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Posted at 11:10 AM EST 

1:10 PM EST. We’re not going to discuss Trevor Bauer here other than to say that he is an elite pitcher that is grossly underpriced here. The Reds at -130 (or thereabouts) is the chalk bargain of the day by a wide margin in this huge pitching mismatch. We’ve seen starting pitchers mismatches of this magnitude in the -200 to -280 range all season long and this pitching mismatch is as big as any of those others. Take the Reds at the bargain price straight up if you wish because it’s a steal. We also love that the Pirates beat the Reds yesterday by two TD’s (14-0).  

Pirates RHP Chris Archer (shoulder) was placed on the 10-day injured list on Aug. 21, while RP Clay Holmes (quadriceps) was placed on the 10-day injured list that same day. The Pirates were forced to make some moves and hopefully we are the beneficiaries of said moves, as RHP Dario Agrazal and RP Parker Markel step up from Class AAA Indianapolis. 

Agrazal’s surface numbers are decent (8 GS - 4.09 ERA) but we warned you about him back in late July when the metrics said he was all luck and little skill. However, a lot of the market’s focus is on ERA’s and that’s why we get the Reds are a friggin bargain here. 

Two starts back, Agrazal gave up one run on three hits and two walks while striking out five through six innings to lower his ERA to 2.25. Prior to being blown up in his last start before being sent down, his ERA was even better at 1.88. 

We wrote after that start the following: 

It’s insane that a starter this bad could be posting such good surface stats and he’s the reason why ERA’s are misleading. Dario Agrazal has the widest gap between ERA and xERA in the league. Instead of writing it out in sentence form, we listed just how extreme his luck had been. 

Agrazal (Prior to his last start that got him sent down)

ERA  - 2.25

xERA - 6.03

Hit rate -20% (league average 31%)

Strand rate - 88% (league average 74.1%)

BABIP -.241 (league average .302)

Swing & miss rate - 6% (league average 11%)

Groundball rate - 39%

Strikeouts - 12 in 28 innings

Walks - 10 in 28 innings.

It was seriously nutso that Agrazal kept getting batters to hit the ball right at someone. This is a starter who had walked 10 and struck out nine over his last five starts covering 24 innings and posted a 1.88 ERA to show for it. We have no idea what is going to happen in this game but we know that Dario Agrazal is all smoke and mirrors and nobody in this league is a better candidate for regression. Bet accordingly.

An individual on Twitter suggested to me that Batting Average on Balls in play (BABIP) is not luck and it is the defense and where they play. He said the same about LOB's. The two are highly correlated. His statements might be the stupidest comments I have heard in 30 years. If it were true, shouldn’t every Pirates pitcher have a BABIP of .241 or thereabouts anfd similar strand rates? After all, it is the same defense. This individual then went on to say that I don’t understand baseball and that he does. One's perception is one's reality.

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