Jonah Keri: Seven compelling over/under lines for the 2019 MLB season

If you’re like me, you spend every waking minute from the end of the World Series to the following spring waiting for the annual release of the MLB Over/Unders. A sportsbook picks a win total for each of the 30 major-league teams, and it’s up to bettors to predict whether each team will go over or under that number.

Why do I get this excited about this event? First, because it’s fun. And second, because with the right amount of study and intuition, you can make lots of gummi bears studying the odds and placing your bet.

Normally, the first lines start appearing sometime in February. This year, out of nowhere, Caesars Entertainment dropped theirs in early January.

Funny thing about suddenly putting out over/under numbers far earlier than ever before, in the slowest-moving Hot Stove season since the advent of free agency: The potential risks, and rewards, grow exponentially.

Welcome to my eighth annual MLB Over/Unders column. Every year, I peruse the betting lines for all 30 teams, searching for attractive bets based on whether sportsbooks are overrating or underrating specific clubs. It’s a fun way to find teams to root for (or against), and a nifty way to make a few gummis.

I went 6-1 last year with my picks, including a perfect 4-0 on my best bets. That followed a 2017 campaign in which I went a perfect 7-0. In fact, the only pick I got wrong in the past two years was the same pick in which I went against the system (more on that system later).

Could the regression monster jump up and bite me this season? It sure could! Could at least one the two early wagers I made based on those January lines prove to be a dud, given the incomplete information we had on the state of free agency at the time? Boy howdy, yes.

Still, let’s see if we can keep the good times rolling. Here are seven compelling over/under lines for the 2019 season:

The Early Wagers

Philadelphia Phillies: Over 83

When Caesars published its lines on January 9, the Phillies had already acquired Jean Segura, Andrew McCutchen, and David Robertson, addressing three of the team’s biggest weaknesses. Still, owner John Middleton had earlier promised to spend “stupid” money to attract marquee talent.

A year ago, I picked the Phillies to crush their over/under number of 75 ½ wins, and “even hang around the fringes of this year’s wild-card race.” With Segura and McCutchen added to provide offense and also upgrade two of the weakest positions on what was the worst defense in the National League in 2018, along with Robertson coming in to augment the bullpen, that same sentiment applied, even if Middleton’s bluster would prove to be a whole lot of nothing.

It was a lot more than nothing. The Phillies reeled in J.T. Realmuto on February 7, nabbing the best all-around catcher in the game. As you may have heard, the Phillies then fired a 13-year, $330 million deal at Harper, making him the richest player in the history of the sport.

In a suddenly supercharged NL East, Philly now look like formidable contenders. At the very least, that over/under line of 83 wins now looks like a gift from the gods.

Chicago White Sox: Over 74.5

This one might not have the same happy ending. In early January the White Sox looked like co-favorites to land Manny Machado, making them an ahead-of-the-curve betting candidate similar to the Phillies. With Machado eventually landing in San Diego, the South Siders’ ploy to acquire Yonder Alonso, Jon Jay, and Machado’s mailman’s cousin didn’t pay off.

So was this a case of getting overzealous in predicting a big signing that never came? Yes, and maybe no.

Yes, Machado and Harper have signed elsewhere. But this is still a team with real upside compared to the 100-loss disaster of 2018. In Carlos Rodón, Reynaldo López, and Lucas Giolito, the Sox boast three starting pitchers 26 or younger with legitimate breakout potential. Yoan Moncada was rated the number-two prospect in all of baseball just two years ago, so his time could be coming soon too. Meanwhile, Eloy Jiménez owns the most major league-ready bat of any prospect not named Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and could instantly turbocharge an offense that finished 23rd in the majors last season by park-adjusted metrics (with pitcher hitting stripped out).

Add in their residence in the weakest division in baseball, and the Sox coming off the unluckiest results in baseball by cluster luck (a metric that looks at how fortunate teams are at scattering hits while pitching and clustering hits while hitting), and 75 wins are well within range, even after the attempted shopping spree in the luxury aisle went for naught.

The Non-Cheating Wagers

Cincinnati Reds: Over 77

Jumping on abnormally early betting lines to game a painfully slow Hot Stove season feels a little like cutting corners — even if the consensus projections that my betting buddy Adam Stein and I use currently peg those Phillies and White Sox wagers as going just 1-1 (FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus head the list of projection systems that feed this consensus number). If you’re reading this column now, early-January silliness won’t do you much good anyway.

Friends, let me introduce you to the Reds, my best bet for 2019 based on current, updated lines (from Caesars). At a time when more than half the league seems to be pocketing money by either tanking or just showing no interest in upgrading its talent, Cincinnati’s been one of this winter’s most aggressive clubs. A pitching staff that for years was woefully short on talent looks downright promising this season, thanks to the addition of Alex Wood, Tanner Roark, and Sonny Gray, the potential of Luis Castillo, and a revamped brain trust in the dugout. Yasiel Puig fortified an outfield that needed help, while Matt Kemp, Derek Dietrich, and José Iglesias transformed a previously moribund bench. Add in a crop of promising and just-about-ready prospects led by line-drive machine Nick Senzel, and the Reds could be this year’s most improved team.

The betting lines haven’t moved much on the Reds, with the book still predicting them solidly below .500 — about five wins below where the mean of the major projection systems have them. I cruised to victory last year taking the Reds under 73 ½ wins, and see another comfortable win this season banging the over on a slightly higher number.

Washington Nationals: Over 88.5

I admit, there was at least a smidge of Harper-related optimism baked into my Nats pick. But credit GM Mike Rizzo for somehow managing to lose a $330 million player, while still building a roster that could actually be stronger overall when the dust settles.

The Nationals splashed $140 million on top lefty Patrick Corbin, giving them a rotation top three in Corbin, Max Scherzer, and Stephen Strasburg that’s second to none. They bought low on Brian Dozier, one of my favorite candidates for a bounce-back season. They upgraded an ugly group of catchers with solid veterans Yan Gomes and Kurt Suzuki. And they fortified their bullpen by nabbing right-handers Trevor Rosenthal and Kyle Barraclough. Add in a full season for wunderkind Juan Soto and meaningful major-league playing time for fellow top outfield prospect Víctor Robles, and even with Harper in Philly you could make a case for the Nats as NL East favorites.

Don’t get discouraged by last season’s 82-win disappointment. The Nats scored 89 more runs than they allowed last season, but finished a miserable 18-24 in one-run games and 4-10 in extra innings; with 50th-percentile luck in close games, this was a team with 91-win talent in 2018. The consensus projection for the Nats this year takes a similar view, calling for 90 wins, even without Harper. I say they do a little better than that.

Milwaukee Brewers: Under 88.5

The only bet I missed last year was an over wager on the Twins. I liked their young talent, as well as the possibility of them feasting on 57 games against the awful Royals, Tigers, and White Sox. But the basic system I’ve followed for seven years depends on following the advice of the computer systems, not getting seduced by narratives. Discuss a Patrick Corbin signing or Yasiel Puig trade as a qualitative backstop to the projections, but let quantitative analysis carry the day.

So it is with this Brewers pick. On the surface, Milwaukee seems well positioned to win another NL Central title. The Crew won 96 games last season, then re-signed Mike Moustakas, added an excellent all-around catcher in Yasmani Grandal, and can now look forward to the return of erstwhile ace Jimmy Nelson. If I’m going to win this wager, the Brewers would need to win eight fewer games than they did last year. At first glance, finding a roadmap to that result doesn’t look easy.

But here’s the thing: stuff happens. Defense can regress as surely as pitching and hitting can, and any reasonable analyst would figure a pullback for a team that saved 116 more runs with their gloves than league average last season, second-best in all of baseball. Whether that happens because either Travis Shaw or Mike Moustakas is going to play more second base than he should, or because all-world defender Lorenzo Cain pulls a hammy, or a reformatted bench loses a key defensive piece like Keon Broxton, or simple randomness occurs, the Brewers could easily lose five or six more games this season on defensive regression alone.

The same goes for the rest of the roster. Can we bank on the Brewers’ bullpen devouring planets all season long for a second straight season? Does Nelson’s return make up for the departure of 2018 mega-surprise Wade Miley? Does Jhoulys Chacin (Jhoulys Chacin!) gobble up as many innings and prevent as many runs as he did a year ago?

The 2018 Brewers were a very good team that probably slotted in around the 95th-percentile in terms of things going their way. A handful of injuries, bad hops, and attacks from luck dragons could make a still very good team a fair bit less successful on the field.

The Bonus Wagers

Chicago Cubs: Under 93

This is the biggest gap between betting line and projection systems’ consensus, and I’m not entirely buying it. Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA system came out so bearish on the Cubs (80-82!) that the North Siders have hilariously made the number spit out by an algorithm a rallying cry for their 2019 season. PECOTA sees a huge defensive pullback for the Cubs; unlike with the Brewers, it’s hard to see how or why that big a regression might transpire.

Under the category of two seemingly opposing thoughts can be true at the same time, I think PECOTA’s too harsh on the Cubs, but I also don’t think Chicago gets to 93 wins this year. This is a team that’s Exhibit A in the players’ union’s case against mega-revenue teams indifferently riding out an offseason, instead of trying to improve the product on the field. No run at stars like Harper and Machado. No interest in calling Jason Heyward a sunk cost and finding a corner outfielder who can actually field and hit. No obvious plan other than to stick to the belief that the underachieving players on last year’s squad will rebound. No considering the strength of a Brewers team that knocked them off their perch last year, nor the significant upgrades made by the Cardinals and Reds, making the NL Central an absolute bear for 2019.

Ninety-three wins, under those circumstances? Also a no.

Oakland A’s: Under 85.5

My two-year streak of picking Oakland over Vegas’s number ends now that the books are treating the A’s like viable contenders. As great as the A’s were at overcoming a decimated rotation last season, we can’t expect that kind of resilience to become the norm, no matter how smart a team might be.

If it wasn’t for my steadfast belief that Jurickson Profar is about to become a star, this would be one of my best bets, supported by the projection systems pegging a spot-on .500 season. As is, enjoy another year of A’s hitters launching bombs at a breakneck pace, with Oakland’s rotation sadly giving up long balls (and losing winnable games) just as frequently.

(Photo of Grandal: Joe Camporeale / USA TODAY Sports)