I'm choosing to fade some pretty potent offenses with my trio of NRFI picks this Tuesday evening because I believe in the approach of the opposing pitchers.
I've selected starting pitchers who mostly excel at avoiding barreled balls, which result in a lower percentage of hard-hit contact. I've also targeted pitchers who are among the best in the league at inducing ground balls, which I've started to identify and weigh more heavily as of late to avoid the long ball. Each game features a team in the top 10 in terms of NRFI success rate (Marlins No. 1, Twins No. 4, Rangers No. 8), and four of the six have an NRFI success rate of at least 50%.
Here are my best NRFI bets for Tuesday, Sept. 5:
Tuesday’s Best No Runs First Inning (NRFI) Bets
2023 NRFI (46-40, -2.01 Units)
Minnesota Twins vs. Cleveland Guardians
Pitching Matchup: Tanner Bibee vs. Sonny Gray
Rookie RHP Tanner Bibee will get the start for Cleveland tonight, hoping to continue what has been an excellent first year. His 3.03 ERA is outstanding, and his 3.64 xERA still puts him in the top 30% of all pitchers. His best asset has been his ability to miss barrels, reflected by his barrel% sitting in the 78th percentile, which has led to a hard hit% and xBA that are both above the 60th percentile. He'll benefit from pitching at home tonight, where his ERA is a full 1.90 runs lower than it is in his road starts. This is likely a result of Progressive Field ranking bottom-10 in home run rate and sixth-worst overall in offensive ballpark factors since 2021 via Statcast.
The Twins will send veteran RHP Sonny Gray, who is having a really nice season of his own. Gray's xERA of 3.72 is very comparable to that of Bibee, though his actual ERA is even better at 2.92. Like Bibee, Gray has also excelled at avoiding barrels, as his barrel% of 6.5% puts him in the 74th percentile. Gray has also been a ground ball machine, getting batters to hit the ball on the ground nearly half the time they make contact, which is good for the 78th percentile. Gray will face one of the worst offenses in the MLB in the Guardians, who rank dead-last in HR by a pretty wide margin, along with ranking bottom-10 in OBP, OPS and SLG.
Bet: NRFI (-120 via DraftKings Sportsbook)
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Miami Marlins
Pitching Matchup: Clayton Kershaw vs. Jesus Luzardo
The Dodgers have been a team that hasn't frequented these articles very often due to their offensive potency, which speaks pretty highly of Marlins SP Jesus Luzardo tonight. Luzardo is one of the hardest-throwing lefties in the game, which has been a big contributor to his ability to get batters to swing and miss. Luzardo ranks in the 76th percentile in chase rate, the 82nd percentile in K% and the 86th percentile in whiff%. He's not prone to walking batters, either, as his 7.1% walk rate is among the top third in the league. Though the Dodgers offense is among the best in the league, they do hit 0.013 worse against lefties, and similar to Tanner Bibee, Luzardo's ERA is over a full run lower in his home starts vs. his road starts.
On the other mound, the ageless Clayton Kershaw will get the ball amid yet another Cy Young-caliber season on the tail end of a Hall-of-Fame career. Kershaw's 2.48 ERA and 1.02 WHIP are just silly, and his 75th percentile xERA of 3.65 tells me that is really hasn't been flukey. He's been able to avoid hard contact, illustrated by his 62nd percentile hard hit%, 65th percentile average exit velo and 67th percentile xBA. He's also been able to get the swing and miss, evident by his 66th percentile whiff%, 75th percentile K% and 84th percentile chase rate. His walk rate puts him in the top quartile of all pitchers, and his ground ball rate of 47.3% is also among the top 25%. Though Luis Arraez has been a hitting machine this year, as a team the Marlins rank 19th or worse in OBP, OPS and SLG, while ranking third-to-last in all of baseball in HR.
Bet: NRFI (-113 via FanDuel Sportsbook)
Houston Astros vs. Texas Rangers
Pitching Matchup: Framber Valdez vs. Nathan Eovaldi
Nathan Eovaldi has been Cy Young-caliber good this year when healthy, which is reflected in his 2.69 ERA and 1.01 WHIP. His 3.51 xERA is good for the 76th percentile, and like most of the aforementioned pitchers, Eovaldi has done a great job at avoiding barrels. His barrel% of 7% sits in the 66th percentile, which has helped him to an xBA in the 68th percentile and an average exit velo in the 70th percentile. When batters do make solid contact off Eovaldi, it's not doing much damage, as his ground ball rate is among the best in the game at the 88th percentile. His walk rate is among the top 1/3 of all pitchers, and he'll benefit from facing the Astros in their demonstrably worse hitting splits, as they fare much worse against RHP than they do LHP.
The last pitcher to be highlighted in this article will be Astros LHP Framber Valdez, who has put together yet another solid season as the top of the Astros rotation with a 3.38 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. Valdez defies most of the metrics that I look for when selecting my NRFI spots. That's because he's been one of the best (if not the best) at getting batters to hit the ball on the ground throughout his career. This year, he ranks in the 92nd percentile in that category at 55.6%, which is huge for him considering his average exit velo and hard hit% are actually among the worst in the game. He also doesn't allow the free pass, as his 6.3% walk rate puts him in the 81st percentile. If you can avoid walking batters and keep the ball out of the air, you can have major success in the Big Leagues. Valdez has been the poster child for that prototype since he entered the Bigs.
Bet: NRFI (+100 via Bet365)
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