@FastMoneyLabs' Best Bet - 9/7

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We’ve been having success with Pitching Outs props lately. Why not go right back to that market today for our Best Bet?

I respect the Tigers (mainly since they’ve won us some money betting First 5 Innings Team Totals this year), but as I mentioned on Twitter the other day – they lack discipline. As a team, they average 3.81 Pitches per Plate Appearance (P/PA) – just 0.03 above than the Chicago White Sox (3.78), who see the fewest P/PA in MLB.

This has been a season-long trend, and their underlying fundamentals reveal it’s driven by a league-worst 33.5% Chase Rate (+4.5% vs. league average) and 27.5% Whiff Rate (3rd worst; +2.1% vs. league average). String those two stats together, and they explain the team’s league-worst 6.5% Walk Rate, which has been trending worse, especially vs. Left-Handed Pitching (LHP), where it’s dropped to just 4.6% in the last 30 days.

Enter Patrick Sandoval, a LHP that just dominated these Tigers with a complete game, 4-hit shutout on August 19th in Detroit, and it’s easy to see why I love this Outs prop today. Sandoval works efficiently, as evidenced by a 3.82 P/PA; well-below league average and strikingly similar to the Tigers’ team P/PA of 3.81. He also ranks inside the Top-22% of both Chase and Whiff Rate, which are effectively the Tigers’ Achilles Heel (as mentioned above).

The result is an A+ matchup for the 25-year-old southpaw, and he's proven he can exploit it with efficiency, finishing with 9 strikeouts in that complete game shutout last month. Amazingly, he only needed 97 pitches to tie a bow on it. Didn’t even crack 100 pitches that day despite the high strikeout total. That’s impressive. Sandoval went on to complete 6+ innings in each of his next two starts, and I like his chances to sustain the trend today.

I view the risk to this bet being the fact the Angels bullpen is rested; however, if Sandoval pitches true to form (2 or less earned runs in 6 straight starts), then it shouldn’t matter, and I placed my wager accordingly. I laid the juice to win 1 unit.

If you’re feeling risky, you could consider pairing this Outs Prop with a bet he’ll record 6+ Strikeouts. On paper, it’s an ideal spot to back the combo via SGP at plus money odds. I personally decided against it, since they just saw him (which should, theoretically, lead to better plate discipline in the rematch). However, given Sandoval’s a fairly clean cut, K per Inning pitcher, it’s not the worst idea given where his lines are sitting today (we need him to pitch 6+ Innings to cash this Outs prop; meanwhile, his Strikeouts line is o/u 5.5 Ks today, and he’s a K per Inning Pitcher).