Meaningful baseball is back in our lives for the first time in more than four months as the Dodgers and Cubs meet in the two-game MLB Tokyo Series to kick off the 2025 season.
Let's dive into my MLB NRFI and YRFI picks and predictions for the first game of the Tokyo Series between the Dodgers and Cubs on Tuesday, March 18. I also delve into the No Runs Second Inning (NRSI) market for the first time.
MLB NRFI, YRFI Picks for Dodgers-Cubs
Dodgers vs Cubs YRFI Prediction
Starting Pitchers: Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD) vs Shota Imanaga (CHC)
It's always tricky projecting the opening series of MLB games since they take place at an unusual time and in rarely used stadiums. It's difficult to decide whether those changes help hitters or pitchers more, with the long travel and disruption of the typical Spring Training rhythm.
All of which is to say: go light on these bets for the Tokyo Series — my level of confidence is much lower than that of a typical game.
With that said, both starting pitchers in this game had slightly higher xFIP marks their first time through the order than overall last season. This makes a bit of intuitive sense given their broad pitching arsenals — it takes a bit of time to settle in and get a feel for which pitches are performing well in the given conditions.
On top of that, we have a stacked top of the Dodgers lineup to contend with. While the hitters at the top struggle a bit against lefties, they're protected by cleanup man Teoscar Hernández, who has elite splits against southpaws. If they can get one of the first three hitters on, they have an excellent shot of scoring a run.
I'm less optimistic on the Cubs side, but their lineup is still fairly top heavy.
My projection has this one a hair over 50% for a first inning run. That's a bit too small of an edge to qualify for an official pick the rest of the year, but since it's Opening Day, we'll take a nibble at +110 odds.
Dodgers vs Cubs NRSI Pick
This year, I've expanded my model to project second inning run odds. This is a trickier proposition, since we can't say for sure which hitters will come to the plate at the start of the second inning.
However, odds are some combination of the 4-8 hitters are fairly likely to come up, and I've weighted their probabilities accordingly.
For both teams in this game, that means a considerably weaker stretch of the lineup — particularly if Hernández comes up in the first inning for the Dodgers. On top of that, Yamamoto's splits were better in the second inning than the first, while Imanaga's remained about the same last season.
I've got the true odds of no run in the second inning (NRSI, for short) as a bit better than -160, so the -140 line is a decent value.
Consider the second-inning bet as a half-unit play for the time being since this is still an experimental venture.
