ALCS Game 6 tonight. No travel day due to the rain out. Let’s see what the odds makers are up to.
NYA HOU 10_19_8:08_PM
| WAA | Vegas | TC Sim | EV | L | S | R | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NYA | 44 | 0.444 | 0.473 | 106 | 4.00 | -0.22 | 3.18 |
| HOU | 52 | 0.574 | 0.527 | 92 | 4.00 | -0.26 | 3.28 |
TC Sim and Vegas pretty much in agreement. Home field advantage would move TC Sim even closer to Vegas.
| Starters | WAA | WinPct | IP | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chad_Green_NYA | 0.55 | 0.536 | 69.0 | -0.22 |
| Jose_Urquidy_HOU | 0.48 | 0.553 | 41.0 | -0.26 |
Update 1st inning: Brad Peacock started for HOU. This changed sometime after 4pm. Doesn’t affect TC Sim since Peacock and Urquidy are around equal in value this season.
Now this is interesting. Both of the above starters are listed as relievers which means both teams tonight are using what they call openers — a very recent managerial strategy. The opener gets the top of the lineup out early allowing the real starter to work the bottom part of the lineup first. Like closers and other relievers, openers can theoretically pitch many games in a row.
This causes a problem for the way TC Sim works in estimating probabilities. The dataset used for drawing numbers is based upon traditional starter value. The above shows two below average pitchers as starters. As relievers they are above average and add value to their team’s relief staff.
Not sure how Vegas is handling this but there are ways of estimating real starters and that is something which will need to be done. It doesn’t happen much now where it would poison the dataset but this strategy could become more ubiquitous in the future. This might be the first time it has been done in post season. Let’s look at the long form record of these two relievers starting tonight.
| Rank | WAA | IP | ERA | Gs | Gr | Name_TeamID | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XXXXX | 0.55 | 69.0 | 4.17 | 15 | 39 | Chad_Green_NYA | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.48 | 41.0 | 3.95 | 7 | 2 | Jose_Urquidy_HOU | PITCH |
Green started 15 games so Yankees have done this many times before. If you add Games Start (Gs) and Game Relief (Gr) ; Green pitched a little more than 1 inning per game appearance. It looks like Urquidy may have actually pitched in a traditional starting role for Astros. He’s almost 5 IP per game appearance. Maybe he could be considered a long opener or something like that. Urquidy started this season in AA.
| Year | Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | WinPct | League | Age | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | XXXXX | 0.48 | Jose_Urquidy_HOU | PITCH | XXX | mlb | ||
| 2019 | +078+ | 2.25 | Jose_Urquidy_HOU | PITCH | 0.732 | aaa | 24 | |
| 2019 | XXXXX | -0.32 | Jose_Urquidy_HOU | PITCH | 0.456 | aa | 24 |
Here are Starting rotations for both teams.
NYA Starters
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | IP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +149+ | 2.42 | James_Paxton_NYA | 150.7 | |
| XXXXX | 0.84 | Luis_Severino_NYA | 12.0 | |
| XXXXX | 0.25 | Masahiro_Tanaka_NYA | 182.0 | |
| Total | 3.51 | 0.546 |
Looks like both HOU and NYA went with 3 starters while WAS and SLN used 4. One would think a team would need at least 4 in a 7 game series. Severino pitched 4 days ago, Tanaka 2 days ago, and Paxton yesterday. Ruh roh for tomorrow.
HOU Starters
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | IP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +001+ | 9.70 | Justin_Verlander_HOU | 223.0 | |
| +002+ | 9.64 | Gerrit_Cole_HOU | 212.3 | |
| +009+ | 7.35 | Zack_Greinke_HOU | 208.7 | |
| Total | 26.69 | 0.686 |
Verlander pitched yesterday, Greinke two days ago, Cole 4 days ago. If Cole is the real starter tonight TC Sim will shift towards HOU significantly.
The opener concept needs more study. I haven’t seen the Cubs or any NL team Cubs played this season do this. AL teams may be doing this quite frequently however. Right now we have nothing in the code that detects this nor a way to estimate the real starter. More on this later.
NYA Lineup Today
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | PA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +035+ | 5.29 | DJ_LeMahieu_NYA | 2B-3B-1B | 655 |
| +172+ | 2.14 | Aaron_Judge_NYA | RF-DH | 447 |
| +062+ | 3.97 | Gleyber_Torres_NYA | SS-2B | 604 |
| XXXXX | 1.51 | Aaron_Hicks_NYA | CF | 255 |
| +043+ | 4.96 | Edwin_Encarnacion_NYA | 1B-DH | 486 |
| +142+ | 2.48 | Didi_Gregorius_NYA | SS | 344 |
| +104+ | 3.11 | Gary_Sanchez_NYA | CR-DH | 446 |
| +099+ | 3.17 | Gio_Urshela_NYA | 3B | 476 |
| +126+ | 2.65 | Brett_Gardner_NYA | CF-LF | 550 |
| Total | 29.28 | TIER=4.00 |
HOU Lineup Today
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | PA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +023+ | 6.17 | George_Springer_HOU | CF-RF-DH | 556 |
| +089+ | 3.34 | Jose_Altuve_HOU | 2B | 548 |
| +124+ | 2.67 | Michael_Brantley_HOU | LF-DH | 637 |
| +011+ | 7.22 | Alex_Bregman_HOU | 3B-SS | 690 |
| +052+ | 4.45 | Yuli_Gurriel_HOU | 1B-3B | 612 |
| +137+ | 2.54 | Carlos_Correa_HOU | SS | 321 |
| +042+ | 5.00 | Yordan_Alvarez_HOU | DH-LF | 369 |
| -133- | -2.08 | Martin_Maldonado_HOU | CR | 374 |
| -137- | -1.97 | Josh_Reddick_HOU | RF-LF | 550 |
| Total | 27.34 | TIER=4.00 |
That’s all for now. Until then ….