Betting on baseball can be a grind that reaps an enormous reward.
Day-to-day outlooks can be vastly different by starting pitchers, and a wealth of advanced stats can let us know an individual pitcher, a bullpen, or a team is due to positive -- or negative -- regression.
Which MLB lines from FanDuel Sportsbook are most appealing today?
Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. All stats come from FanGraphs unless noted otherwise. Please check here to make sure you're seeing the most updated information.
New York Mets at Cincinnati Reds
Reds +1.5 (+112)
I'm hoping today's game in Cincinnati is decided by the bullpens. If it is, this line will feel like great value.
It'll be a bullpen-only day for the Reds, but that's not the worst thing in the world for them. Their 4.14 reliever xFIP is the 11th-best mark in baseball. Righty Ben Lively is expected to handle the most innings of the group, but he is a bit of an unknown. His 2.33 ERA with Triple-A Louisville has been solid, but a 5.65 xFIP implies worse results were on the way.
It helps the Mets aren't the offense they were a year ago. Their .714 OPS against righties ranks just 16th.
New York will counter Lively with Kodai Senga on the bump, and though you'd rather have Senga than Lively, the gap isn't that wide. Senga's 4.84 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) and 41.0% hard-hit rate allowed aren't numbers to worry about. Plus, the Mets' bullpen is terrible, holding the league's sixth-worst xFIP (4.43).
I see this as a value proposition between two uninspiring offenses and questionable pitching situations. With 94% of the money behind the Mets today, I can at least feel solid that I squeezed every drop of value out of this number.
Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics
Over 8.5 (-110)
How dominant can Nathan Eovaldi be? That should decide this total.
Targeting an over in an Eovaldi start is an issue. He's posted a superb 3.29 expected ERA (xERA) this season with a sizable 24.9% strikeout rate. He's still allowing a decent amount of hard contact (40.8% hard-hit rate), though.
Eovaldi and cooler temperatures in Oakland are the two major concerns. With the wind blowing out, the A's could still put runs on the board. Their .688 OPS against righties is a better mark than anyone would have expected from their roster this year, and Texas' bullpen has the fourth-worst xFIP in baseball (4.76).
Of course, the A's aren't the appealing side of this matchup when it comes to the over. Oakland hasn't named a starter as of early Thursday, but it seems like there's a good shot it's Luis Medina. The Rangers' offense is lethal against right-handed pitching (114 wRC+), so if it is Medina and his ugly 6.19 xERA, Texas should feast.
If it's not Medina, it's unlikely to be someone who is all that great anyway, and Oakland's bullpen has the worst xFIP in the MLB (6.12) by a country mile, too.
Rather than expecting a stellar effort from the A's offense by betting their runline, this wager on the over is a forecast that Texas -- as you'd assume -- crushes Medina (or whoever else the A's send out there). As they've done all year, Oakland can chip in a bit more than expected against Eovaldi and the bullpen, as well.