 This is Covering the Spread, part of the FanDuel podcast network. Tuesdays are quickly becoming my favorite day to talk to you here on Covering the Spread because we get two awesome guests here. Each and every week, later on, we're talking to Brandon Gedula about the BMW Championship, his favorite bets for this week, and the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, getting his read on that one. And also today, Pitching Ninja, Rob Friedman breaking down his favorite strikeout props for today. My name is Jim Saunders. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com, joined here once again by Rob Friedman. You can find his work pretty much everywhere at this point. Rob, I feel like you're just kind of a busy guy, but I appreciate you swinging by each and every Tuesday. How are you doing this glorious day? I am doing great. How are you? You have a lot of energy today. I love it. I had too much coffee this morning. Rob, we'll be fully honest with you. That's usually the key is it's too much coffee every day. And somehow like my body has not become desensitized to the caffeine yet. Like we're still humming along, you know, just ready to go. That is awesome. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm excited to talk to you because today is a really fun pitching slate. A lot of good pitchers in tough match. If you can find Rob's work on Twitter at Pitching Ninja, you can find him on Peacock. He is on Nessin. He's doing stuff for Fandal, obviously, as well. MLB on Fox. He is everywhere. I think it's a fun slate for today because when I look at the big names on tonight's slate, we got Justin Verlander, facing a low strikeout, White Sox team, Dylan Cease, facing off with the Astros. We get Robbie Ray against Shohei Otani. I think that's, you know, from a bit pattern, batter versus pitcher perspective, at least that's pretty exciting. It's a lot of tough matchups, though. We're picking out strikeout props. It can be a little bit daunting. So I want to hear your read on those aces. How do you handle a guy as good as Verlander? And what is objectively kind of a tough spot from a strikeout perspective and stuff like that? Dude, I couldn't agree with you more. When I was looking over the slate today, that was my, you know, that was my quandary because I love Justin Verlander. He's obviously been an absolute ace for his whole career, but this year, especially. And I just couldn't pull the trigger on it. I thought the line was tough. I mean, he may like, obviously, everybody may like I'm right. But and I'd love to see him, Kay, a lot of folks, because that's what I'm about. But I think it's a tough, tough matchup. Yeah, it is. And Charlie Morton, too. You talked about him last week. He was great in that game. I think he had seven strikeouts against a low-strikeout Red Sox team. But today it's Mets. And like, I'm just, it's hard for me to go at the Mets. As much as I love Charlie Morton watching and pitch, that's tough, too. So a lot of our favorites, Rob, are in difficult spots. So when you look at the board, where are you finding value for today in the strikeout market? So to me, I went with Edward Cabrera. I think he's just improving every start. I thought him breaking out his slider a little more last outing was really effective. We all know about his high-vilo changeup. Like, he throws the fastest changeup in the major leagues. It's crazy. He had the fastest strikeout ever on a changeup this year. I mean, it's not, it's almost not a changeup because he throws it so hard. But mixing in that slider a little more, I kind of like it. I mean, I see him changing a little bit and picking up some case today. So I like Cabrera. Yeah, Cabrera is a four and a half strikeouts right now at Fandville Sportsbook. The over there is minus 112. I think that's a very fair number. I mentioned this to you all fair. But like, when you emailed me this, I went ahead and bet it myself because I agreed with you because Cabrera at both levels has been a pretty high-strikeout guy. And I think that, I don't know if this is like false, but like, it seems to me as if the transition for guys going from triple A to the major year has been very difficult, where we've seen a lot of guys get a pretty big dip in strikeout right, making that next step. For Cabrera, I know it wasn't a huge sample on him in the minors, but like, there hasn't really been a falloff. Why is that? Why does his stuff play so well, even against elevated levels of competition? Well, it's stuff that you don't regularly see. I mean, the Marlins have perfected this high Velo changeup. Alcantara throws one and he's as ace as ace can be. And then Cabrera, I mean, his is insane. His is actually even faster at its top end than Alcantara. And I know we all think of changeups as they're effective because of the slower Velo. He doesn't have to be. You can get extra movement on it. And he has a very low spin rate changeup for the Velo. And it tends to drop a lot. So hitters don't usually see that. So the drop off will be less in my mind, because major league hitters don't see that pitch either. It's a little bit of a unicorn pitch and then the mix in a slider to give hitters a little bit more to think about. You know, I can see that being effective for a while. He's kind of an electric pitcher. He absolutely is. And the other thing I like about him in terms of like this, the concern I have with teams like the Marlins this time in the years, pitch count, but he went 91 in that last start against the Phillies. You mentioned the slider to what's his ceiling, if he keeps using that slider in addition to the other filthy stuff that he has, like how good can Edward Cabrera be long term with those pitches working in tandem? Yeah, I mean, I don't like to put a ceiling on them. I think those are elite major league pitches. The other thing I noticed about Cabrera, if you watch him, his confidence level is off the charts. I noticed after some of the case, and I usually look at pitchers body language, he seems to be totally getting it. And a little bit, you know, a little bit cocky and I love it. Like you should be. That's the other thing you mentioned about minor league guys coming up. A lot of times they can be a little timid and think what worked there doesn't work here. He doesn't have that. Like he has confidence in his stuff. So you know, it's hard to say. I mean, you know, can he be Sandy Alcantara? I think there's only one of Sandy Alcantara's, but he's the only one Edward Cabrera. So we're going to get an Edward Cabrera case rut video tonight. Is that is that a call from you? I hope so. Okay, good. I like that. So I was one. I like it. I'll take that for sure. So Edward Cabrera over four and a half is minus one, 12 at Fandall Sportsbook. I am on board of that one as well. Now I want to quiz you on mine for today. I only really found one. Honestly, like you said, it was kind of a tough board for today. I looked at every single one and couldn't find a whole lot. But the one that did interest me is Justin Steele. He's at five and a half strikeouts plus one, 10 on the over. And I didn't fight initially because I hate repeat matchups. He just saw Washington last week. That stinks. I don't like repeat matchups, but like he shoved. He was awesome in that matchup. So five and a half strikeouts, a pretty high number, but he's been getting a ton of those recently. So Rob, it seems like Steele has, I don't know if he's unlocked something. He seems a bit different now. A higher strikeout guy recently. Do you think he can keep that up? I like that pick. I think today, you know, he looked really good his last two outings, fracking up some strikeouts. And, you know, to me, his slider really plays and maybe he's just has more, you know, at this level, a lot of the game is about confidence. And I think he's got it. He's got good stuff. And it wouldn't at all surprise me. Like I would pay, I have them at the over too. Yeah. I think with Steele, I think the fun thing for me is he combines, at least recently, strikeouts with still having his really good bad at ball data. And that's not like as I prefer strikeouts, obviously, but like that allows you to go deeper in the game. And that to me is a key thing for Steele in terms of a strikeout prop is if he can be more effective, he'll go deeper in games. That allows you to rack up strikeouts, too. So our two strikeout props for today, Justin Steele over five and a half plus one 10. Rob likes Edward Cabrera over four and a half minus one 12. Rob, any final thoughts for you on what seems to be a pretty fun day of baseball for today? No, I think I'm going to be busy, though, like when it's a fun day of baseball. When it's a fun day of baseball for everyone else, it's a lot of work, but fun work for me. So I'm looking forward to it. I mean, like any day you can sit back and watch, I mean, like I think I'm most excited for Cease versus Astros personally. Like I think not just the mustache, like just everything else is kind of like, I think for me that's probably my favorite, but I also love watching Robbie Ray. So it's going to be a fun night. Rob, good luck to you with Cabrera. Hopefully we can do well with that one. Enjoy the baseball first night. I hope it's not a lot of work for you not to put it on your plate, but like I kind of hope it is. I want to say I love it. Give me more work. That's what I want to do. Absolutely. Rob, we appreciate it. Good luck tonight. We'll talk to you once again next week. Thanks, Jim. Good talking with you. Alrighty, that is Rob Friedman. Check him out on Twitter at pitching ninja. And of course, you can find his work on Peacock. You can find him on Nesson. You can find him here on Covering the Spread each week. And you can also check out all of his work at MLB on Fox as well. We're going to talk to Brandon Gdua about this week's PGA Tour event, the BMW Championship. Get his read on that field in just one second. But first, NFL kickoff is still a few weeks away, but you can get in on the action now on Fandall Sportsbook with their NFL Super Win Bonus. Right now, anyone who places at least a $50 Super Bowl winner bet will get $5 back for each win their team has during the regular season. There are also a ton of futures markets available like team win totals, division winners, player props, and so much more. There's no better place to get ready for the football season than on Fandall, America's number one sportsbook, an official sports betting partner on the NFL. Must be 21 plus and president select states. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable free bets that expire seven days after receipt. Max free bet $50. Restricts and applies see terms at sportsbook.fandall.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fandall.com-rg in Arizona, 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXT-STEP to 533-42 in Connecticut, 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org-slash-chat in Indiana, 1-800-9 with it in Louisiana, 1-800-7777-0 stop in New York, 1-800-778-HOPENWIRE text open Y in Tennessee call the red line at 1-800-8899-789 in Wyoming, 1-800-522-4700 or in West Virginia, 1-800-GAMBLER.NET Let's move down to this week's PGA Tour Event and break down to the BMW Championship by bringing on Brandi Genula, my colleague here at Number Fire. He of course is the senior managing editor at Number Fire, my co-host over on Heechech Fantasy Podcast. Brandi and Happy FedEx got playoffs to you. How are you doing today? I was doing a lot better until, let's just sound worse than it is, until Will's Outlet Tourist got a win last week, which I'm a big fan of Will's E. I was like that. That put Jim ahead. That put Jim ahead in one of our contests that we do. I was leading all year. Similar thing happened last year when an eagle from my guy Xander Shafley got Jim a big win. Now that I missed out narrowly on some Will's E major recommendations and Jim, you know, kind of surged ahead with the Will's E win. I mean, I want to say I'm doing better than I am, but I really can't hide it. So you're like the one person in PGA betting spheres who was not happy about Will's Outlet Tourist winning, like the only person? I mean, overall I'm happy, but, you know, I'll get it. I'll get it this week. So I'll jump back ahead anyway. Okay, I like the confidence. So let's dive in here to talk about the BMW Championship. This event is at Wilmington Country Club and that course has not been used for an official PGA Tour event yet. So we got to kind of make some guesses. What do we know about this course in terms of how it should play from a stats perspective, stuff like that? Yeah. So it hosted the 2013 Palmer Cup to collegiate event between the U.S. and Europe. Justin Thomas played in that, a few others. Daniel Berger, I think Patrick Rogers, but the relevant one is Justin Thomas. But we haven't seen a renovation here since then, so I don't want to put a whole lot of stock on that also. If it affects just one guy, I mean, spoiler alert, I think GT is a good play this week, but that has really nothing to do with the fact that he played here what, nine years ago. You know, we can still look at the scorecard, look at other info, look at yardage breakdowns. It's long, it's over 7,500 yards for a par 71. That puts it about 220 yards longer than the average par 71 on the PGA Tour. A big question with length is where does that length come from? Or if a course is short, like where are we losing length? But it's kind of various with this course in particular. There are two par 5s in the back nine, over 630 yards. There's a long par 3s overall, but one specifically long, some longer par 4s. So about six or seven holes are going to benefit longer hitters this week. And DataGolf has a course fit tool. And on that tool, they show they're estimating which stats they think are going to matter more than normal. For me, it lines up where it's driving distance, but everything else a little bit the same, still an emphasis on approach. But there's also a tab on there that predicts the amount of approach shots, like the approach shot distribution. And there's going to be a lot of longer approaches from 200 plus yards. And you can look at something like proximity from 200 plus yards, if you want, but that actually correlates really strongly with driving distance in general. So I guess answering kind of the second question here, like what stats are emphasizing. But I mean, it's important. It all goes together, right? So we just don't know a whole lot about the course as it is. I will say one thing that kind of goes against just selling out for distance though, is that we have larger greens about 8,100 square feet. The PG tour average is around 6,000 square feet. So it's about 130% of the tour average. So larger greens kind of minimize iron play and it's kind of narrow with long rough. And that kind of emphasizes accuracy. But if I pull up comparable courses, ones with longer rough, ones that are just longer, generally those are still ones that reward ball striking, so like distance and stroking approach. So for me, that's kind of what I'm looking at from this course. It's going to be long. It's going to be a test. There's going to be a lot of those long approaches. And so that can lead to a little bit less scoring, but that also helps separate the better golfers from the rest. Do the larger greens impact anything in terms of putting or around the green play or is it mostly just making the greens easier to hit from an approach perspective? So they do make it easier to hit from an approach perspective, but you could definitely justify the idea of emphasizing lag putting more because golfers will in theory have longer putts. However, if I were to pick between something like driving distance and lag putting, I would need to make sure that I can't that I don't weight those similarly because driving distance is just I can't say this with 100% certainty, but about 99% driving distance has to be the stickiest stat that we have because you can't fake it if you're short and guys who are long don't just go back unless they really, really have to. But it's something like lag putting a good lag putter can have a bad lag putting week. You know, someone like Tony Fienow doesn't really jump out as a great lag putter, but the stats show that he is. So I guess if you're looking for a combo there, Fienow with distance and lag putting and he's no stranger to winning anymore. So that's kind of interesting. But yeah, I think with the long, the large greens, I historically would deemphasize approach play, but given how like comparable courses play, I don't really want to go that route. So that's kind of how I'm viewing it for this week. Okay. The other unique thing about this week is that it's a no cut event because there are 68 golfers in the field after Kim Smith with Drew. Interesting as always, but no cut event. Does that change anything for you in terms of how you view things from a betting perspective outside of Smith withdrawing and opening up some win equity? Yes, Smith, I had, I had it like 6%. He was the second favorite for me in my win simulation model initially. So that did, that did change some things. But yeah, with the no cut event, what we typically see with that is that it elevates the better golfers. Typically no cut events are comprising the best golfers because they don't really run no cut events for like weak fields. Doesn't really make sense. But better golfers, less variance over four guaranteed rounds. You know, it's very possible for a golfer to be on the cut line and still come back and win, especially if the scoring conditions aren't such that you have to be 20 under. And I don't think we're going to get there this week because it's going to be long and demanding have longer off. You know, large greens can, can make sure you don't have to get technically up and down, but you can still face those long putts and three putts will be, you know, a little bit higher, I would say. There's probably a great correlation between three putting and green size. But that's why first round leaders, if we're talking variance, like if you think of first round leaders, the odds are longer for everyone over four rounds. You know, that's why Rory's like 10 to one to win this week because we're getting those four guaranteed rounds of someone who is a step above the rest of the field. So, you know, you can also say that maybe certain golfers play better in no cut events. I don't put a whole lot of stock in that, unless it's just from a positive sense. Like we know that Justin Thomas has had success at no cut events. Sanders Shroff lay another guy that comes to mind, but just because someone doesn't necessarily have great success in no cut events, it's not something that I'm really elevating. So the combination of how I think the course is going to play in the no cut event, it's putting me on a lot of chalk for this week because it makes sense that the better ball strikers will be guaranteed 72 holes to separate. And that's, I think we're, I think for that reason, we're going to see a pretty heavy favorite winning. So let's see how chalky we're getting. Let's dig into the odds here at Fandal Sports Book for this week. Rory McIlroy, the favorite of 10 to one. We got John Rom at 12 to one, and then like 15 dudes at 14 to one. So Rory 10, John Rom 12. Any interest there or what outrides do you like this week? Yeah, I still like Rory at 10 to one. My model's a little bit higher than that even. You know, not a great showing last week, losing strokes off the tee, which again, very predictive stat predictable. And I guess you could maybe, you know, rip me there and say, well, if it's that predictive, why did he lose strokes? But he's actually getting strokes off the tee and 80% of his past 50 rounds, according to fantasy national, it's the most likely stat to bounce back. Yes, he also lost strokes putting, but he's actually been a very good putter this year. He's pretty good with the lag putting as well. And again, I mentioned those long par fives. Not everyone's going to be able to reach them. Even certain golfers might not be able to reach them. They might lay up, but there's really no scenario where having extra length on a long course is a detriment. Some other golfers are still going to, they're not reaching into some of these longer holes isn't even going to be in the conversation. So I think Rory probably is like the leader in Green's under regulation on par fives if that was a stat that we used. So I do think that out of those two favorites, Rory does stand out to me. Any other outlets you like beyond Rory at 10 to 1? Yes, I mentioned that Justin Thomas played here. He's what 14 to 1 now. So he shortened a bit. I think that he makes sense. He has that no cut sort of mentality. He's the kind of golfer who, you know, he doesn't feel like he has to go out and win it on Thursday. And that's, I think that does have value. I know I said I'm not over emphasizing that, but it's never a bad thing. Again, it's more of a positive than if the positives there, I like that. But one thing that really jumps out to me is that since looking at spike weeks, so about like 80th percentile outcomes in, you know, T-degree and putting numbers, JT I've realized is like the guy when it comes to T-degree. He's at like 82% of his events over the past year where he's had an 80th percentile outcome in adjusted T-degree and play, which is like nuts, two golfers in the field, 66.7% so, you know, two thirds. That is Will Zalatoris in actually Xander Shafley. But like that's a huge gap. His T-degree game is always there. And the putting while we don't think of JT as a great putter, he can heat that up. And that's why he does win whenever he's kind of, you know, he wins at a higher rate than his putting probably suggests that he should. I also like Xander a good bit. Great all-around golfer. One of those guys who can actually blend distance. Yes. You can actually blend the distance and accuracy. He's not short. He's got three wins and no cut events. That doesn't include the, the, you know, total score toward championship win or the Olympics. It's again, that great all-around game, that consistency over four rounds. I think the mentality fits. And he's a great putter on bentgrass. Okay. I like all those. So Rory, JT, Xander, Rory, 10 to 1, JT, 14 to 1, Xander, 20 to 1 right now at Fandwin. What about the non-outrights? Any value for you there this week? So I'm in looking at head to heads. I have three that kind of jumped out to me. Max Homa minus 126 over Teal Hatton. Homa is one of seven golfers in the field. To record that spike, we stat that I was just referencing in half of his events, T-degree, and then a third with putting. That's like a really good combination for upside. And then he's really undervalued this week. I also like Homa for top tens in top 20s this week, depending on your risk tolerance there. Think he has the game. We've seen him win at Riviera in tough events. Adam Scott is minus 118 over Sahih Figala. And I think that's a little... I have Scott minus 150. Like I get Figala's golfing pretty well, but like using the long-term data, Scott is just the better player. And he's also got distance. So I was a little surprised by that one. And then Mito Pereira minus 112 over Brian Harmon. I think it's a much better course fit for Mito. I think Mito's a little bit underrated because he's kind of caught off a little bit. But I think there's a lot of reasons I like Mito this week at Wilmington, also from a DFS standpoint. But I think he makes sense for top 20s as well. We will be talking about Mito on the Heat Check Fantasy podcast. I'll talk to you about Homa on the Heat Check Fantasy podcast while from a DFS perspective. So we'll get plenty of thoughts on those guys later on as well. Looking forward to that as always. That is Brandon Gadoula. Check him out on Twitter at Gadoula13. Find his work in all the simulations over at numberfire.com. Brandon, good luck to you for this week. Just not good luck on your win picks versus me on the Heat Check. And I will talk to you in about 37 minutes to break down some DFS for this week. Yeah, looking forward to talking more golf, Jim. Alrighty, that was Brandon Gadoula. Once again, his work is on Twitter at Gadoula13. So fun week in the books here over on Covering the Spread. Back once again tomorrow with Dr. Ed Fay. We're going to talk about some college football win totals to break down what goes into his model for betting college football and get some win totals he likes across the Big Ten, SEC, and more to get you ready. Also quick scheduling. We're on an amendment, I guess. I had said yesterday that I would not be around Friday. I still won't be, but Tom Vecchio will be filling in for me on Friday to talk about whatever he wants to talk about. I have not heard what Tom wants to discuss there, but he'll be filling in for me on Friday. Thursday should go up early on Wednesday night to break down some MLB for Thursday and some NASCAR for Watkins Glen as well. So a lot of good stuff here on the Covering the Spread podcast feed. Make sure you are subscribed wherever you get your podcast. Big thank you to Pitching Ninja, Rob Freeman, and Brandon Gadoula for breaking down their insights for today. If you've got any questions for me, I'm on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you on your bets across MLB, PGA, whatever else it may be. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to talk about some college football win totals. This has been Covering the Spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.