Welcome to the inaugural postseason of this article series. In this article series, I am going to break down each playoff game on the slate based purely on pitch profile match-ups. The goal of this series is to locate the gems for our smaller slate/single-game slate contests that can provide an edge and lead us to some GPP takedowns! My name is Eric aka @Razzle11Grinds on Twitter, make sure to give me a follow as I’ll occasionally make updates to the advice in the article out on Twitter as well as inside our coaching forums. With that said, let’s get it started!
Editor’s Note – Did you know sportsbetting is taking over?! MLB, NFL, and NBA have crazy options these days, and the public makes mistakes!! Our dynamic modeling over at SportsBetArmy adjusts in real time to help identify Vegas inaccuracies you can exploit. Follow Ryan, Anthony, and Statsational for models and coaching advice that help you build any bankroll for any sport…
Before I get started. Let’s take a look at the colors that you will see below. When you see numbers highlighted in red, they are numbers that benefit the pitcher. Numbers highlighted in blue are ones that benefit the hitter, while the ones that are left white are in a middling range that might give a very slight edge to the hitters.
Tampa Bay Rays @ Los Angeles Dodgers
Welcome to the LAST series of the MLB season, THE World Series! We get the teams who were the best in their respective leagues this season, facing off for the championship. Clayton Kershaw takes the mound for the Dodgers as a -162 favorite. For the Rays, we get Tyler Glasnow and the total is sitting at just 8 runs.
The Rays bats struck out more than anybody in baseball this season. That is going to give Kershaw some pretty nice upside here, especially as a -170 favorite. When we look at the image, we see that there are guys like Brosseau and Arozarena with very small or non-existent samples. Brosseau mashed against LHPs during the season and Arozarena has just mashed all postseason. Yandy Diaz has an interesting profile match here but I do worry that he hits SO many groundballs. Renfroe has an HR and a lot of walks against Kershaw in his career and has a decent match-up. One guy that I want to point out is Brandon Lowe. Lowe has a decent match as he hits sliders really well and is neutral to plus against fastballs.
The key for Kershaw will be his off-speed usage, especially to Arozarena. His fastball is nothing special at this point in his career so he HAS to throw strikes, especially with his curveball. The bottom of the lineup is going to be get-able for Kershaw in this match-up.
We know that Glasnow has a HUGE fastball as he touched 101 multiple times in his most recent start. We see quite a bit of blue above as the Dodgers have destroyed fastballs all season long. Once again, we see that Cody Bellinger has a BEAUTIFUL pitch profile match-up. Will Smith is right behind and my preferred route between the two (Glasnow has been smacked by RHBs in the postseason). I am always going to be on Mookie Betts and Corey Seager is probably hotter than Arozarena is at this point. Sneaky matchup wise, I really like Pollock and Pederson but I do think that Pederson is higher owned on DK due to his price point.
Glasnow NEEDS to fix his command as he has been erratic over the last couple of appearances. His fastball has been dangerous but he hasn’t been able to throw his slider-curve for strikes. We know the Dodgers are elite at hitting fastballs so he HAS to find a way to get outs with his other offerings.
There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the debut of the Pitch Profile Breakdown article! If you have any questions make sure you tag me in the chat. We can discuss thoughts on individual match-ups! As you can see, there are paths to success for each team playing today!