Football is on the minds of many bettors now that the college season is underway and the NFL is not that far behind.
But we shouldn’t forget about baseball, as there continue to be opportunities in that sport on a daily basis. In fact, there is some betting value in Sunday Night Baseball on NBC between the Reds and Cubs.
The presence of pitcher Chase Burns has the Reds a smaller underdog than they probably should be going up against starter Shota Imanaga and the Cubs. But that’s just another example of the weight that starting pitchers carry when it comes to the MLB moneyline. Chicago, an objectively better team in all facets, was only around -150 on the opening line, which implies about a 60% win probability.
Burns has shouldered a much larger burden in his sophomore season. He has thrown nearly 100 more MLB innings and has become the ace of the staff since Hunter Greene was sidelined by season-ending Tommy John surgery.
Burns has answered the challenge, posting a 2.77 ERA with a 3.17 expected ERA (xERA), and a 3.11 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching). With a high strikeout rate and strong contact management numbers in terms of Hard Hit percentage and Barrel percentage his xERA ranks in the top 10 of 53 pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title.
However, the 23-year-old is starting to show signs of wear and tear, and you wonder if the Reds will monitor his innings the rest of the way. In August, Burns has posted a 4.33 ERA with a .262 BA, .321 OBP, and a .379 SLG against. The BA and OBP are his highest by month this season and his SLG is the second-highest, as he has only allowed one home run, but has given up seven doubles. He has given up five runs twice this month, something he had only done twice all season up to that point.
Imanaga has been a good investment for the Cubs since arriving from Japan following the 2023 season. Over three seasons, he’s pitched to a 3.44 ERA with a 3.71 xERA and a 4.36 FIP in his 463.1 innings of work. Normally, a pitcher with that big of a discrepancy between his ERA and FIP would be a popular fade candidate, but Imanaga just gives up a lot of home runs.
Fortunately, Imanaga has walked 4.7 percentage of the batters he has faced in MLB and has held the opposition to a .225 BA. Giving up 88 home runs over three seasons is bad, but way more tolerable when 62 of them have been solo shots.
The long ball has been a problem over his last five starts, as he has allowed at least one home run in each and eight homers overall. But, he also hasn’t given up more than four runs in any of those starts and actually started the second half with 13 shutout innings.
Imanaga has good stuff, great control and just shy of a strikeout per inning, so those home runs haven’t derailed him much. He has a 3.78 ERA with a 3.82 xERA and 4.61 FIP this season. Keep an eye out for influential bettors to pick against him in the postseason if the Cubs do make it.
With just two days left in August, the Reds are batting a paltry .211 against lefthanders with a .284 OBP and a .300 SLG, and they’ve struck out over 25 percent of the time. It should be a good matchup for Imanaga in the primetime spotlight.
The Cubs have pretty much destroyed pitchers from both sides all month long. Their .454 SLG against RHP is second to the Red Sox and they have performed 17 percent better than league average against righties in that span.
Incredibly, Burns has not faced the Cubs this season. The Reds have seen Imanaga twice and have scored one run off of him in each of those games. The under-9 bet is the pick for me in this one.
Most player prop lines were not out by deadline, but you can go to VSiN.com to check out the OptaAI MLB Player Prop projections and our proprietary JOLT and VOLT betting models to see what the top ones are for today.
