Today, I only see one line that I believe to be really enticing. Sometimes there will be days in the baseball schedule that just don’t have lines good enough to warrant the risk and today is one of those days. The good thing about days like this, especially early in the year, is you get to learn a lot watching independent of financial interest.
We will see Daniel Norris take the mound against the Yankees tonight and I’m very excited to see his stuff perform against a big league lineup. In that same game, we are going to learn what kind of life CC Sabathia has in that arm that’s been worked so hard over the years. Matt Harvey will take on a tough Nationals lineup and we can see if he overthrows that fastball. Trevor Bauer will take the hill against the Astros and we can see if his control issues are really a thing of the past (although you don’t want to judge that by the box score alone with the way Houston swings). I’ll be watching him with my own eyes. On the opposite side of that game, we will see Asher Wojciechowski pitch for the first time ever. Last, but not least, we can see if Kendal Graveman in Oakland is really the ground ball out making machine he has appeared to be as he advanced through the Toronto system before being flipped to Oakland this offseason.
But now, on to the one game where I see a value play...
Chicago White Sox vs Kansas City Royals (-1.5) – John Danks vs Edinson Volquez
John Danks has seen the Royals and Kauffman stadium his entire career. Obviously, lineups change over the years, but he has a very large sample size of data in both the stadium and the current lineup. Only one member of the Royals has hit over .214 against Danks (Eric Hosmer) in their career. Danks has also shut down the little power the Royals have. He’s only given up two home runs (one to Salvador Perez and one random shot to Omar Infante) against this lineup. I don’t see any reason to believe that his stuff has changed in any drastic way and I believe his trends should stay consistent and he will keep the White Sox in this game today.
Edinson Volquez will be making his first start for Kansas City today after signing his new 20 million dollar contract. He’s been living in the National League since 2008 and this will be his first time throwing in Kauffman Stadium since his rookie year of 2005, when he got a cup of coffee as a late call-up and only pitched 12 innings that season. His K/9 has decreased each year since 2011, so he’s pitching to more contact and last year he had a very low BABIP (.263). I believe that average will come up this season and what better time to start than today.
The White Sox will roll out a few lefties against the righty Volquez, but traditionally, there hasn’t been a significant split. The key today is that meat of the Chicago lineup has seen Volquez with some success. Adam Eaton, Melky Cabrera and Adam LaRoche have seen Volquez previously with Cabrera and LaRoche having some powerful success against him. Mix in them with a peppering of Jose Abreu and Avisail Garcia and the White Sox will get their first win of the season today by thumping Volquez while Danks neutralizes the Kansas City lineup.
The take – Chicago (Moneyline +120)
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