB classifies a hard
hit ball starting at ninety five miles an hour, and
it's not like this was the softest hit home run
this year or last year. It's not like it was
the softest hit home run of Vermirez's career, but it
was his softest hit home run in about three years.
And considering the state of the baseballs last year and
(07:25):
the reduced flight of those relative to twenty nineteen, and
the win the weather for that day, that ball should
not have gone out of the park unless something had
changed in that park. And looking at the park factors
for last year in Cleveland comparing it to prior years
now that we have more sufficient data, that's a park
that used to play about seven percent below the major
league average in terms of left handed power. Last year
(07:48):
was one of the best parks in baseball for left
handed power. It played about sixteen percent above the major
league average. So it's very obvious in hindsight that there
was a win tunnel effect out to right field in
Cleveland last year. Ver was cashit at sixty percent clip
through August, and then I think the market caught onto
it a little bit because they went one to twelve
in September. So just worth noting that that happened, worth
(08:10):
acknowledging it when we have outlier data points or outlier results.
It's worth investigating as to whether something changed, either a
rule change or a park dimension change, or something in
the park changed or the ball changed that could cause
this effect. I have some thoughts on the NCAA tournament
and the Unders hitting at a ridiculous rate using the
new basketball. It's not something I expected to see in
(08:32):
a different support, but baseball, they seem to change the
ball every year, and it's something we have to pay
very close attention to. This was a bit of a unique.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Circumstance, Simon, Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It is, but it's very baseball like. It's just this
is like the random thing that happens with this sport
that there is no You can do whatever you want
with your stadment, can design any way you want, you
can make the field designed any way you want, and
teams they'll just do that stuff, and guys like Sean,
we're smart enough. They'll take advantage where the common fan
will just be like, oh, look at that they made
a whole and left field or right field, you know,
like they don't want to think much of it, and
(09:02):
it's like, no, you can profit off of that move,
and yeah, that's That's really interesting though, the fact that
you know they can do that stuff and there is
there isn't there is no repercussion, right, They can just
do that and it's it's their stadium, right, So that's
interesting in football, I know, it's a big deal if
you want to change the stadium and move things around
just because teams think it's an advantage or disadvantage, especially
(09:24):
when it comes to kicking. So definitely really interesting. I
didn't even know that about the Guardians. Obviously, I'm not
too keen in on what's going on in Cleveland. So
that's crazy. That actually happened.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Again the Orioles. Orioles last year moved their left field
wall back in an effort to decrease or mars or
I said they moved it in in an effort to
They moved it in two years ago. They moved it
back last year to try to decrease some runs because
it was too many two years ago. Now they found
a midpoint this year. But this is a team with
a lot of young right handed hitters, and it's like, oh, like,
(09:54):
you guys are clearly trying to gain the system for
the roster bill that you currently have. There's nothing against it,
but they could keep doing it every year if they
want to. But at some point Major League Baseball may
have to step in and be like you guys can't
keep touching it every single year. So just is very interesting.
Like you said, Simon, there's no there's no rule against
making these changes. So if teams want to change their
park every year based upon their roster construction, they technically
(10:17):
can do so.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Uh, that's why we gots Arilo on the show. We
got more of that.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
If you are listening to this in Illinois, Big News
as Reminer. The Favorites podcast is presented by Bet three
sixty five and is now live in my native state
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those in Illinois, get one hundred and fifty dollars in
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(10:42):
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Speaker 2 (10:50):
And more.
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Whatever the moment, It's never ordinary. At Bet three sixty five,
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(11:14):
Simon mentioned, we are.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Headed to Chicago.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
This is the last week to r SVP for our
free Favorites live show event in Chicago. This will be
for the Elite eight March Madness Games Saturday, March twenty ninth,
Joe's on Weed in Beautiful Chicago, Illinois. Free event, free drinks,
(11:38):
free live show with Stucky, the guys from Three Man
Weave Me and Simon. Will Duke be playing Will It
Be Arkansas? R SVP now to reserve your spot by
following the link in the episode's description, or just google
Favorites Podcast Event Chicago and the website will pop right up. Okay, Sean.
(12:00):
One of my other things that I love about the
Sloan Conference is that it is a subculture of people
who are so geeked out and focused on a singular topic.
Passion levels the playing field. It's insane to me. At
(12:21):
one point, Simon, we were at a cocktail party, that is,
the Thursday night before the conference begins for speakers, and
I saw Sean there, and I was talking to a
buddy of mine who is wildly successful, like venture capital
billionaire successful. And I introduced Sean to the guy and
(12:42):
they start talking, and within two minutes, I don't even
think Sean knows who this guy is, knows nothing about
his background. They are in a very intense conversation about
the dollar value of war assigned to players, they shouldn't
be assigned to players, and how people like Juan Soto
(13:04):
and Aaron Judge, Wansta who just signed a seven hundred
and sixty five million dollar contract and Aaron Judge they
actually might be under paid.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Zarillo, explain what you mean.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
There, Yeah, so baseball players in the market, the free
agent market, obviously, salaries are suppressed. When guys are coming
up their for six years, they have to go up
your arbitration, et cetera. Final three years of arbitration, they're
making about sixty to eighty percent of what they would
make on the open market. So Once guys hit the
open market, teams are usually willing to pay them eight
(13:39):
to ten million per win per win above replacement. Now
Aaron Judge was worth last year, if you're assuming eight
million per win, about ninety million dollars in terms of
on field value. Forget the marketing. You know, all the endorsements,
the ticket sales that your team can bring in as
a result of that player. Just his on field value
(14:01):
was ninety million dollars. He makes forty million dollars in salary.
So Aaron Judge could theoretically not play at all this
season and still be worth what they paid him last
year in this year, just based upon his production last year,
Shohyotani is deferring sixty eight of his seventy million dollars
salary annually. Now the Dodgers will have to put that
(14:22):
bill at some point, so it's not like you could
say they're gaining a huge advantage on his annual salary.
But Otani was worth about the same as Judge last year,
about ninety million dollars. So who's the most valuable player
in baseball relative to what they actually make on the field.
Gunner Henderson and Eli de Racruz are both still in
their pre arbitration years. They were both worth about fifty
(14:44):
to sixty million in terms of on field value last year,
making the Major League minimum of seven hundred and eighty
three thousand. So these guys were worth about seventy five
times what they're actually being paid on the field. Now, Tani,
you can factor in again the ticket sales, the inroads
to Japan for all future stars, right, what o their
Japanese star isn't going to want to come and follow
(15:05):
in Otani swittsteps. Rookie Sasaki was considering going to the padres.
He idolizes you Darvish. He still ended up going to
the doctors. So the opolo Tani has, you know, the endorsements,
the marketing in Japan, all the Jersey sales, all that. Like,
you don't factor that into the equation. But if you're
just talking about our and field value, you know this
isn't football, right. You don't need a cheap quarterback in
(15:26):
order to be able to build your roster. You have
unlimited funds essentially, if you're willing to pay into a
luxury tax. But for a team like the Reds more
a mid market team who can't afford to go into
that luxury tax threshold. Having a guy like Lado Cruz
who's making seven hundred eighty three thousand and providing fifty
million dollars in on field value. That's the kind of
player you need when you're a team like the Reds
(15:48):
in order to be able to make a run and
make the playoffs. And I think the Reds are a
team who could surprise this here. So having an MVP
type candidate making minimum money essentially, you know, in any sport,
that's going to be valuable. In baseball, I actually think
it's less valuable than other sports because you can just
spend on limited money, but still worth considering in Gunner
and Eliot are the two guys who are near the
top of the league still making the minimum.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Usually those teams already signed those guys like that. The
Gunner is usual, like most smart teams try to pay
him before at the big contract. So it's interesting that
they let her run down to the wire here. But
you know, me and chat have talking NASA about how
last year I didn't put enough emphasis into the new
kickoff rules and the changes the NFL happened. What are
(16:28):
the biggest challenges for you heading to this made this
major league season with capping baseball because it is different.
Right coming to this season, there are things that are
going to be different. So I would love to hear
what your perspective head into the season.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Two parks in particular, the A's and the Rays are
going to be playing in minor league parks. The Rays
are playing in the Yankees minor league park and Tampa Bay.
It's the same dimensions in the Yankee Stadium, which people
normally assume is the hitters park. Yankee Stadium is not
a hitters park. Yankee Stadium is a pitcher's park with
a very short right field. So because the outfield is
a little bit smaller, you're actually able to rob more
(17:01):
base hits. There's fewer singles from center field than right field,
and when those home runs get hit, there's fewer guys
on base. But if you're putting these games in Tampa now,
you're increasing all the runs scoring because you have warmer
weather in Tampa, especially April, May, et cetera. September when
it would start cooling down a little bit, and you're
gonna have different wind patterns as well. Yankee Stadium doesn't
(17:22):
really have dramatic wind blowing out to right field necessarily,
so the wind and the weather going to be completely
different in Tampa because it's normally played in a dome.
The Rays typically Tropic Hata Field played about ten percent
below the major league average. Yankee Stadium is about three
percent below the major league average. But if you figure
another five percent for win and weather, now you're talking
(17:42):
about going from a park that was a clear pitchers
park to maybe a slightly hitter leaning park. So not
just betting right, but fantasy dfs all of these purposes,
the Rays will probably score more runs and their pitchers
will probably give up more runs this season. And then
the other is the Athletics who are now playing in
Sacker I know is compared to Oakland, way different weather
in Sacramento compared to Oakland, but also the A's park.
(18:05):
The Coliseum is one of the best pitchers parks in
baseball two, not only because of the weather being a
little bit cooler at night, giant dimensions, but also the
foul territory in that park is enormous. The amount of
pop ups you could generate in that park that lead
to free outs, that lead to quicker played appearances compared
to minor league park with almost no foul territory is
(18:27):
just going to increase the balls and play, going to
increase the run scoring.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
What have you.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Brett Rooker is a guy who I think is actually
a potential viable Major league home run leader candidate this season.
He has twenty eight homers at home forty one on
the road the past two seasons. So if you're giving
him an entire season of upgraded offensive park at home
and then factoring those road games too, I think he's
a guy who probably easily surpasses forty home runs this
(18:52):
season when he's been sitting in the mid thirties the
past couple years. So in general, I think Rays and
A's overs maybe early could be undervalued. We'll see how
quickly the market accounts for that. I think at most
you'll get two or three weeks out of it if
they don't adjust right away. Just you know, in general,
those teams scoring more runs and allowing more runs this season.
For fantasy purposes as well, I think you can upgrade
(19:15):
the run scoring for both those teams.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Everyone make a note Brett Rooker, Oakland A's what is
he going off at to lead the league in home runs?
Because I don't want to miss that very tangible betting advice.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
He's about thirty to one. I took eighty to one
earlier in the offseason. He's really come down. I've been
talking about the park factor thing a bunch. I think
other people have caught onto the facto that projections baseball
projections are usually going to take a weighted three year
average of production. They're going to take like sixty percent
of the previous year, you know, thirty percent of two
years ago and ten percent of three years ago. But
(19:55):
if you're waiting an average of a guy who is
now competing in a completely different part, in a completely
different offensive environment, the weight that average may be missing
some of the upgrades that are built into that. So
I think in terms of like his home run overprop
et cetera, there's probably value on Brooker across the board
and on a lot of A's players this season. But yeah,
third to one or better on Rooker to lead the
(20:15):
league at home runs, I think it's definitely worth a poke.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
When you're looking at those park metrics, how are you
deciding where to even start? You just mentioned everything from
foul territory to weather patterns to warmer weather to win
to the how that stadium of the exact same dimensions
(20:45):
plays in New York and what that does to decreasing offense.
It's a lot of time, it's a lot to unpack.
The data points are infinite. How are you deciding what's
going to matter.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I'm not doing all the work on my own, right
It's something that I'm at to figure out why these
parks may play different than one another. But we do
have park factor adjustments based on these samples of games
played in the minor leagues and the way those are calculated.
It takes the average production of guys when they play
in their park and then calculates the average production of
those teams when they travel to away parks, and it's
(21:19):
trying to figure out what percentage increase or decrease they
have in various areas to both fields, right to right
field or to left field, to right handed hitters left
handed hitters, in terms of improving or decreasing the chance
for singles, doubles, triples, homers, and from there also strikeouts
and walks. Different batter's eyes in different stadiums can increase
(21:40):
strikeouts or increase walks, depending on how easy it is
to see the ball. Seattle very well known for this.
Hitters really struggle to see the ball in Seattle, and
as a result, their pitchers perform better and hitters generally
perform worse. Willie Damas and Tampa Bay, he struggled to
see he had an eyesight issue. He struggled to see
the ball with the white in Tampa Bay. He went
(22:01):
to Milwaukee and broke out as a hitter. So there's
a lot of like little nuanced things the guys home
versus road. But even the batter's eye is something people
don't really think of. From one park to the next.
It's actually just easier to see the baseball coming out
of the pitcher's hand. But it's not work that I
have to do manually. We have park factors over multiple years.
Generally three years is enough to have a sufficient sample,
(22:22):
so we'll use rolling three year samples. But you can
basically just take the differential between how teams perform at home,
how they perform on the road, how teams coming in
there perform in their home park and then perform coming
in and we know roughly compared to league average, how
to adjust things up or down. We talked about the
tokyodom a bunch last week, you know, on the Payoff
(22:44):
Pitch podcast, in terms of the games being played there,
we have Japanese averages for that park, and we know
based upon the dimensions that that park should increase home runs.
We clearly see that increase in the park factors because
the outfield walls there, from right field to center field,
it's more of a line. Most major league parks are
going to be a little bit more rounded. The Tokyo
Dome is a little bit more diagonal to center field,
(23:06):
so those power allies are a little bit shorter, and
sure enough in the data you see an increase in
home run factor, but a decrease for both singles and
doubles because outfielders able to get to more of those
balls because the power rallies are not as deep. So
you want to see the numbers and the data, but
then you want to actually look at the park and
make sure it checks out intuitively with the data you
(23:27):
actually have. And when the Jas, for example, played in
a a ballpark in Dunnadean a couple of years ago,
we didn't have a sufficient sample going into that season,
and that park ended up playing like a severe offensive park.
Once you put major league hitters in it, you'd have
to remember that too, and that's something to factor in
as well. These are minor league hitters with minor league
(23:48):
power and minor league pitch velocities playing in this park.
Once you've got pitchers throwing a little bit harder, once
you have hitters swinging the bat a little bit harder,
the balls are in general are going to fly a
little bit further. So you do have to upgrade the
offensive environment slightly based upon the major league velocities, but
in generally, do you know how the parks in those
leagues play relative to one another?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
All Right? A lot of rule changes every year in baseball.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Maybe next year, the automated ball strike last year.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
They're always fucking with something yep, right, or.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
The rules, pitchclock last year.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Everything, So the pitchclock, which I thought was great.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
And there's always going to be unintended consequences. And this
is what I found most interesting about last year. With
the pitchclock, there's less time to reload for pitchers and hitters. Right, So,
as MLB changed the baseball in twenty nineteen, we set
a record for home runs. MLB said, this is too
many home runs. Let's introduce humidors, let's change the baseball.
That became like a two or three year process. They
(24:48):
introduced new baseballs several times. I'm constantly monitoring the drag
coefficient data on baseball savant. That said, we've had proof
based upon baseballs that they've in the stands and people
have sliced open, that they've used different batches of baseballs simultaneously.
You may have had a batter come to the plate
and within the same plate appearances get fed different batches
(25:11):
of baseballs that some may fly ten feet further than
the others. So it's almost impossible to account for everything.
That said, we do our best with the information we
have available. And something I noticed last year is you
always have to pay attention to unintended consequences of rule changes.
For example, with the pitchclock, I think batters and pitchers
(25:31):
did not have as much time to reload and get
back to their maximum swing velocity or pitch velocity between pitches.
So even though last year the baseball stayed exactly the
same based on the data that we have, and that
means the home ru on a fly ball rate should
have remained steady, it actually decreased. Why will It's probable
that when you have pitchers who are throwing ninety seven
(25:54):
percent of their maximum velocity or hitters who were swinging
ninety five percent of their maximum swing velosc be because
they don't have forty seconds to reload between pitches. They
only have thirty seconds. You're just going to see a
slight reduction in how hard those balls could be hit. Typically,
a bat ball is about eighty percent pitcher twenty percent hitter.
So if you're just taking a little bit off of both,
(26:14):
you know the ball is going to fly five feet
less ten feet less, and you're going to end up
with a few more fly balls instead of hommers. But
then you also have the two year data sample where
they got rid of the shift, and as a result,
you're going to have batters trying to hit the ball
and play more right, not trying to put the ball
out as much. Necessarily, maybe the construct of these rosters,
the type of players that comes into the league may
(26:36):
change a little bit. You're going to get guys who
are a little bit more contact oriented who can handle that.
So I think, you know, regardless of the rule changes,
regardless of the impact, you think it might have, there's
always going to be downstream effects as a result that
you can't account for, and those are the things that
you can actually try to mine from the data, And
that's going to be where your edge is because people always,
(26:58):
you know, by the time people are talking about an
that they see in the market, the Guardians thing for
example last year, that means it's likely already factored into it.
If you want to mind data points yourself, be very
quiet about it, and you know, act upon those edges
as long as you can. But usually, as I said,
you're never going to get more than two or three
weeks out of that edge.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I mean, what an insane time that was a baseball fan, Like,
I know you just casually mentioned it, but the fact
that we're in a sport that from stadium stadium, the
balls are different and there's different things inside these said balls.
Any other sport, I feel like people be taking to
the streets, but Baseball, lucky for them, it's the most relaxed,
laid back fans. I mean just outside of Philly, of course,
(27:39):
But like, seriously though, like I can't get over how
casual you just said that, where it's like that's insane.
That is insane to think they're messing with the balls
that way, because I knew that was true and I've
heard the rumors about it, but that's like last year.
I remember what you're talking about. People are cutting the
balls open. Everyone was like, what the fuck is going
on here? So that's crazy. That's where I with baseball,
(28:01):
like I hate it, but at the same time, I
love it because it's the most bizarre sport. Like, as
someone that tries to explain the sport to people that
come over from England, I'm like, it's like cricket, but
it's not. It's it's it's such an American sport and
it's so bizarre in so many ways. But let's let's
get back to this season. What team do you think
has improved the most since last season headed to this year.
(28:21):
There are any teams that really jump out to you.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Than replacement, It's the Mets in terms of the I
knew you.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Go to the Mets, Sean, I knew you're gonna go
to the Mets.
Speaker 5 (28:29):
Well, but it's not a team I actually have bets
on this season, and by all projections right now, the
under is the play on the Mets. I think the
market is clearly factoring in them making additions throughout the season.
This is the best farm system they've had in the while.
Uh there's multiple guys go and sees lose Robert who
are good fits for them, who they may go out
and acquire. So I think the market is expecting the
(28:50):
Mets to make additional moves. By my you know, this
is nothing to do with me. By independent like wins
of replacement projections, they have improved the most. The teams
that I like the most compared to Mark coming into
the year are Texas, Atlanta, Arizona, and probably Cincinnati. Arizona
seems to be a pretty sharp play amongst people who
(29:13):
I trust in the betting space, you know, people at
a high level, and I view them as a very
safe playoff team. The problem is they have almost no
path to winning division. There's about a sixteen win gap
between them and the Dodgers across every projection system, and
even accounting for like the widest level of standard deviation,
there's almost no path. Moogie Betts continues the wigh one
(29:34):
hundred and fifty pounds, you know, and that remains a
concern for the Dodtors certainly livens it up a little
bit for Arizona. But I think Arizona is very live.
I mean, they're basically top five in lineup. They finished
first in running scored last year. They have the fifth
or sixth best rotation, their top five bullpen. They might
be the best base running team in baseball. And they're
(29:55):
probably a top five defensive team too. So they don't
do anything wrong. Solve in the World Series two years ago.
So the team they were with who beat them, the
Texas Rangers, had a down year last year. Arizona also
didn't make the playoffs. Texas completely retooled their bullpen. They
have seven new relievers in their bullpen. They have two
high end pitching prospects who they drafted in the first round.
This is also the healthiest Jacob deGrom has been in years.
(30:18):
You know, Jacob megram as the widest range of outcomes
of many player in baseball this year. If you could
tell me the final season stat line for one player
this year in advance, I'd want it to be Jacob
g Graft because I think you could do a lot
with that information in terms of betting Cy Young or
strikeout leader, or just knowing how good the Rangers are
going to be during the regular season. But Texas across
the board, I think is the best team in the
(30:39):
AL West. I think they're the second best team in
the American League. I like them to get a buy.
I like Texas to potentially win the American League. And
I think those two teams, as I said, who made
the World Series two years ago together, who kind of
surprised Texas and Arizona down years last year. I like
it both a lot coming into this year. And then Atlanta.
You know, Atlanta won eighty nine games last year without
(30:59):
Akunyo or Strider for most of the season. They lost
Max Freed. They have pitchers who I'm a little bit
more confident in replacing lost innings than I think the
market is. But across the board, the public projection market
views Atlanta as a value bet. The lowest projection on
them has them at like plus one zero four to
win the division. The average projections have them about sixty
(31:20):
percent and minus one to fifty, and you can still
get plus money. I think plus one thirty. I took
plus one seventy earlier in the offseason, So Atlanta should
bounce back this year. If Strider and Acud had come
back healthy, and I think that's the biggest World Series
threat aside from the Dodgers.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Simon, the best part about baseball is it offers so
many ways to participate. Some people play baseball. They wind
up to deliver a pitch. They squat deeply to catch
a low fastball. They slide headfirst into home. Others are
watching baseball. They adjust themselves on a bleacher, They swivel
(31:59):
on a bar stool, or, like our producer Matt Mitchell,
they're furiously peddling an exercise bike as they sweat an
ill advised first inning bet. Regardless of how you participate,
whether you're winding up or squatting, or sliding or swiveling,
you can only perform at your best when you're comfortable,
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and nobody keeps you comfortable from the dugout.
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Matt Mitchell opening up the pun playbook for today's Tommy
(33:15):
John ad read Sean before Thursday arrives.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
You've mentioned some of.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Your favorite futures bets. Give us your absolute favorites you've
made so far.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
Corbyn Carrol runs later. It's my favorite player prop to
lead the Major League in runs. I made this about
nine to one in terms of projecting it out modeled
these you know, ran it through ten thousand sims. He
wins this about ten to eleven percent of the time.
He was awful at the start of the year last year.
I think he came into this season banged up. He
still finished fifth in baseball with one hundred and twenty
(33:52):
run runs scored. He led the league in the second half,
and what he started doing in the second half was
pulling flave balls in the year. It's the best way
to get to your power in baseball. You can find
the stat on Baseball Savant now pull air percentage. It's
a great stat to look at to find guys who
are increasing their power raising that percentage throughout the season.
It's very evident Carol was trying to get to more
(34:13):
pulled fly balls later in the year, and because he's
so fast, he gets the second or third automatically all
those pulled fly balls to red field. So Carol walks
a ton, not a guy you want to bet for.
Hits leader, but he should be on second base basically
every time he gets on base because he steals it
or because he hits a double down the line. Love
him to believe the league in runs this year, bet
at twenty to one. I take that at ten to
(34:35):
one or better. Jacob de gram I mentioned the Alsy
Young also lead the league to strike outs of forty
to one. I just think that's a fun long shot
prop considering his upside. When you're betting bets like this,
you're assuming everybody is gonna get hurt, right, I'm factoring
in an injury percentage to every single player. Even the
safest guys are still going to get hurt twenty percent
of the time. Even if you assume Degram gets hurt
(34:57):
seventy percent of the time, he's still a decent bet
at ford to one to lead the league in strikeouts.
I think the Jay's are a value team the Al East.
You know, I'm kind of down on the Yankees this year.
Yankees to miss the playoffs in general, the under now
that Garrett Cole's hurt, there's really not a lot of
depth on the Yankees. I think there's a real chance
that you get like a goofy group of three teams
(35:18):
from the Aleas to make the playoffs, like the Red Sox,
the Orioles, and then one of the Razor Js. There's
a lot of value projected value on the Jays right
now in the betting market. I would bet their win
total over seventy nine and a half seventy eight and
a half. But if you want to bet longer shot
props on them, lad to win al MVP at fifteen
to one to be the HITS leader at around the
(35:38):
same price, RBI leader at thirty to one. Their divisional
odds are about twelve to one, eleven to one. I
think if they're going to get there, vlad is probably
going to need to catch cash some of those props
or get very close to it. So I'd rather take
the better numbers. Very similar betting approach the Cincinnati Reds,
who I mentioned before, they're about five to one to
win the division. Terry Francona in a lot of markets
(36:00):
is a better number to win NL Manager of the Year.
I just think a lot of these bets are sort
of correlated, highly correlated to one another, where if the
Reds they may not even need to win the division,
they may just get in with the wildcard and frank
ConA wins Manager of the Year. So there might be
some ways to bet these teams that you can find
player markets or awards markets that are almost directly correlated
(36:24):
to those outcomes happening that you can bet better numbers on.
Just want to talk about a couple three more player
props before we get out of here. Logan Gilbert alsy Young.
He was the second half strikeout minus walk leader. His
velocity increased last year. He changed his pitch mix love
Gilbert this year. Chris Sanchez Enelsayag at fifty to one.
It seems like a long shot, considering he's probably the
(36:44):
second or third best pitcher on his team behind Zach Wheeler.
This is a guy, though his velocity is up three
miles an hour in spring training. Again, you know you
could project all this stuff out right, take averages, et cetera.
You have to keep a close eye on improvements guys
are making mechanically in terms of velocity or pitch mixes
in spring training. That's where you're gonna find. The real
value in these bets is combining the math with the scouting.
(37:08):
I try to blend it as much as I can
and rocket the year. Jacob Wilson of the A's I
talked about them being in a big offensive park this year.
This guy could hit three hundred. He blew through the minors.
I think he only played seventy games in the minor leagues.
He hit over four hundred and the miners last year.
Came up to the Bigs second game towards hamstring or
(37:28):
strained his hamstring and is basically out for the rest
of this season. So this is the guy who's hitting
like four thirty in Double A and Triple A it
looked like he was going to be a Rookie of
the Year candidate last year hamstring set of back. I
think he's primed to go for twenty twenty five in
a park that I think is going to really score
a lot of runs. So yeah, those are some of
my play favorite player props. As I said, the Yankees
to miss the Phillies under, and then the best bet
(37:49):
on the board is the Guardians to miss the playoffs.
I'm the highest in the market on the Guardians. I'm
at minus two forty on them to miss. I'm at
twenty nine percent for them to make it. Everybody else
is it twenty five percenter below. So you know, just mathematically,
the Guardians is a massive edge. That's like a fifteen
percent edge at minus one forty compared to an average
projection of minus two seventy five minus three seventy five.
(38:12):
If you throw a mine away, Yeah, that's definitely worth
betting into. I added it back to the action that
we're got for a third time today. It's the third
time I bet at this offseason. It's still a substantial edge.
I bet at minus one twenty, minus one ten, and
now minus one forty. So if you're going to place one.
Bet Guardians missed the playoffs, I think is a huge edge.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Let's get to it, Sean. Everyone knows I'm Northeast biased.
NL East the best division in baseball. The storylines are crazy,
Like as a Phillies fan, I think as a fan base,
we're sick of underachieving and not getting in the World Series.
And I think ownership is kind of the same view.
They've spent the money, we got the players. The excuses
(38:50):
are gonna a little wear thin. We're old now, like
most our guys are above thirty, which in baseball you
don't want to be at. I mean the Mets, obviously,
you know they've spent the money. The ownership has come in,
they've spent the money. They've built an incredible team. Obviously
they went to a World Series. They're a great team now.
Like you said, Atlanta, they might be the best team
(39:10):
in the division. And there were horrible injury luck like
their injury luck. I don't know what their ownership, whoever
did something over there has done something wrong in their past,
but they have the most insane injury luck I've ever
seen for a baseball team, Like literally their best players
would have season ending injuries like brutal, brutal losses. And
from your perspective, what are you seeing in this division
(39:32):
specifically that's everyone's just talking about Dan at least so much.
Is it just me being Northeast bias or is this
really a really top heavy division right now?
Speaker 5 (39:40):
I believe by odds they've three the top five World
Series favorites. The Braves, the Bets, and the Phillies are
all in the top five for World Series odds. So
I think that's justified in terms of talking about these
three teams. The Phillies won it last year. I think
most people projected them in his third best or the
second best going into last year. I have them third
best going into this year. I'm in eighty five wins
on the Phillies. I think they're on the downslope of this,
(40:03):
you know, competitive window. Harper, Turner, Schwarber, casteanos Reo, Muto,
Willard Nola. They're gonna turn thirty three on average this
year on average, so you have a year maybe two
left at best of championship window. I think Sanchez, like
I said, is emerging, you know, gives them another guy.
But there's really not many spots that this team can improve.
(40:24):
There's not many areas where they can go out and
trade for somebody to improve it, like the rotation.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Sars is already on the DL.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
Yeah, Suarez on the d L. They have Andrew Painter,
who's one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. So
you know that that can like supplement that loss. But
the bullpen is probably only going to get worse relative
to last year. They have one of the best bullpens
in baseball last year too. Bullpens are one of the
least sticky things year to year. You know bullpen variants.
Your bullpen doesn't throw that many innings, so bullpen's fluctuate
greatly from one year to the next. That's you know
(40:54):
another reason why the Guardians I think I'm down on
them this year. The Brewers why I'm down on then
this year. Those are two teams I bet last year
upon boltank quality. I think both are likely to take
a step back this season. I kind of view the
Phillies in the same way. The Phillies are one of
the best win total underbets on the board. In my opinion,
nobody has them higher than ninety wins. I have them
(41:14):
at eighty four point seven. The lowest out there aside
for me, is at eighty six, but again eighty six
to ninety the average is about eighty seven. You can
bet an under ninety one and a half. I think
that's fine, or just bet the Braves to win the division.
And as I said, the Mets are also a little
bit overvalued right now, but they are likely to add pieces,
likelyer to add pieces than almost anybody else in season
this year. So yeah, it's it's Braves, Mets, Phillies right now.
(41:37):
I'd probably put it Braves, Phillies, Mets, but I'm forecasting
additions for the Mets at some point.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I love Sorry, Simon, did you have a follow up?
Speaker 3 (41:46):
There? No, no far away.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I love listening to Simon talk about the Phillies because
you're such a dead eyed pro to me, and even
though I know know you have such a deep, abiding
passion for the Eagles and it doesn't come out during
the season because you're so professional about the numbers you make,
(42:12):
the bets, you make, the conversations we have that it's
not the same as when you're talking about the Phillies.
I might want to do a hockey podcast only to
talk about the Flyers and here you go full Flyer
fanatic like, because that would be pure joy because I
can see it.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
I know you're willing.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
You're wearing your Phillies jersey today. I've been to Phillies
games with you before. I feel like you've gone to
the Didn't you go to a Phillies World Series game
when they were in it?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Right? Yeah? Brother, I was at the Phillies no hitter.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Against that, that's right, Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Most painful memory as a Phillies fan in my life.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
And so like hearing you like ask questions as a
fan and not a better is actually just pure joy.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Because I was sewing the on fired up. It's like
it's a really small window that they they've done themselves
into here, like we basically burn the boats like it's
this is it. All of our guys are super old
in baseball. Seawn even talked about it's the most random
thing ever. A guy can be perfect the minors come up,
he runs too hard because he's too excited in his
second game in the league, tears a hamstring like it's
(43:20):
so fickle in this sport. So yeah, to me, obviously,
Sean can probably see it. I'm scared of them Mets.
I'm scared of Atlanta, Like as a Phillies fan. They're
younger and on paper they're kind of better. A lot
of them, like a lot of the nerds I know,
are kind of preaching what Shawn's preaching here. It's like, no,
these are undervalue teams. The Mets are, of course, can
be overvalued just because the market they're in. But Atlanta,
(43:43):
that's they're the perfect sleeper team to what Seawn's talked
about when the division make up runner the World Series.
And I hate it. I hate Atlanta Braves. So it's
it's painful to hear, but it's like everything he says
just feels like the truth.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
I mean, it's the last year Atlanta and the Daughters
were both projected across the market for about one hundred wins.
They were like neck and neck with each other. There
were some projection systems that thought the Braves were a
better team going into last year than the Dodders. Now,
all of their offensive players were coming off of careers
last year. They all had you know, struggling seasons or
got injured or down seasons. Right, So if they find
(44:17):
somewhere in the middle of those two years where careers
versus everything went wrong, they still won eighty nine games
in a year went everything wrong. I mean, the floor
for this team is extremely high. The floor for the
Phillies is pretty high too. You know, there's projections out
there that say the Phillies are a good bet to
miss the playoffs. It's not something I'm betting just because
the floor for this team is so high. The rotation
is so deep. You know, even if these offensive players
(44:40):
decline like this team still wins eighty five games pretty comfortably.
I just don't know if they have the ceiling to
win ninety five again, if the Braves are going to
be healthy, and if the Mets are going to be better.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
I need the Phillies to be great for TikTok because
they're my favorite TikTok. Is Phillies fans in the playoffs
reacting to game winning hits by Bryce Harper It's just
my and Nick Castianos like those are my favorite tiktoks ever.
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Before we get out of here, we talked about bet
(46:27):
three six five. It just went live in Illinois. I'm
not going to ask you about the Cubs. I'm going
to ask you about what was a Chernobyl of a
season for the Chicago White Sox.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
I would go.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Home, like visit family during the summer, and my dad
still subscribes to the paper version of the Chicago Sun Times.
And when I was there in the summer, they were
in the midst of the most epic, historic record breaking
losing streak, and for like three days I was reading
it every morning just for the pure comedy and like
(47:03):
dark comedy.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Of all of it.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Explain how historically inept the White Sox were last year,
how rare that was, and could they be this bad
this season?
Speaker 5 (47:14):
Yeah, I believe they did. They finished with the worst
or the second worst winning percentage of all time. I
can't recall if they ended up breaking the record or not,
but coming into the year, they were projected by basically
every system to win like sixty games. They underachieved by
twenty plus wins. Now, the Giants, you remember a couple
of years ago, ended up winning the NL West. They
(47:36):
won like one hundred plus games in that season. They
beat the Dodgers. They overachieved compared to public projections by
about the same number of wins. Bye about twenty twenty
four wins. So the White Sox underachieved last season by
about as much as the Giants overachieved two years ago
when they won the NL West. That's just like an
interesting parallel to think about about how far above or
(47:58):
below expectations you have to play. Because with the Daughters
and Dbacks this year, it's about a fifteen win gap
on average between those two teams. That's like roughly what
the Giants had to overcome two years ago, maybe even
a little bit more than that. These are one percent
outcomes in terms of these things actually happening, maybe even
less than one percent. You know, the Giants were a
ninety ninth percent of outcome. The White Sox were a
(48:19):
one percent ou outcome last year. Now, everybody sees them
winning at like at least fifty five games this year,
sixty games this year. I think I have them at
around fifty five to fifty seven wins. A thirteen win
fifteen win improvement would feel like a fucking miracle with
that team. Like Colin Richard, our resident Chicago White Sox fan,
used to be on Payoff Pitch podcast with me, our
(48:41):
formal MLB editor, he thinks this team is worse than
the team that they had coming into last year. I
believe that they've had six pitchers get Tommy John surgery
this month. Six that's a lot. Sean Burke, who's starting
for them on opening Day, I think as the Rookie
of the Year candidate. He looks really solid. They traded
Garrett Crouch though to the Red Sox for Kyle Teal
(49:02):
and other prospects. Crochet was like most of their Yeah,
he's by far their best player. Last year, Lewis Robert
didn't play a lot of time. They may trade Luis
Robert this year. So by the end of the year,
this team probably is worse than the team that they
had last year. It's just a question of, like these
young pitchers that they have coming up, these young position
players they have coming up, what they actually produce Because
(49:23):
last year there was no guys on the team. Basically
we're going to be part of their next competitive team.
This year, they're starting to move in younger guys who
they plan to actually be part of their futures. So
for these younger guys actually give them contributions at the
MLB level, it's a bit more difficult to project because
we haven't seen them and they're coming up for the Miners,
but by all accounts they're expected to be as good
(49:46):
of a team as they were last year on paper,
I just have no interest in betting they're over. But
you know, compared to the public average projection out there,
there's like a nine to win value on their over
I think they're at fifty three and a half and
the average public projection is that like six two and
a half. No, thank you, I'm not interested. And if
you want to lay like minus ten thousand the White
(50:07):
Sox to miss the playoffs, I actually think there's a
slight edge on that this year, but you won't find
me laying that money for seven months.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Right before we came on the air, we were talking
about how we're going to Chicago for our bet three
six five event, and Simon was saying how he had
looked for tickets for Cubs games and there weren't any
because they're not home this weekend. But then he was
looking at White Sox and immediately Matt Mitchell and I
were like, no, you're not spending a second of your
(50:35):
time in Chicago in March going to a White Sox game.
I'm glad we dissuaded him of that notion. As a
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Speaker 1 (51:09):
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and restrictions apply. I want to thank Sean Zarillo for
his amazing, in depth, excellent, thoughtful analytical baseball analysis. Simon
and I will return with our next episode of The
Favorites on the Action Network You two page Thursday, eleven
am Eastern talking about the Sweet.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Sixteen with Stucky.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Preview of what we'll be doing in Chicago at joson Weed,
rsvped RSVP link in the episode description and downloads with Spotify,
Apple Pods wherever you get your pods, Rate, review, subscribe,
leave us five stars, say.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time.
I Love you. Action Network reminds you please gamble responsibly.
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Jason McIntyre
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