The Payoff Pitch podcast MLB experts break down their favorite picks from the day's slate every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, including each analyst's favorite underdog on the slate, and they've got one more to recommend today.
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Cubs vs. Angels, 9:38 p.m. ET
Hayden Wesneski vs. Tyler Anderson
Sean Zerillo: Tyler Anderson should be an easy matchup for the Cubs considering he has a 3.3% strikeout minus walk rate this year and his xERA is at 5.
He signed a three-year, $39 million contract with the Angels this offseason after a career-best year with the Dodgers, for whom he had a 3.10 xERA and a 15% strikeout minus walk rate. So his strikeout minus walk rate, down 12%, was slightly above average last year but is now one of the worst in baseball, and his xERA has moved up by two full runs.
His velocity is down and his Stuff+ numbers are relatively the same, but it’s really just all location – he’s not commanding the ball well, struggling with his command, giving up a lot of walks, and batters aren’t chasing pitches outside of the zone.
The Cubs are also a good offensive matchup against him – they’re top 7 offense both against left-handed pitching and in drawing walks against left-handed starters.
I thought they would have some success against Blake Snell last night. They did for a minute in the first inning and then he kind of settled in, but I think Anderson should be a much more hittable, much easier matchup for them.
Speaking of the Cubs, starter Hayden Wesneski has a ceiling that is significantly higher. This is a guy who came up last year with really impressive Pitching+ numbers – above average Stuff, above average Location+. 2.18 xERA. This year, he’s taken a step back — xERA is I believe in the high 5s — but the Stuff+ and Location+ are still around average and showing some pretty encouraging underlying results.
So I still believe in Wesneski going forward. He’s got an incredible slider — he just doesn’t have anything else beyond that, and when the slider isn’t working, nothing's working. The Cubs down to +114 I think is a great bet, and I’m also looking to add their first five innings line as well – there’s some +110s out there, that’s probably the bottom end of where I’d bet it.
Anthony Dabbundo: Hayden Wesneski had a couple blowups. There was the famous Cubs vs. Mariners game at Wrigley with the wind blowing, which was a big issue. But what I like about him, and the reason why he dominated last year and part of year, is that his fastball has been absolutely ambushed – he’s gotten crushed on that pitch – but he has a sinker and cutter that he can use and that grade out better, and I think you’re going to see him just not going to throw fastballs anymore.
It's like the Josiah Gray approach where he just goes with the other fastball-type pitches and tries to cut the home runs that way, because the home runs were the big issue. He gave up over two home runs per nine innings and he got crushed for them. But you look at the track record and there aren’t a lot of home runs there.
Last year in Triple-A he was giving up 0.44 and in the major leagues last year 0.82 per nine. I don’t expect that to continue. So I actually like him much better as well. I think he beats the bat projection of 4.7 for the rest of the year.
And I don’t believe in Anderson, for all of the same reasons that Sean said. Also, the Cubs are bottom-eight in swing rate and chase rate, so they are patient. They’ll wait him out. Like Sean said, they walk a lot, they have good discipline, and I like them tonight.
