KISS: Back the Cy Young Winner at Home

Diamondbacks vs. Marlins, 1:40 ET

First, for those that don't know, KISS means Keep It Simple, Stupid. Now that we got that out of the way...

Of all the teams that made me money last year, and even this year, the Diamondbacks are at the top of the list. Sure, there are others, but I bring this up because I want to acknowledge that I see my own trends and traps that I can fall into. That’s just as important in your evaluation. If you’re a fan of a team, you want to avoid betting on them unless you really believe you see them objectively. In this game, I think I see both objectively.

I won’t break my arm here because it is only the first couple of weeks of the season, but I am not at all surprised that the Diamondbacks at least look competent and should end third in the division. They currently are leading the division, but that is not going to happen by the end of May. Still, they are playing good baseball and led by some solid pitching and decent enough hitting. Zac Gallen is off to a tough start on the year as he has a 4.58 ERA. That is a result of his first two games where he allowed five and four earned runs respectively in the two games. His last game, against a team with a similar hitting profile (Milwaukee is better) to the Marlins he allowed just three hits, struck out seven and allowed no earned runs. That was a home start, so maybe road starts will be an issue, but maybe he just needed to get into a groove too.

Sandy Alcantara took the Cy Young award home last year. If you look closely at him, the best games that he had – and he had a lot of them – were home starts. In Miami, he had a 1.64 ERA last season. On the road, it increased up to a 3.01 ERA. That’s drastically different and he had the same number of road starts as home starts. The comfort he finds on the Miami mound makes a difference. He did face Arizona last year and it was a road start – he went seven innings and allowed just two hits and one earned run. So, maybe he just likes pitching in warm weather? He was rocked by the Phillies in his last game, a road outing. But prior to that, he was at home against Minnesota, another team I’d say that has a similar profile to the Diamondbacks, and he went nine shutout innings with just three hits allowed.

I’m getting Alcantara at home against Gallen in a -110 tossup. Give me Alcantara and the Marlins. I mentioned there are only a few times to back Miami this season. This is certainly one of them. Even if it ends up being a loss, this isn’t priced correctly. I’ll gladly take Miami.

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