 This is Covering The Spread. Here are your hosts, Jim Sonnis and Dr. Ed Fang. What is going on everybody? Welcome on into Covering The Spread. That's right here on the Fanduel Podcast Network and Numberfire.com as we are finally talking some baseball, breaking down player award betting and also some win totals with Joe Ostrowski of 670 the score and You Better You Bet. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com joined here as always by Ed Fang. You can find his work over at thepowerank.com. Ed, how are things going today? Things are awesome, man. College basketball is heating up. Got to see an excellent wilder fury fight. Maybe when it wasn't an excellent, but it was an experience watching the fight. So I'm doing fantastic. And that fight was Saturday night. I will always be very upfront with our listeners and tell you when I don't know diddly squat about something. I don't know diddly squat about boxing. So break this thing down for me. What was going on there? So I'm I'm I would say like a casual, passionate boxing fan. I'm like that phrasing. Yeah, you know, I know exactly what you mean. That's why I like that phrasing. Well, maybe I should be a little more specific. Like I'm not always reading about boxing, following it all the time. But when there's a big fight, I'm definitely excited about it. And I think before the fight on Saturday night, if you would ask me why I'm a boxing fan, I would have told you something like, oh, well, I it's very similar to marathon running for me where there's like four months of prep for like one huge day. It's kind of, you know, a very solitary endeavor. And then I really like the like the brains behind it. I know that sounds kind of a little weird, but like I'm a big fan of Floyd Mayweather. I just his intelligence and the way he fights. And I really don't like it when they say Floyd is boring because he's a defensive fighter in the same way that I don't like people complaining about that nine six Alabama LSU game. That was awesome football, right? Like it's just it's just the way it is. But then this fight happened on Saturday night and Tyson Fury is six nine 270 pounds. And he is what we call non chiseled or maybe chubby. I mean, he's not a specimen at all, but for a guy to be that big and to have such quick hands and to be such a good boxer was just it was just an extraordinary experience to watch. Deontay Wilder is is pretty much smaller. He's considered, you know, he's a puncher. He's he's he's only not knocked out his guy once, I guess twice in however many matches that that he is fought, but Tyson Fury was the better boxer. He he was just so fast. He really dominated the the match, which I think would some people say it wasn't. You know, it wasn't necessarily a good fight because it was so one sided, which was interesting because the betting odds were even when I checked on Saturday afternoon. But the better boxer won. And at the end of it, he starts singing American Pie. So you kind of got to think about it this way. Like there hasn't for me. There hasn't been this combination of size, agility and charisma since Shaquille O'Neal. Yeah, like this guy's just like like a living hero. It was kind of unbelievable. That's awesome. And then the last thing I'll say is like, you know, like he is legitimately chubby. Deontay Wilder is ripped and Fury just was amazing in a ring. And it just makes me think like with the NFL Combine coming this week, you know, how many chubby guys are kind of going to slip through the Combine and and and have their stock fall for no particularly good reason, right? Right. I think it's also pertinent with all the Zion Williams and discourse that has occurred, like talking about his weight. And I'm like, if you watch him play, I don't feel like it's that big of a concern personally. Like, yeah, I don't do it playing really well. Who cares? Yeah. I mean, he's he's always been 285, right? Like it's not, you know, like, I mean, maybe he got injured once, but like that's not also like when you look at him, like I can see the rippling muscles on his arms. I'm like, cool. Do you, dude? If this is this is the way you're going to be built. Awesome. I love it. You're a fun basketball player to watch. So I'm not going to argue with it. Do you feel like Tyson Fury kind of gets shorted because of the aesthetics, I guess. I think so. I mean, seriously, it was even odds and like, you know, like before, you know, I didn't really understand before the fight that Fury was a better boxer. That was kind of clear, just just watching it. But then, you know, you talk to people after it and it was like, yeah. But yeah, I think I think you do. I think oftentimes in my very like, you know, like I said, I'm not I'm not always following boxing, but it does seem to me that punchers tend to get the benefit of the doubt. And boxers don't. It's interesting. And Floyd Mayweather was was a boxer. He was right. He was like, you know, one of the smartest people on the planet, you know, everyone's trying to kill him. And he got hit hard, maybe twice in his entire career. Right. Yeah, just really I enjoy the brains and the art behind that. And that's a lot of my draw towards NASCAR, too, is that there is a lot of strategy involved. And I once you know the sport, well enough to know the strategy as you have with boxing, it makes the sport a lot more fun to watch. So I can get that like on the flip side is rugby. I freaking love watching rugby. Like I go to the gym on Saturday mornings. I always have rugby on on the TVs when I'm like on the bike or whatever. And like I can watch rugby all day long, but I don't know what's happening. So I can't fall in love with it. Right. So the knowledge of the sport is a huge driver of like the engagement and the enjoyment around it, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. We know plenty of baseball, as does Joe Strauss. He's we're going to bring him in here in a little bit. Find Joe on Twitter at Joe 670 for 670. The score he is a host there. He is also one you better you bet. We're in talk and they'll be preseason player props talk. MVP and Cy Young voting also talk some win totals with Joe and get his thoughts on all of those. Make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread, wherever you listen to your podcast, whether it be Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, the Google Play Store, I Heart Radio. We are all of those places. And if it is available to you, please leave a rating interview as well. Before we talk some baseball, though, got to look back at last week because we talked some golf here on the podcast because we're covering all sports here in the off season. And thankfully we legitimize that because Patrick Reed came through covering the past. All right, so last week on Cover in the Future, I wanted to talk some golf because I felt like I had over indulged with talking NASCAR the past couple of weeks. So wanted to change things up and talk some golf. And I wanted Patrick Reed to win the WGC Mexico at 41 to one and he got the win. And I had also discussed considering him at 29 to 1 to win to get the top guys like DJ, Rory, JT out of the discussion. Check that box too. And that was partially a hedge, but it was also process-based because I thought Rory was going to win. And I liked Rory a lot. And I kind of wanted him out of the picture. But even getting Reed at 29 to one in that department is still pretty good, I think. The thought process for me in landing on Patrick Reed was finding an objectively good golfer whose odds were too long. And Reed fit that perfectly. He was a well-rounded golfer with not a lot of holes in his game. I wanted that in a very tough field and he was getting good finishes ever since last summer. His stats really good to back that up. And he probably had that into a win. So not a lot else to say, but definitely it feels good to get a big win under our belt after also having a solid day tone of 500 the week before. So we're getting a little bit of momentum here, Adam. Feeling pretty good as we get into these non-football months. Need a little bit of steam. And I feel like we're heading in the right direction here. Yeah, excellent, man. It's how soon 29 to one works out. Yeah, absolutely. So hopefully you decided to go with the outright instead of that one at 41 to one. He was 45 at some other books too. But thank you, Patrick Reed, for making this feel better here at Covering the Spread. If you want to bet Patrick Reed or get it on the action yourself, check out the Fandall Sportsbook and place your first bet today. If you lose, Fandall will give you a refund of up to $500 in psych credit. Visit sportsbook.fandall.com for more details, terms and conditions apply. Must be 21 plus and physically present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Indiana. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Let's bring on Joe Ostrowski now to break down some MLB win totals and player props for the 2020 season, because baseball season is just around the corner. Find Joe on Twitter at JoeO670. Covering the present. Let's bring Joe Ostrowski back into Covering the Spread. Joe, happy spring training to you. How are you doing today? Yeah, we still have to wait a little bit for baseball to get going. And there's a lot of people in Chicago. We can't even get any Cubs games because they have some issues to work out with their brand new network. But you feel better when you start here in that pop of the mitt. And what's happening around the corner if your winter sports are just failing miserably like they are here in Chicago with the Bulls. Not that you can relate to that, right? No, yeah, exactly, exactly. Thank you guys again for having me on. Always enjoy our conversations. And I do have to say, when I listen to the podcast, I fall in love every time when I hear that woman's voice say, Jim Sonnis and Dr. Ed Faye. I have no idea who she is, but I love her. She's from Fiverr. So if you ever need work, I can hook you up. I can let you know where we found this. I think it was a solid $5. So, you know, we're really pumping out the big budget for covering the spread, Joe. Was that a tough process? And when you were nailing down everyone who tried out? It was so easy. Like, honestly, that was the easiest part of setting up a podcast was getting the voice over. The only thing that was weird is like, my last name sucks. And like, I never know how to write it out phonetically so that someone else who doesn't know what I'm trying to, like, I can write out every other name phonetically except for my own. And so it's like, that's the frustrating part, but that's not on them. That's on me. So it's actually a very easy process. And I was super happy with it. But if you ever need a hookup, let me know. And I can absolutely arrange some things there for sure. And I think it's also just a nice release to talk baseball too outside of bad winter sports because I'm a Timberwolves fan. I can fully relate to all this. I want to get out of winter sports too, but it's also nice because we have a lot of inflection points from a betting perspective that are even happening in pretty soon, which makes, you know, these longer season long props pretty advantageous. The problem, Joe, is that these things don't pay out until late September for win totals, player award props don't pay out until November, even after the World Series. So it's a long time, dad, that bankroll tied up. How much do you have to love a number in order to actually pull the trigger and bet a season long bet of any kind, given how long that money will not be at your disposal? Yeah, and some of those futures bets that you just referred to, Jim, I look at them very differently. I put the win totals in one box and then some of your player props, like your awards in a completely different box, because when we talk about the win total, since the three of us are in the media side, what, I love talking about win totals, but am I absolutely hammering these win totals? No, I think they're great conversation pieces. Okay, this is what some of the sports books think is going to happen this upcoming season versus Picota and some of the other projections. Here's where fan graphs have them. Davenport, in fact, I was going over, I didn't take a deep dive yet into this at some of these win totals, but just looking back last year, because people go nuts, there's always that overreaction with Picota. Now, sometimes I'll bet on that overreaction if it's extreme, and last year, the overs in Picota, they went five and 10. So that's something I'm going to take a longer look at, and on fan graphs, the unders ended up going 12 and six, but honestly, do I bet these win totals much? No, not at all, but there is value, I think, in some of these other awards where they're talking about the MVP in Cy Young, Rookie of the Year. I know we're going to go over all of this stuff. In 2018, I was lucky enough to hit Mookie Betts at 25 to one right as the season was starting. Also that year, I had a run. It was a good run for a while, but Javi Baez at 50 to one was a loser in the last couple of weeks because Christian Yelich was just going off. But just looking back at last year, like, yeah, of course, Trout stayed healthy most of the season, so he's going to be your MVP. He was even money, no value there. But Bellinger, at the start of the season, he was 30 to one in the Cy Young Award, Verlander 12 to one, DeGrom, he was one of the top names at seven to two, but Jordan Alvarez, man, he was 200 to one at the start of the season. In fact, he had three teammates, three teammates who had lower odds, Forest Whitley, Joshua James, and Kyle Tucker, and Peter Lanzo, six to one. If you look at the home run market, guys, 53 by Peter Lanzo, we know that. He was 100 to one last year. So when we talk about some of the MVP Cy Young home run leaders, Rookie of the Year, I think there's a lot of value there, not as much in the win totals and just tying your money up for nine, 10 months. I'm not a fan of that at all. Is the difference for you, the fact that you can kind of hit a big one? Like you had a Lamar Jackson ticket this year, right? Yeah. So like, it's the fact that you can hit a big one, you're more okay tying a bank roll for a long time with a payoff as at large. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I was lucky enough to hit Patrick Reed this weekend in golf. The next talk about him uncovering the spread too. So he must have been like a podcast favorite of some kind. Yeah. And I think a lot of the podcasters that cover golf, they like the brash guy that everybody else seems to hate and he just doesn't care. I'm not going to use the L word of Patrick Reed. I'm not going to say I like Patrick Reed. I like the betting value occasionally associated with Patrick Reed. I'm going to divorce those two. I want to make that abundantly clear. Well, I'll say that I do like Patrick Reed because he brings some flavor to golf. Sure, sure, sure. Okay, maybe you don't like him. Maybe you hate his wife too, like Brooks Kepka does. Everybody else seems to on the tour, but I like a little flavor, a little personality, okay? Cause that's what we're not used to. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting to kind of fade that, fade those kind of things too, right? Cause it's all about, I mean, I think the public perception of these guys plays so much into it. But Joe, I want to get into some of the AL MVP odds cause Mike Trout has won the award three of the past six seasons. He's plus 150 right now at the FanDuel Sports Book. Is this something you're excited about betting against them or do you see any value in the AL MVP this year? Yeah, and I think it's natural every single year to say, all right, I'm going to place this wager, but the chances are I'm not going to hit unless Mike Trout gets injured. Now he has a history of dealing with some injuries even last year, but he was so good that he was still the MVP. It didn't seem to matter, but I think this is a year where there's actually value on some other guys. Because why? We have to bring in the human element into it. And our voters going to write Mike Trout's name down again in those three MVPs that he's won in recent seasons, none of them have come in back to back years. The last time it happened was Miggy Cabrera, your Tiger's Ed. I'm assuming that you at least were a Cabrera fan when he was in his prime, 2012 and 2013 in the National League pools, 2008, 2009. So I think you have to bring the human element into the handicapping there. So I think there's some opportunity at taking a look at some other guys. Now, speaking of that human element, I also think there's value because let's scratch off the Astros. I think that's pretty safe that the voters are not going to be giving an MVP or a Cy Young Award to any of these Astros. So right off Al Tuve, at least for me, Bregman, Springer, Marcus Simeon's odds are up there. I think we're in for some regression there. I don't know if he can repeat what he was just a season ago, but some names that popped out to me, guys, Xander Bogarts with the Red Sox, Mookie Betts traded away. So you still have Bogarts there who can come close to repeating what he did a year ago at Fandle, he's 33 to one. I know at the Westgate, they still have them up there at 80 to one. People don't pay as much attention to the athletics even though they just, all they do is seem to win and Chapman is an elite third baseman in the game. Fandle, he's sitting there at 16 to one. Westgate has meant 40 to one still and people will say that I'm completely biased here since I am in Chicago, but Johan Moncada is the best player in the White Sox and I don't even think it's all that close. And what he did in the second full season with a five, seven, F4 just completely went under the radar. I know he's the second team in town but he is playing in the third market and the White Sox should make a big jump this year. If he can repeat something like he did last year, he's 75 to one on Fandle. Some books out in Vegas still have them at 200 to one. Maybe he was a five, seven war player at such a young age at one point he was the number one prospect in all of baseball that's worth a bet to me if he can repeat that. I think the Matt Chapman one is super interesting because I think we're in a day and age now where people are going to value advanced analytics and you look at the voting, it seems like they do. And Matt Chapman because he is the best, you could argue he's the best defensive player regardless of position in all baseball. And you add in the fact that he actually provides a lot of offense too. I think that makes him interesting. It's not the, I think he was 100 to one before last year, I believe. It's not quite as intriguing as that one was to me but 16 to one is still not bad for a guy who has such a good cushion, a good floor from a defensive perspective that if he does well offensively, he could go absolutely nuts. So I think the Chapman one especially is very interesting. And I think you do have a little bit of vantage here and I know that sounds nuts because it's the league that Mike Trout plays in. But also that human element, I think there are a lot of names that you can kind of scratch off and kind of whittle the top of this list down a little bit. Like Rendon's a great player, he's a seven win player but our voters gonna see that Anthony Rendon is more valuable than Mike Trout. I think some are gonna have tough time doing that. Yeah, absolutely. And every single Astro if you were to omit them the odds become a lot more favorable on the American League side as well. Let's shift to the NL side and pretty wide open there because we do have Mookie Betts now in LA. He has six to one to win it. Christian Yalich and Cody Bellinger, seven to one. Are you betting any of the favorites given that their odds are a bit longer than Trout's or is it the long shots they stand out more to you? I think the National League is actually tougher to bet because it's tough to narrow some of these guys down. Now, I'm a sucker for Juan Soto and some sites have him as the favorite this year and maybe I'll make a play on Acunia as well. Some have him at some of these shortest odds. Something that I do wanna keep in mind going into this year is what we see a lot of times when guys come in and they're supposed to be the savior of a team. A lot of times it takes that second year before they start to settle in. So don't forget about Harper and Machado. On Fandall Harper is 22 to one. Mani Machado is 30 to one and some people will say, oh, Machado is not even the best player on his team. Well, that is certainly up for debate, but the name value is there. People know him and they'll be looking for him. If he has a big year, I don't think he's gonna need back-to-back good seasons before people start to vote for him on the MVP, but a team that is getting a lot of hype this off season in the NL Central, the Cincinnati Reds. And I think for some pretty good reason. I like what they did, but coming off a 49 home run season, Juane Osvarez is 30 to one to be the National League MVP. If they end up winning that division, I think Suarez has a decent shot, but Bet should be the MVP here. I think everyone can agree that the Dodgers are the best team, and if you're the best player on the best team and there isn't a runaway favorite, there's probably a pretty good chance that you're gonna walk away with that award. I think the benefit of Bet's too is he's not being counted on to be like a savior, as you were mentioning. Like he's not a Harper or Machado-esque guy where they already have a lot of awesome pieces in place. You're just adding him to an already stoked lineup, which should make it, hopefully, you would think, less pressure pack. He's already shown he could be the guy with a World Series winning team, so I think that that's beneficial for Mookie too. If we wake up at the end of the year and they've got 105 wins, which is certainly possible. Look at where the wind tunnel is set. I believe it is 101, a lot of places right now. And then you see that the Fangraffs war, there's just this gap in Mookie bats and everything he does defensively. Yeah, I could see it going to him, but Jim, we could also make a case for like four different Dodgers too. Sure. Joe, let's go over to pitchers. Jacob DeGrom is the favorite for the NL side young at plus 280. Garrett Cole's moving over to the Yankees. He's on the AL side of plus 280 as well. Any names jump out at you on the pitching side of the ledger? Yeah, let's take a look at the National League. There were a few names that popped to me where there's a little bit of value and that's probably where I'll be shopping over here. On the NL side after the long season, probably not smart, but there's no value there. I'm not gonna bet on Strasburg. I'm not gonna bet on Scherzer coming off that season. And I just mentioned the Cincinnati Reds prime for a good season. We'll see if they meet expectations. But Trevor Bauer at a 4-4-8 ERA, I think there's some positive regression because he was coming off a 2-2-1 ERA season. And you know he's gonna be out there every fifth day over the last five years. He's averaged 30 starts per season through 213 innings last year. I think Bauer is 18-1 a fandal, but you can find him some places at 50-1 to get the Cy Young. So I think there's some value there. If you, Darvish, can just stay healthy. Like Theo Epstein has been ripped to shreds for some of his moves in frequency over the last few years and is pretty deserved. But you, Darvish, if he's just out there, he's still in ace. They made the right move in saying goodbye to Jake Arietta and saying hello to you, Darvish. And he was supposed to be the one he just hasn't been able to stay healthy over these two years here. Even last year when he's on the mound, he's striking out 11 guys for every nine innings. I've gotta think, like this is like the mental side, the human element again, which is involved in baseball. Maybe Ed will argue with me on that one. But with you, Darvish, and everything that happened this off-season with the Astros, I mean, remember what happened at the World Series? He was called a mental midget. He can't get out of his own head. And well, it's because we think they had buzzers because they knew the pitches that were coming. So, and they floated it out there. Oh, he's tipping pitches. He's, no, you were cheating. It wasn't tipping pitches. So I think there's a possibility that you Darvish has a big year. You can find him around 25 to one on Fandle. And I love Chris Paddock, another Padre out there. He's 35 to one on Fandle. I can't wait to see what he does in his second full season. Had 10 strikeouts per nine innings in his rookie campaign. I want to talk more about you Darvish. And the thing that I love about you Darvish is we love small, we love large samples because large samples are stickier and they're steadier. I, if you're looking for risk and high upside, I want to buy into small samples that I can explain. You Darvish's small sample brilliance from June 21st. I know the exact date because I've looked at his fangrass game log a bunch. When he started throwing that splitter, he became ungodly, like it was unreal. You can explain why he went on that run. And when you see the numbers within that run with like a, I think it was like a 32% strikeout rate and a 2% walk rate or something insane like that. That's what I like, an explainable elite small sample. That's exactly what you Darvish had. And for 25 to one, that's awesome. And I think that's really attractive. I'm not expecting big things from the Cubs this year, but the top of the rotation should be pretty solid with Darvish and Hendricks. The problem is once you get past that, once you get past those other guys, but yeah, I think there's value there, absolutely. And I don't think many people are expecting much from the Cubs. Now on the American League side, Ed, you mentioned Garakul. This one is the tougher one for me. Like I could find some names to throw out there for you guys on the National League side, but it really feels like this is Garakul's award to lose, doesn't it? I'm gonna wait, I'm probably gonna wait and see. Now I'll throw some names out there. Again, no Astros, so no Verlander, no Grenki. And I think some of the voters, even if Morton has a good year, they might hold something against him over in Tampa Bay. Some other names at the top of the board. Chris Sale, it's always a health issue. Is he gonna be able to finish the season? Lucas Sciolito was unreal in the first half last year. Is he gonna be able to repeat that for the White Sox? He's 25 to one on FanDuel. A name that did pop to me with some value. Remember last year, for most of the year, it looked like the NL Sci Young Award was going to review. And now he goes to Toronto and he's sitting there at about 50, 60 to one. So I like the value there. Absolutely, and I think the Geolito one is another one where even when the second half wasn't as good, his advanced numbers were still pretty good. So I think that's encouraging for him for sure. Let's talk some wind totals here. I got wind totals posted for each team over at FanDuel Sportsbook. I know that obviously this is not your favorite market and we'll preface this with that because I think that's very important to note. Any of those numbers present really good value to you right now? There's a few that pop to me for my daily job here. It's 670 to score in Chicago. I cover the Cubs and I like the under 85 and a half. And that is even money right now at FanDuel. I mentioned the back end of the rotation when you get to Quintana and Lester at this stage in their careers, that's worrisome. Every time they're out there right now, they're a pencil. It's a pencil, but Tyler Chatwood is their five. I don't know that they have a five. They might be mills, they might try some other guys, but to start the season before any injuries happen, if Chatwood is your five, there could be a lot of trouble there. So lead off has been a problem since Dexter Fowler went to St. Louis after the 2016 World Series. They haven't been able to figure out, David Ross comes out and says, Chris Bryant's my lead-off man. I actually like that idea. I was calling for it for the last couple of years. He's one of your two best hitters. Why not get him as many plate appearances as possible? So they're gonna go with the Bryant-Rizzo combination, one, two, but there are so many other questions throughout this lineup. Not sure if Nico Horner's gonna be opening day, second baseman, a couple of young disappointments in center field, Albert Almora has it met expectations. Same thing with Ian Hap, they had to send him down to the minors last year. Their closer is Craig Kimbrel. They have him under contract for two more years, coming off the worst year of his career. I don't know that he's gonna get any better. So I think the Cubs are around 581, 82 wins. So I look at under 85 and a half there. In the AL West, a lot of people high on the athletics and I certainly understand that back to back 97 win seasons, but I'm looking at the Angels, they add Rendon, a seven win player, and it's always tough to gauge the importance of a manager. I think with all these analytics we have, we're still trying to gauge that. I don't know that anybody knows exactly what each manager is worth, but I know when Joe Madden is in a brand new situation that the players usually buy in. I saw it happen every single day here in Chicago and the Angels have trouts healthy. If you have Rendon for an entire year, over 85 and a half is pretty appealing. Now that would be a significant jump coming off a 72 win season, but the Angels will be a lot better. And I'm also taking a look at the Diamondbacks at over 84 and a half, that's minus 102 over on Fandle. They're coming off an 85 win season and they add Madison Bumgarner to the rotation. We've seen guys once they go to winning situations, even later stages in their career, some starting pitchers, where they just kind of turn back the clock a little bit. I think there's a possibility that Mad Bum does that. And Kettle Marte was unreal last year, a 7-1 F-4 guy, Escobar 3-7 F-4. So I think the Diamondbacks are gonna compete this year. I like the over 84 and a half and I know a lot of people that take a look at the numbers. I can't go here, but I'm just bringing it up because the Giants, they lose Mad Bum, 77 wins last year. They're so good with these win totals. They set it at 68 and a half. I just wanna throw it out there. I'm not betting this, but in one run games last year, San Francisco was 38 and 16, 38 and 16. And guys, in extra inning games, they were 13 and three. So regression is coming the Giants way, but they set a really good number at 68 and a half. Awesome. Joe, any other bets on the baseball side that interest you right now at this point in the season? Yeah, I'm having a tough time landing on my World Series future. We did have the Nationals last year. I felt like an idiot in May. And then I was really happy at the end of the season. I wish I would have kept piling on when there was so much value. I think in late May, the Nationals were like 40 to one just to win the National League, not even the World Series. So don't just make your bets at the beginning of the year and just turn away from it. Pay attention to the markets. Consider what you were thinking going into the year, but there were some division bets that did stand out to me and I cover both centrals, as I mentioned, on a regular basis. And the AL Central to me, many calling for the twins regression, it makes a lot of sense, but they also improve the roster. They know that that regression is coming and they have a better team this year. I think the AL Central is going to be a two-team race because I'm expecting the Indians to move on from Lindore and they're gonna expect them to trade him. And in a two-team race, the other team, you can get it four to one and that other team is the Chicago White Sox. The depth to that lineup is ridiculous. When we're talking about Aloy Jimenez hitting sixth or seventh in the lineup, like Mazara is probably gonna hit eighth or ninth. The offense should not be a problem. It's all this young pitching. When is Kopeck gonna be ready to come up? How does Ronaldo Lopez and Dylan Cease, how are those guys gonna be able to take the next step? But we mentioned Geolito earlier on. I think you can believe in him as your ace and they went out in free agency. They add Dallas Keiko, they add Geo Gonzalez for some extra security there. So I think the bullpen will be okay too. So White Sox four to one when I think that's gonna be a two-team race, I think there's some value there. And even though the Reds are a buzzy team on Fandall, you can get them at plus 270 to win the NL Central, the third favorite in the division. I still think there's some value there even though so many people are high on Cincinnati. I haven't figured out my World Series bets quite yet because it's so difficult. We were talking about it off air just to go against the Dodgers and go against the Yankees. It's hard to find that value there. So I haven't settled there, but I think division odds, there's some value on the White Sox and Reds. I think the Reds one is very interesting because they have been talked up. They were, they got buzzed midway through last year as around the trading deadline when Sonny Gray was pitching really well, they added Trevor Bauer and a lot of their offense suddenly clicked and now they're adding in guys like Nicholas Castellanos to the offense as well. And Suarez had like a shoulder injury, but it sounds like he's good to go. I think plus 270. I think that if you want to buy the Reds, that's probably the best number to do so with. Would you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely. And if you're considering it, maybe you want to get that bet in right now because we were talking about the overreaction to Picota and I think most baseball fans would agree that the Cardinals are the best team in that division because of the strength of their pitching rotation, but Picota was so down on them. That was one of the big takeaways from Picota. So people are going to bet that as we get closer and closer, the public will check in and compare Picota to some of the Vegas numbers and maybe they're going to jump on the Reds instead of the Cardinals. I think the Brewers, you can slot them in as probably the fourth place team this year. They were very lucky last year. And they've lost a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, talking about Picota, I talked with the Twins in 91 and a half year on this show and then that was the day that Picota came out. I went to a local place recently and tried to get them and they were at 92 and a half already so we've already seen movement based on Picota. So I think that that- Which direction are you betting them? Or did you want to? I didn't want them to, I got them 91 and a half on the over. 92 and a half was too high because there was, it was I think minus 120 on the over still at 92 and a half and just wasn't a good number. So I was not super intrigued by that. I agree with what you said about them combating regression by making their team better because I love Kento Maeda with every fiber of my being. Josh Donaldson make their pitching staff better. Just give me 100 and, I'll say 120 gains of Byron Buxton. I'm not asking that much, just 120 and this could be a really good team. Do you think Donaldson can repeat that at this stage? I think it was interesting because the numbers he did put up last year seemed sustainable based on the advanced analytics because I lost so much freaking money on Josh Donaldson and Daily Fantasy for the first two months because his advanced numbers were awesome and he wasn't doing anything and I was like, whatever, I'm done, I'm out and then he just heats up over the second half. So the advanced numbers were there and the performance eventually followed suit. So I like Donaldson still but his name still makes my bankroll hurt a lot because of the BFS stuff last year but we'll see. I think it'll be an interesting division for sure. And believe me, Jim, I did notice that you just said, okay, I like that Reds won and you were just completely skipping over the White Sox play. No, because I agree. Yeah, because the Twins are winning the division. I liked your thought process because the White Sox are a, the word I'd use to them is volatile because you on Moncada could be worth 0.5 wins or it could be worth 8.5 wins. Like, I mean, like that's kind of like, that's what you want at a team that's plus 360 in the division. You want volatility and they are a volatile team and I like that for them. I think I should also mention, I expect Randall to really help that young pitching staff. I thought that was a great signing for them and it's kind of under the radar move. I think they're just gonna, they're just gonna slot in Edwin and Carnassione in the cleanup spot this year too and Abrayu's still back. So I don't think the offense will be a problem. Absolutely. It'll be a fun team to watch. And as a Twins fan, that is painful but my fiance is a White Sox fan so it's a family win no matter what. That is Joe Ostrowski of 670 to the score and you better, you bet Joe. Really appreciate you. It's fun to talk some baseball. It's got me all excited for spring. Appreciate the time and hopefully we can talk to you again soon. Yeah, let's plan on it guys. It was fun. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Covering the future. One final thank you to Joe Ostrowski for breaking down baseball with us for today. Find him on Twitter at JoeO670. You can find his work at 670 of the score and you better, you bet as well. And we talked before about your football agencies. You grew up an Eagles fan. Were you a Phillies fan growing up as well then? Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did a lot of just sports watching in general growing up. So yeah, I definitely followed the Phillies 93 World Series when they lost to Toronto is still a nightmare I remember from my childhood. And then it was kind of sad because by the time they won the World Series in 08, you know, I wasn't, I kind of moved on. I was into this whole analytics thing. They were playing Tampa Bay and it just, it just wasn't, it just wasn't there. Yeah. So that's like. One of my first baseball memories was twins fans. I think chucking hot dogs at Chuck Knoblock and the game almost getting like, like forfeited. So a good little delving into baseball there for sure. A little bit different than anything else, but it'll be fun to see some baseball once again. I am a twins fan. So I got to like be upfront about all that, but should be a pretty fun year for sure. Adam and I always preached searching for the best and value and betting on games. Look no further than the odds comparison our engineers had developed over at numberfire.com It's the premier odds comparison experience across major bookmakers in the regulated U.S. market. Compare odds, quickly identify the best value, and even examine first party fan dual data on one place. Never settle, always get the best odds. Check out the experience for free now on numberfire or at oddsfire.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambler. Let's dive in now into covering the future in ed. We won't talk some more March Madness because there are a lot of angles we have to discuss and there's not a whole lot of time to discuss them. So one you want to discuss for today is contrarian strategies for March Madness because we got to cover all these angles and there aren't a whole lot of other weeks left before things tip off. And honestly, this is one of the real important ones, right? So in my email in the newsletter last Friday, I talked about how I wanted Kansas to beat Baylor. My numbers at Baylor is like a one point favorite and I think that's pretty close to what the market's had. And it's not like I'm any kind of Jayhawks fan. I actually kind of enjoy rooting against the blue bloods as a lot of us do, but the power rank is business and I know certain events are gonna tip my odds in my favor. So let me explain. So when you're filling out your pool, you can kind of have, there's kind of two different objectives. First, you can try to maximize your expected points. So you go to my rate rankings and you pick the higher rank team in every game. That's an effort to maximize the number of points you're gonna earn. But the second goal can be to maximize your win probability or the probability that you're gonna win your pool. Sometimes the strategy for both of these is the same, but oftentimes it's not. And in terms of maximizing your win probability, which is what you actually wanna do, here's the ideal situation. You want the public to be on a team and you want them to be picking them at a higher rate than that they're actually going to win. So for example, just think back into the 2015 tournament, Kentucky came into the tournament undefeated. They were a big favorite and the public was all over them. Those are kind of the ideal situations because then you can pick someone else. That also has a good probability. And what happens is if that public favorite ends up losing, which is not gonna happen every time, but if they do end up losing, you've eliminated a lot of brackets in your pool from winning. And then if your champion wins, then that's what increases your win probability for the pool. So this year, if any team is gonna spark public interest, it's gonna be Kansas. And they're not a legitimately good team. They're tops of my numbers right now, but they're not an elite team. And so the idea is like you hope that they win and they beat Baylor and you hope the public kind of gets some steam behind them. And that's what ended up happening. They ended up winning a close game on the road at Baylor. They're definitely gonna be considered the favorite right now. And that is a good situation. Now, clearly we have a lot of games to play. There's no certainty that Kansas is gonna be the favorite heading into the tournament and in terms of who you should actually pick to win the tournament against Kansas. At this point, I really have no idea what that team is. But we will... But anyways, this is what I mean when I talk about contrarian strategies. And a lot of the stuff I do at the power rank this time of year, you can all check it out at thepowerrank.com. There's a bunch of different ways. And I actually wanna say right now, like one way is kind of my expensive become a member of my site. And I kind of always hate it when other places like, hey, buy my $1,000 course. So I like the inexpensive option. I'm a reader, I like books and I definitely have that for you. So in my book, How to Win Your NCAA Tournament Pool, I wrote right about all these contrarian strategies. It will cost you less than a latte. So go check that out on my site. And I think that there are a lot of situations that are more conducive to being contrarian than others. And you talked earlier, like a month, a couple of weeks ago about how flat things are this year, how there is no definitive, which means it's more advantageous if there is a team that winds up being very public. That was also true a couple of years ago, not the year Virginia won, the year they lost as the one seed to UMBC, what you were saying at that time, this is literally, this is not hindsight. You said this before the tournament. You said they are such a slow paced team and they are such a public team. There is a lot of room for things to get bad for them. And that is exactly how things play out. You did not say they would lose to UMBC, but you said the recipe was there for them to disappoint. And so I think that it's advantageous to try to find those scenarios that's set up for a public team to fail and a flat distribution, with there being no definitively number one team. This year sets up really well for that. So I think that discussion you just had is even more pertinent for this year than it is other years. Yeah, absolutely. And I really hope that does end up being the case in a couple of weeks here. I actually went back and looked through a bunch of my numbers over the past five years. And it's interesting, because last year was really the year of favorites. Duke was really dominant with a bunch of future NBA stars. Virginia was awesome. Gonzaga was awesome. So there had been years in the past where it looks a little bit more like this year, no favorite, a more wide open field. So it's not like this year is that out there in terms of the distribution we're seeing for teams. It's just gonna look a lot different from last year's tournament. Absolutely. And it'll be interesting to see how things shape up in the past couple of weeks, but we'll have a full March Madness preview coming up, I believe, the Monday after selection Sunday once again. I wanna talk some XFL for Cover in the Future, because the last time we talked XFL in this podcast, I messed up rule bad, because I said I wanted the Tampa Bay Vipers at plus 450 to win the XFL championship, because hey, they got Mark Trestman. They got Aaron Murray. That's awesome. What could go wrong? The answer is everything. Murray was terrible in week one. He is now hurt. And Trestman not inspiring a whole lot of confidence. And now they're 0-3. So that was a stupid bet. I am sorry if any of you acted upon that advice. Now I wanna bet against them for week number four, because right now they are one point home dogs against the DC defenders. And the defenders last week were abysmal. Cardale Jones through four picks, they got stomped by Los Angeles. It was a terrible game for DC. But before that, the defenders were one of the favorites to win the title. It was them in Houston. They had beaten the Seattle Dragons 31-19. They shut out the New York Guardians 27-0 in Seattle and New York, or both bad teams. But so are the Vipers. The defenders are still third in passing grade at pro football focus. The Vipers are seventh in that department, which is a very important department, especially in the XFL with how pass heavy it's been. The defenders are also third in defensive grade. Well, the Vipers are seventh there as well. So straight up, the defenders are a better passing offense. They are a better overall defense. They're on the road laying a single point. I think this is a good bounce back spot for them. The Vipers have been outscored 74 to 39 to the first three games. They did play a lot better offensively in week number three, which was their first home game. But I kinda think that this number with DC being favored by just one is an overreaction to both ends. Overreacting to the defenders bad game last week and overreacting to signs of life for Tampa Bay the previous week as well. So I am looking to buy into the defenders here, lay a point on the road, and we'll see how things go down and just it can't go a lot worse than my first XFL bet. So we'll see how things go this time around. Have you gotten to watch any XFL yet, Ed? A little bit. It's all a little bit of the end of the game a couple of weeks ago, Dallas and L.A., I think. Any thoughts for you so far? Not from like a betting perspective, just about the league as a whole. Well, I've been looking at some of the TV ratings. Yeah. They're pretty good. They are pretty good. And they've been decently sticky too, which is nice. Yeah, I think people love football. I think that's in general a good thing. And if there weren't this college basketball thing going, man, I'd love to run some numbers on that too. But, I mean, it is gonna go through April, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah, there's time for that. This is week four. There are 10 weeks in the regular season and then two weeks in the postseason. So still got a lot of time. After March tips off, you can kind of lay back a little bit, rest your weary bones a little bit and maybe we can get you into some XFL at that point. What do you have going on over this week at the power rank? So I had Ken Pomeroy on the football analytics show, not talking about football, but talking about college basketball. It was, I really enjoyed the conversation. I think it led to a lot of interesting places. We talked about whether Tony Bennett and the Pac-Lon defense is behind the times. He gave some actually really interesting things that I've never seen him write down about the randomness, not of three point shots in general, but of players specifically and whether that's random too. And we talked about some of the top teams. So yeah, Ken's done so much awesome work. It was really good to catch up with him. Check that out on the football analytics show. Those are some powerful minds. So check that out the football analytics show and check out Ed's work at thepowerrank.com. You can get the book at thepowerrank.net is the short link to get to the book. I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcasts. And once again, make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread to get each podcast right as it is posted because it is a less regular schedule this time of year. So being subscribed is definitely a major help there. Big thank you to Joe Ostrowski for swinging by and talking some baseball with us to get us set for the 2020 season. Follow Joe on Twitter at JoeO670. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer for keeping us on the air here on the video side of things. Thank you, Cal, as always. And thank you to everyone for tuning in to this week's episode of covering the spread. Good luck with your bets for this week. We'll talk to you again next week. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.