Buster Olney: Picking best bets in 2020 MLB over/under win totals
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TAMPA, Fla. -- When the guy in your office fantasy football league picks a kicker in the second round, there aren't any serious ramifications. Yes, his entry fee is sacrificed, and in every draft thereafter, there is a small price of shame when somebody brings up that big mistake to great laughter. But really, no big deal.
When casinos project win totals for teams, however, setting over/unders, there could be major ramifications, so you assume they're working from strong information. Unlike that guy who jumped on Justin Tucker many rounds too early.
This is why it's a fun annual exercise to dig through the over/unders and wonder: What do they know that we don't? Or what don't they know? Like last year, when some of the initial lines on the Orioles were set at 59½ wins -- after Baltimore went 47-115 in 2018, and months after they had traded Manny Machado and slashed their payroll to the exoskeleton. The idea that the Orioles' win total would climb by 13 after the team did absolutely nothing to get better, especially in the highly competitive AL East, seemed very far-fetched -- and sure enough, Baltimore fell well short of that figure, winning only 54 games.
What about 2020? I can't bet and I don't bet, but here are some over/unders from Caesars that look really interesting.
Arizona Diamondbacks: 84½ wins. I'd jump on the over. Mike Hazen and his staff completed the heavy lifting on a lot of financial restructuring in 2019 -- after dealing Paul Goldschmidt, they swapped Zack Greinke to the Astros -- and Arizona still won 85 games. With their payroll in order, the Diamondbacks added this offseason, spending big on Madison Bumgarner, trading for Starling Marte (which allows them to shift Ketel Marte back to second base) and signing Kole Calhoun. The two big X factors are Zac Gallen, who was excellent in 15 starts in his rookie season, posting a 2.81 ERA, and veteran left-hander Robbie Ray. This club has the look of a 90- to 92-win team that competes for the No. 1 wild-card spot.
Minnesota Twins: 92½ wins. I'd be very comfortable taking the over, albeit without the same level of enthusiasm as the D-backs bet. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros and New York Yankees were superpowers last year, but the Twins won 101 games last year and set a record for home runs. And this winter, they added third baseman Josh Donaldson, who brings even more power and depth to the lineup. There are questions about the rotation, for sure, but there were last year too, and with Derek Falvey, Thad Levine and Rocco Baldelli, the Twins' leadership is proving to be very good at problem-solving. The AL Central will be more competitive this year, with the White Sox making a push and the Royals' young pitchers maturing, but Minnesota should hammer its way to a lot of wins.
Detroit Tigers: 57½ wins. I'd comfortably take the under, working off the same premise that applied to the Orioles last year: Why would this team, which went 47-114 last season, be 11 wins better in 2020? The division is more competitive, and the Tigers, in the midst of a rebuild, haven't made any significant acquisitions. They traded their best hitter, Nicholas Castellanos, in the midst of last season, and haven't really replaced him. Miguel Cabrera had a rough year in '19, and with the future Hall of Famer turning 37 in April, there's no reason to believe he's going to be better as he ages. And if some of the free agents signed by the Tigers hit well in the first half, Detroit should (and probably would) capitalize on its trade value and deal them by the July 31 deadline.
Cleveland Indians: 86½ wins. I'd take the over. Indians fans have been conditioned to anticipate the departure of yet another star as the front office manages its modest payroll. Trevor Bauer was traded last summer, Corey Kluber was dealt earlier this offseason, and folks in other front offices believe that Francisco Lindor is going to be traded by July 31. But you know what? Since Terry Francona took over, the Indians have won a lot of games, year after year after year.
In only two of the past seven seasons have the Indians compiled fewer than 87 wins, and it's not as if they suffered big losses from last year's 93-win team; Kluber was hurt most of the year and Bauer was inconsistent. Meanwhile, Mike Clevinger and Shane Bieber are two of the AL's best young starting pitchers, and the Indians will probably have Lindor for much of the season, before the front office has to make a hard choice. The everyday lineup may well be better that it was last year.
The emergence of the Twins and the Chicago White Sox will complicate the Indians' effort to reach the postseason, but in a really polarized American League, Cleveland should win a lot of games.
Elsewhere around the major leagues
• There's so much at stake for the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox in the potential Mookie Betts swap that you would assume that some way, somehow, the two sides will find a way to push the negotiations across the finish line. The Red Sox probably have too few avenues to offload tens of millions of dollars of salary in the way they can by attaching David Price's contract to Betts, and the Dodgers could really use the emotional jolt after a devastating playoff loss in 2019.
But the longer this takes to finish, anxiety within the Boston leadership seems to be building. At the time that elements of the deal were first reported, a rival executive noted that Derek Falvey, who leads the Twins' baseball operations, has a deep understanding of pitching, and in this exec's eyes, if Falvey is willing to give up Brusdar Graterol, the hardest thrower in the minors, then there must be some doubt about him. The Red Sox might have some concern about that, or Graterol's medical history. Or perhaps it's the natural revulsion some of their fans feel about trading Betts, one of the best players in the game. Or the word going around that Alex Verdugo, the big piece that the Red Sox would get, hasn't been a perfect teammate.
But multiple evaluators with other clubs believe that Boston's end of the proposed deal is pretty good -- adding in the savings on Price's contract, close to $50 million of the $96 million remaining. Price is 34 and pitching with some kind of mitigating condition in his elbow.
"What you have to ask yourself is, what would Price get if he was a free agent today?" said one official. Some estimates on that ranged from one year at $12 million, to $18 million over two years.
If the Betts deal with the Dodgers falls apart, then the Red Sox will be faced with exactly the same quandaries they've had all winter. If you start the season with Betts on the roster and the team is on the fringe of the wild-card contention in July, do you run the risk of angering the fan base even more by dealing him in the middle of a playoff race? Do you run the risk of retaining him and then seeing him walk away for almost nothing when he becomes a free agent next fall? And what do you do with the expensive group of starting pitchers -- Price, Nathan Eovaldi, Chris Sale -- if they struggle in the first half or break down? There are just not going to be a lot of opportunities for the Red Sox to trim their payroll in a meaningful way.
• The biggest question in Yankees camp is who will emerge in the competition for the No. 5 spot in the rotation, given that New York is already down two starting pitchers. Domingo German will serve the rest of his 81-game suspension into early June, under baseball's domestic violence policy, and James Paxton is out for the next few months following back surgery. So Aaron Boone will have to identify a starter to fill out the last spot behind Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ, with Jordan Montgomery, Michael King and Luis Cessa among those who will compete this spring.
• The Padres continue to load up on their bullpen, adding veteran Emilio Pagan to what could be an excellent relief corps: closer Kirby Yates in front of Drew Pomeranz, Craig Stammen and others. As the 2019 Mets can attest, bullpen performance can be so volatile that expected excellence can turn into disaster quickly, but on paper, San Diego might have the best group of relievers in the NL West, as the Padres try to close the gap with the Dodgers.
The Padres were smart to dealManuel Margot now, because it's possible that with another lackluster offensive performance in 2020, his trade value would have evaporated almost entirely as he climbs the arbitration ladder. Margot, 25, will make $2.48 million this year, after his first pass through arbitration.
• Presumably, the Rays will do with Margot what the Rays always do -- present specific information to the player about possible adjustments that will help him. The Rays will play a lot of games with what will be baseball's best defensive outfield: Kevin Kiermaier in center, flanked by Margot and Renfroe on the corners.
• We keep waiting for someone with the Astros to completely own the sign-stealing operation, to be totally transparent and honest about what happened. On the day Jim Crane fired Jeff Luhnow and AJ Hinch, Crane was asked whether the scandal affected the legacy of the team's accomplishments of 2017, and he said no. The other day, in an interview on MLB Network, Hinch was asked a similar question and demurred, responding that everyone has to draw their own conclusion.
The correct answer is, of course the sign stealing affects the legacy and taints what happened in the 2017 World Series. When the 1919 World Series is brought up, the team that beat the White Sox, the Cincinnati Reds, is almost an afterthought. What history highlights is the fact that Chicago players conspired with gamblers and tried to lose. And what will be remembered about the Astros' run through the 2017 World Series is that Houston had a competitive advantage, day after day after day, by breaking the rules about the use of technology. "How could it not be tainted?" one rival executive asked incredulously, after hearing Hinch's non-answer on the subject.
Of course it damaged the sport and its competitive integrity.
Hinch apologized for what he did and acknowledged that this happened on his watch. But it should be remembered that this was not just an isolated moment of wrongdoing. Where Hinch stood in the dugout for home games was about 30 feet from the infamous trash can; yes, he heard the banging, loud and clear, game after game, day after day.
Despite his stated reservations about the whole thing, he said nothing to the players or his staff to stop it throughout the 2017 season; he expressed no concerns or remorse throughout the 2018 postseason as MLB investigated the Astros' placement of a spy next to the Cleveland and Boston dugouts; and he had the temerity to publicly mock the Yankees after they complained (again) to Major League Baseball about concerns over whistling coming from the Houston dugout. His only apparent contrition, after years of accumulated knowledge, came after Mike Fiers spoke up to The Athletic.
And the whole Hinch interview had a weird vibe, as if the league is working with Hinch -- who is smart, capable, eminently likable -- to rehabilitate his image for his eventual return to work. MLB has strongly discouraged staffers from speaking publicly on the sign stealing, yet it provided Hinch an hourlong platform on its network, replayed over and over.
The rehab of the Houston staffers seemed to begin with commissioner Rob Manfred's report itself, which included the lines: "[T]he 2017 scheme in which players banged on a trash can was, with the exception of [Alex] Cora, player-driven and player-executed. The attempt by the Astros' replay review room staff to decode signs using the center-field camera was originated and executed by lower-level baseball operations employees working in conjunction with Astros players and Cora."
Which seems a really unusual conclusion, given that MLB had obtained front office emails sent to general manager Jeff Luhnow, which was revealed in a story published by The Wall Street Journal on Friday -- emails he said he didn't read all the way through despite the dark euphemisms attached to the concepts. The investigators concluded that they couldn't absolutely prove that he had read the emails, so the emails were omitted from the final report. But it would seem to be just as impossible to say, with certainty, that the 2017 scheme was entirely player-driven, player-executed, with Cora as the only staffer involved.
When asked about Fiers, Hinch said, in so many words, that he hadn't really talked to Fiers, which seemed like an odd answer for someone expressing remorse and regret. A better and more contrite answer would have been: I understand Mike's decision to speak up because I felt the same pangs of guilt, and I fully support him.
When Hinch was asked about the buzzer system allegedly used by the 2019 Astros, he could've given an easy yes or no. Instead, he gave a very lawyerly answer, saying he believed the findings of the commissioner's investigation, effectively declining to say yes or no.
Regarding that non-answer, it has been asked that, with Manfred's report not finding anything to it, don't we at some point have to believe what those in charge are telling us?
The answer to that for fans and media is: No. Absolutely not.
Because there's been so much muddying of the waters, so much lying and so little personal accountability, we don't know what -- or who -- to believe. It doesn't feel like anyone involved in this has been completely transparent. For an industry that requires the trust of fans as they decide whether to make emotional and financial investment in the sport, this could be an enormous problem.
Manfred hinted the other day that he'll announce new technology guidelines in the near future.
It would be a good time to streamline the process and cut-and-paste these words: "No player who illicitly uses technology to gain an advantage in a ballgame; no player who undertakes or intends to illicitly use technology to win a ballgame; no player who sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players aiming to illicitly use technology will ever play professional baseball."
And Manfred can order that these words, many borrowed from Kenesaw Mountain Landis' ruling about the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, be posted on every clubhouse door and at the mouth of every dugout. Add, in boldface: "If you cheat, you'll be banned for life."
That penalty will sufficiently discourage Dark Arts, Codebreaker or any other scheme and perhaps prevent Major League Baseball from being dragged through an episode like this again.
i looked up the twins and believe it or not they underperformed in wins vs. their hitting/pitching....... i agree though on good chance for regression.
last year i believe you can just do well picking the 2019 win totals that are "out of line" with 2018's actual wins... maybe watch out the extremes. boston was a huge under-performer. anyway, common sense seems to work well
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