Cubs start a new series with Tampa today at home. It’s a day game so we have current lineups. Let’s get an idea what the betting market thinks of this matchup by looking at the first game. Here’s what the Ouija Board says about today (noon snapshot).
DATE 07_04 2:20_PM Jul_4_12:17 TBA CHN
LINEAWAY TBA [ 0.433 ] < 0.435 >
STARTAWAY 0.90(0.537) Chris_Archer_TBA
LINEHOME CHN [ 0.585 ] < 0.583 >
STARTHOME 1.66(0.573) Jon_Lester_CHN
Lester pitching and he is usually favored by the market but today it’s at 0.583 for the Cubs, pretty stable from opening at 0.585. Normal home field advantage if you know nothing about the two teams is 0.540. The Cubs are getting a premium today but not the premiums they got earlier in the season. Let’s see why. Here is Tampa’s team status.
BAT | PITCH | Rs | Ra | W | L | UR | LR | TeamID | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
21.5 | 7.4 | 406 | 388 | 43 | 41 | -9.4 | -1.7 | TBA |
Tampa is 2 games above average at 43-41, almost the same as the Cubs who are completely average. They have decent PITCH, slightly above average BAT, and a terrible UR=-9.4. The Cubs could get some freebie runs this series due to TBA errors. At a team level TBA and CHN are almost equal. Let’s look at Chris Archer’s career because the market seems to take that into account.
Year | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | Rank | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2012 | -0.4 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PITCH | XXXXX | |
2013 | 2.0 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PITCH | +167+ | |
2014 | 1.7 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PITCH | +178+ | |
2015 | 3.5 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PITCH | +058+ | |
2016 | -0.1 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PR | XXXXX | |
2016 | 1.0 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PITCH | XXXXX | |
2017 | 0.9 | Chris_Archer_TBA | PITCH | XXXXX | |
Total | 8.6 |
A very solid career and dependable starting pitcher. No bad years and his best season was 2015 where he was ranked in the top 100 at #58. Not the outstanding veteran that is John Lester but could shut down Cubs hitters today. Let’s look at lineups.
WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | PA | 07042017 |
---|---|---|---|---|
2.04 | Steven_Souza_TBA | RF | 335 | |
2.04 | Corey_Dickerson_TBA | LF | 348 | |
1.01 | Evan_Longoria_TBA | 3B | 360 | |
0.42 | Wilson_Ramos_TBA | C | 22 | |
-1.45 | Trevor_Plouffe_TOT | 1B | 221 | |
-0.92 | Tim_Beckham_TBA | 2B | 293 | |
-0.42 | Adeiny_Hechavarria_TOT | SS | 88 | |
-0.06 | Peter_Bourjos_TBA | CF | 93 | |
-0.04 | Chris_Archer_TBA | P | 2 | |
TOTAL | WAA=2.60 | PA=1762 | WinPct=0.528 |
They have two standout hitters at the top of the lineup.
WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | PA | 07042017 |
---|---|---|---|---|
-0.36 | Jon_Jay_CHN | LF | 181 | |
0.10 | Kris_Bryant_CHN | 3B | 338 | |
1.47 | Anthony_Rizzo_CHN | 1B | 363 | |
-1.05 | Ben_Zobrist_CHN | 2B | 221 | |
0.90 | Ian_Happ_CHN | CF | 177 | |
0.10 | Jason_Heyward_CHN | RF | 217 | |
0.73 | Willson_Contreras_CHN | C | 255 | |
0.21 | Addison_Russell_CHN | SS | 267 | |
-0.46 | Jon_Lester_CHN | P | 39 | |
TOTAL | WAA=1.66 | PA=2058 | WinPct=0.515 |
Cubs lineup a bit above average. Zobrist is back. Rizzo is the sole standout hitter. These WAA tabulations are season long value and don’t take into account short term trends. Zobrist could start anew and hit like he did last year as well as Bryant and Russell and the above WinPct will be wrong. Past results don’t affect future results. However, we only know what happened in the past and according to the above data, these two lineups are practically even steven.
Let’s look at relief.
TeamID | WAA | IP | WinPct | |
---|---|---|---|---|
TBA | -1.70 | 314.2 | 0.476 | |
CHN | 6.35 est |
289 est | 0.607 |
The Rays’ relief is underwater, the Cubs are still top tier MLB. We have to estimate because Mongomery’s starter value and starting innings pitched needs to come off the relief staff value. I have to do this manually for now.
tl;dr Cubs have a slight starter advantage and a big relief advantage. Relief only matters if the Cubs can knock their starter out of the game early. Lineups are about the same and the Cubs are getting a decent premium above home field advantage. The Cubs were way over valued in many of their previous home stands and it appears the market has corrected itself like markets always do.
The weekly State of the Cubs tomorrow and perhaps Iowa Cubs and Kyle Schwarber update the next day or day after. Until then….