Pitching Matchup: Paul Maholm vs. Roy Halladay
LV Money Line Open: PHI -260
LV Over / Under Open: 7.0
So what can we glean from 20 runs in the last 19 innings? Probably not a whole lot, except to say that over the long run the Phils will likely be what we thought they were. Meaning that the 2.7 runs per game over the first 16, though more representative of the Phils longterm offensive outlook than the 6.7 in the last 3, is still not what we should expect moving foward. My simulator pegged the Phils offensive output at about 4 runs per game over the entire season, which I think is still likely around where they finish. It's definitely somewhat dependent on whether (and when) Utley and Howard come back this year, but even on the low end it is hard to foresee them scoring much less than about 3.5 runs per game over the long haul. With their pitching staff - and again this is dependent on health - 3.5 runs per game should be enough to hover around .500. It is hard to conceive 81 wins getting them into the playoffs, but maintaining .500 baseball until the return of Utley and Howard should be enough to make a playoff push at the end. It's a sad commentary that we're talking about a $170+ million team maintaining .500 baseball, but as Charlies says: what it is, is what it is.
The Phils are scary favorites in today's game. The kind of favorite that gets us Phillies fans who haven't shed our dire skepticism of years past to think of all the reasons why they lose to the Cubs. Paul Maholm isn't typically the type of pitcher that strikes fear in the hearts of opposing fans (or lineups), but barring one pretty poor outing in 2010, Maholm has had his way with the Phillies. Does that mean anything for today's game? Almost certainly not, as the team as it is currently constructed bares little resemblance to the teams of 2008 and 2009 which Maholm dominated. But again, some of us Phils fans just love to look for the negatives.
On the positive side, I think losing two in a row might unhinge Halladay in the same way that walking three straight batters probably did against the Padres. Combined together, those two things might be a certain sign of the apocalypse. So although I laughed off May 21st 2011, I might start thinking about watching a few episodes of Doomsday Preppers before December 21st 2012.
The projection is a little less certain that the Phils win than Vegas is, putting the line at PHI -214. However, I have seen the line drop today most places to PHI -240 (though one place has it at -270), so it seems most betters are also in agreement that it was a little high on open. Bettors pay a premium to bet on Halladay (which is why I think it started at -260), though I think -240 or -250 would have been a more reasonable place to start as there was a lot of expected value to taking the Cubs.
The O/U opened at either 7.0 or 7.5 depending on where I looked this morning, but now the same sites are showing 7.0 as the open. One book dropped the O/U to 6.5 due to early betting on the under. I personally would have set it at 7.0 and the projection shows that is about right, with the game going over 7.0 about 47% of the sims (under 42%).
One final note is that the strike out totals for the starting pitchers are higher than I would have expected. As I mentioned the other day, I've been trying to model forecasted splits more accurately, which I believe is the cause of the seemingly high strike out totals. I don't know if the sim is wrong due to a flaw in methodology, but the K values definitely seem to high to me (especially for Maholm). As a comparison, I ran a sim which didn't account for batter/pitcher splits and Maholm had 4.5 Ks per sim and Halladay had about 7.5 over about the same IP as shown above. I think those appear more reasonable, and may be one reason to mentally adjust the total upward slightly and bet on the over 7.0. The non-split simulation put the line at PHI -233, more in line with what the sports books are showing. Either way, there seems to be some value to be had on this game in betting the OVER 7.0 and taking the Cubs. It could also be an emotional hedge for Phils fans, though the enjoyment of a single Phils win is probably not worth $240.
Go Phils!
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