This Week's MLB Value Picks - Aug 27th

The Major League Baseball season is a marathon, but we’re starting to see the finish line. By the end of this week, the calendar will have turned to September and playoff baseball will be around the corner.

It also means that the rosters will expand to 40 players, something that’s extremely significant in your baseball handicapping down the stretch. Teams out of contention are going to start giving more playing time to their minor league call-ups, eager to see what they’ve got to work with for 2019. Meanwhile, squads battling for playoff spots will be playing their regulars, and the added depth on their bench and in their bullpen should give them a significant edge in the final month.

We may also have a better opportunity to make money in the MLB betting market now that football is kicking off. Oddsmakers will be focused on the first full week of NCAA action and prepping for the start of NFL, so hopefully we can cherry-pick a few spots of value on the MLB schedule!

Here are four games I’ve circled for this week in which I think we might catch the bookies asleep at the switch.

Cubs over Mets (Tuesday, 8:05 p.m. eastern)

Jacob deGrom is having a spectacular season for the New York Mets. With a month to go in the campaign, he owns an ERA well under 2 (1.71), has allowed an opposing batting average of .203, and owns a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 11:2 per 9 innings.

But all of that dominance hasn’t translated into much success in the win column for either deGrom or the New Yorkers. DeGrom comes into this game with an 8-8 record (basically the only reason he won’t run away with the NL Cy Young Award, even though I think it’s pretty clear that he should win it), and the Mets have won just 11 of the 26 games in which deGrom took the hill.

Heading to the North Side of Chicago last month has revitalized the veteran lefty. Prior to being deal to the Cubs, Hamels was scuffling along with a 5-9 record, 4.72 ERA and 1.37 WHIP. But in 5 starts in Chicago, Hamels has been absolutely dirty, posting a 4-0 record and sparkling 0.79 ERA. In his last outing, he went the full 9 innings (just the 11th time in the NL this season that a starter has gone the distance) in a 9-1 rout of the Reds.

Just to throw some extra fuel on the Cubs fire here, there are a couple of trends that back us up for a play on Chicago. The Cubbies have absolutely torn up right-handed starters of late at Wrigley Field, entering Monday’s action with a 23-8 record in their last 31 home games versus righties. Meanwhile, the Mets opened a series at Wrigley this week having lost 7 straight meetings with the Cubs and 23 of the last 32 in Chicago.

Diamondbacks over Giants (Tuesday, 10:15 p.m. eastern)

There’s no question that Clay Buchholz has been an enigmatic pitcher over the years. This is a guy who went 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA for the Red Sox in 2013, then went 8-11 with a 5.34 ERA the very next season. And last year, Buchholz was roughed up for 10 earned runs in 7.1 innings in two starts with the Phillies before being shut down for the rest of the season to undergo elbow surgery.

But when Buchholz is on his game and in the right mental frame of mind, he’s still got the ability to mow opposing hitters down. That’s what he’s shown this season, at least, as he comes into Tuesday’s action with a 7-2 record and sparkling 2.25 ERA with the Diamondbacks. Those season numbers don’t even tell the whole story about how good Buchholz has been of late. The slender righty hasn’t allowed more than 3 runs in a game in nearly 3 months (June 12 versus Pittsburgh), and he’s given up just 10 earned runs in his last 8 starts.

This series will be hyped up as the Giants’ last chance to get back into the playoff race, but don’t be fooled. San Fran comes into this week 2 games under .500, 8 games behind Arizona for first in the NL West, and 8 games behind Milwaukee for the second NL wild card. The loss of Buster Posey last week (season-ending hip surgery) was the death knell for any faint playoff hopes the Giants might have had. To top it off, San Francisco simply isn’t good enough to make a big run in the final month, evidenced by their 3-9 record in their last 12 home games against teams with winning records (going into Monday’s action).

Brewers over Nationals (Friday, 7:05 p.m. eastern) or OVER

If Clay Buchholz has a rival for the most enigmatic pitcher in baseball, it’s the Nationals’ Gio Gonzalez. Like Buchholz, Gonzalez can look brilliant when things are going well, but he’s also been known to unravel quickly when things don’t go his way. And they haven’t been going the way of Gonzalez (or his Washington teammates) very much lately.

Prior to a 3-0 loss to the Mets on Friday night, Gonzalez had been lit up for 19 earned runs in his previous 19.2 innings (spanning 4 starts). Shutting down the Mets’ feeble attack doesn’t necessarily prove to me that Gio has turned things around (he only struck out 2 in 7 innings of work), and I put a lot more stock in his awful season-long numbers. With a 4.35 ERA and awful strikeout-to-walk ratio of 7.68 to 4.29, Gonzalez’s 7-11 record is no fluke. Neither is the fact that he is 1-9 in his last 10 decisions, and that only victory since June 21 came against the Padres.

From a motivational standpoint, there’s no question who has the edge in this contest. We’ve all been waiting for Washington to suddenly turn it on and claim its rightful spot atop the NL East, but it’s simply not going to happen this year. Management knows it, dealing Daniel Murphy to the Cubs last week, and the players know it as well. Meanwhile, the Brewers come into this week holding the second wild card spot in the NL, and with first place in the Central well within their reach (4.5 games back).

Padres over Rockies (Saturday, 8:40 p.m. eastern)

I unsuccessfully faded the Rockies’ Tyler Anderson with an Over ticket last week, but the logic was solid. The light-hitting Padres knocked Anderson around for 10 hits and 4 earned runs in 6.1 innings of work, but Robbie Erlin and the San Diego bullpen held the Rockies to just 3 runs on the evening as the game went Under the total.

Erlin is the likely starter for San Diego here in a rematch of that game last week at Coors Field. I wasn’t convinced that he could pitch deep enough into that game to keep the Padres’ middle relief from getting involved (hence the Over ticket), but the converted reliever is proving to have an ability to consistently give his team 5-plus innings. And if regression was likely for Erlin, he already got some Sunday when the Dodgers got him for 8 hits and 4 runs in 4.2 innings. Erlin’s strikeout-to-walk ratio remains a sparkling 7.17 to 0.95 per 9 innings as he continues to force opponents to beat him with their bats.

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