We have a typical 15-game slate of Major League Baseball betting matchups for Sunday with 14 day-games plus Sunday Night Baseball. We are here with the three plays we feel have the most betting value at the current MLB odds on offer from top online sportsbooks.
These value-bets are based mostly on our proprietary model, which points to a side in the Tigers vs. Angels matchup Sunday.
MLB Pick: Tigers ML (-104) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
Detroit Tigers vs. Los Angeles Angels
Sunday, June 30, 2024 – 04:07 PM ET at Angel Stadium
The Angels have taken the first three games of this four-game series in Anaheim, but we are looking for the Tigers to avoid the road sweep with Casey Mize taking on an overachieving Tyler Anderson.
Fraudulent ERA
Tyler Anderson has somehow managed to go 7-7 with a very deceiving 2.63 ERA despite very lacking peripherals. That starts with a 5.29 xFIP that is the worst in the Major Leagues among qualifying starters! As usual, the metrics support the xFIP much more than the ERA.
Tyler has one of the worst K/BB ratios you will see for a regular starter at 5.89/4.17 per nine innings while combining that with a modest 35.7% groundball rate. Yet he has been extremely lucky despite all the air contact and lack of strikeouts, with a low .225 BABIP allowed and a ridiculous strand rate of 86.6%. This is certainly not the profile of a pitcher with a sub-3.00 ERA, so look for that figure to skyrocket as the Luck stats normalize.
Much Better xFIP
Casey Mize is an ugly 1-6 with a 4.54 ERA, but the news is not all bad as he has pitched better than that given his 3.92 xFIP that is considerably better than Anderson’s. Mize has been on the opposite end of the Luck scale with his being mostly bad due to a very high .340 BABIP allowed and a modest 67.9% strand rate.
Casey does not blow anyone away either with a 6.87/9 strikeout rate, but he is generating a nice 47.6 groundball rate with his eclectic slider/splitter/sinker mix. And his two most often used of those three pitches are each rated highly in Stuff+, with the splitter at 113 and slider at 108. In fact, even his fastball has a Stuff+ of 109 despite the lack of strikeouts so far, suggesting a possible improvement in the K-rate going forward.
So, in short, Mize having the better xFIP is understandable and he has the potential to improve with a possible spike in strikeouts. Bet the Tigers to avoid the sweep in Anaheim.
The Pick
Predicted Score: Tigers 5 – Angels 3
MLB Pick: Tigers ML (-104) at Bovada
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
Calculators
