Can Paul Skenes Return to Favorite in Rookie of the Year Race?
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00:00going forward. It's something that we're going to talk about with Paul Skeens. How much longer
00:06forward will he be going into the month of September? But we know he's going to be on
00:09the mound tonight, Tom. 955-956 on the rotation. That's the Reds and the Pirates. Lodolo Skeens,
00:15favorite towards Pittsburgh at a minus 144 price and a total of seven and a half.
00:19Skeens, does he dominate tonight? And what do we like?
00:23I actually think he does dominate tonight. I like over seven and a half strikeouts,
00:26minus 112. The Pirates, as Craig said in a couple of segments ago, they're kind of running out of
00:31time. And this might be one of Paul Skeens' last chances to really show that he does deserve
00:37Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, whatever it might be. He's got an awesome 31% strikeout rate. So
00:42over seven and a half. Reds coming with their current active roster versus Reddies with 24.7%
00:46strikeout versus Reddies. That's the sixth worst in the league. So I expect him to be out there.
00:50I expect him to pile up the strikeouts. Again, he needs this start to kind of solidify himself
00:54in both the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year market. So give him one or two more good starts
00:59and then maybe ease him back as the season comes to a close. And his five starts since the All-Star
01:04break. And of course, where he started the All-Star game for the NL, at most only eight Ks
01:10for Skeens. The horror. He has gone on under seven and a half Ks in three of the last four
01:17for Pittsburgh. You mentioned the NL Rookie of the Year odds, Tom. We have seen a huge change
01:22atop this market. Skeens at points was close to a minus 5,000 favorite to run away with this award
01:28at the All-Star break. I said they should start taking the chisel out and put Skeens' name on
01:34the trophy. Now it's San Diego's Jackson Merrill, a minus 175 favorite. What has led to this change
01:40at the top? Well, he's been awesome. It's also the fact that the Padres are playing in important
01:46games and he's playing a big role in those games. He's having those big hits. So I can understand
01:51why things shifted so dramatically. And if the Pirates were more in the mix for the wild card
01:57or the division and Skeens was still out there dominating for eight, nine strikeouts every time,
02:02I think he would still be the favorite. But that's not the case anymore. So, you know,
02:05if you were able to get on Jackson Merrill early in the season, congrats. But that ship has sailed
02:09right now. So I think Jackson Merrill will end up winning just because Skeens is going to be
02:14eased back when it comes to the innings. That's going to decrease his efficiency overall.
02:19Talking about Jackson Merrill, his team is going to play tonight against the New York Mets,
02:22sort of a wild card battle, if you will. Minus 162 favorites for the Padres in a total listed
02:28at seven and a half. Are we going with any Jackson Merrill props tonight in this game?
02:32Yeah, let's keep it rolling with him for two plus little bases at plus 100. He's awesome
02:36in this split versus righties going up against Luis Severino. He's got a 148 WRC plus versus
02:42righties. It's only a 70 WRC plus versus lefty. So this is the split to be targeting Severino,
02:47407 slugging allowed to let these not worried about this all. Let's roll with Merrill.
02:52Let's also go to another game today around Major League Baseball to finish out the prop
02:56perspective for this Thursday. Vecchio, what's the final bet that we have on your first day
03:01officially as a sports grid employee? Yeah, let's roll with Gavin Williams,
03:05over 15 and a half outs. It's sitting at plus 146. So there's going to be a plus money here.
03:09He's a solid pitcher overall, doesn't get hit too hard, doesn't have a massive strikeout rate,
03:13but he can control things. The guardians also, their bullpen was a bit taxed, not only yesterday
03:17so much, but the 12 inning game. They also are playing every day from now until next Thursday
03:21and have a double header on Monday. So they need their pitchers to go deeper into the
03:25game to kind of save things for their bullpen.