Teams going 'under'
By Judd Hall
When you’re looking to fade teams, you almost always start looking at the bottom of the standings. But sometimes you don’t want to just play the sides for those basement dwellers. Those lackluster clubs give you a chance to back the small side for some quick profits as summer quickly approaches. Here is a pair of squads that will help you stay on the low side of a total.
Chicago White Sox
One thing I’ve learned about baseball over the years is that teams repeating as division champions, like the Braves of the 90s and Yankees of the mid-90s, are the exception to the rule.
More often than not, a team that finds itself in the playoffs one season will find themselves watching October baseball the following year. The White Sox are feeling that pinch in 2009 after winning the American League Central last season.
Chicago got great pitching out of its starters (especially from Gavin Floyd’s breakout effort), which helped see the ‘under’ go 81-77-4 during the 2008 campaign. The hurlers haven’t been bad, but not really that good. The White Sox are 20th in the big leagues with a 4.65 earned run average and allowed 32 home runs.
What propelled the White Sox into the playoffs though was their offense. They ranked 18th in Major League Baseball with a team batting average of .263, but were tops with 235 home runs in ’08.
Fast forward to this year and the pop is noticeably gone from the lineup. They’re 26th overall with a .245 average and have hit a meager 38 four-baggers. It’s easy to see why those numbers have come to be when you look at a pair of the Sox’s top batters.
Jermaine Dye was Chicago’s best hitter last season with a .292 average, 34 home runs and 96 runs batted in. Dye is still seeing the ball well as evidenced by hitting .275 with nine homers and 21 RBI. The problem with him is that he’s striking out once out of every 3.8 at bats; Dye had struck out once every 5.7 at bats in ’08.
Carlos Quentin’s disappearance has really killed the ChiSox though. Quentin came to the Windy City from the Diamondbacks and ripped the skin off the ball, hitting .288 with 36 home runs and 100 RBI. This year, he’s been hobbled by a sore left foot recently, which has seen Quentin hit just eight homers with a .229 average.
The lack of power has resulted in the White Sox boasting an ‘under’ record of 21-14-2.
So when will you be able to use that information to make a little cash on low score? A three-game set at Kansas City from May 29 through May 31 certainly looks like a great play right now. The Royals are at 19-19 when it comes to total plays this season, but they have the best ERA in baseball (3.63) and nobody has given up fewer earned runs (139). Given KC’s pitching staff and Chicago’s offense, this is a prime ‘under’ play.
Houston Astros
The Astros certainly gave it their best shot to make the playoffs last year as the Wild Card in the National League, but fell 3 ½ games short. This season, Houston is sitting in sixth place in the NL Central at 17-20.
Teams falling short one year and falling apart is nothing new. In 2005, the Indians gave the White Sox all they could handle before finishing second in the AL Central. The following season, Cleveland struggled to a 78-84 mark to wind up in fourth place in the division.
Houston has followed the Tribe’s suit this year with pitching that isn’t remarkable, ranking 22nd with an ERA of 4.69 and letting the opposition hit .275. The Astros’ ace hurler, Roy Oswalt is just 1-2 with a 4.50 ERA this year and only threw seven innings just twice. That’s a far cry from the 17-10, 3.54 ERA the right-hander accounted for during 2008.
What’s really killing the ‘Stros this year right now is how Lance Berkman is performing. He may have eight homers (tied with Carlos Lee for team lead) and 21 RBI, but he’s hitting just .224 and strikes out 20 percent of the time this season. In 2008, Berkman led the team with 106 RBI, 29 home runs and a solid .312 batting average.
The rest of the team isn’t helping out when runners are on second and third base. Houston is 24th in MLB with a .249 average with runners in scoring position and they’re hitting .246 with RISP and two outs.
It’s clutch hitting (or lack thereof) like that has the Astros seeing the ‘under’ go 21-14-2 this season, but he’s certainly a big part of the problem.
We’ll be able to use this low scoring to our advantage pretty soon when Houston takes on the Pirates. These divisional rivals will butt heads in a pair of three-game series: In Pittsburgh from May 29 through May 31 and at Minute Maid Park from June 5 through June 7. These two clubs have seen the ‘under’ go an impressive 21-10-3 since 2007 and 44-33-6 since 2004.
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