It was a mixed bag over the weekend for my NRFI model, with a winning day on Saturday and a losing day on Sunday.
Let's get back into the win column in the new week, with two picks for Nationals vs Pirates and Royals vs Yankees on Monday night.
Here are my MLB NRFI picks and model predictions for Monday.
MLB NRFI, YRFI Picks and Predictions — 4/14
Nationals vs. Pirates NRFI/YRFI Prediction
Starting Pitchers: Brad Lord vs. Paul Skenes
Normally, I'd skip past this game, since Nationals starter Brad Lord has just a five-inning big league sample size in his career.
However, it's also a Paul Skenes game.
Skenes has allowed just one baserunner in the first inning this season, and has a career first-time-through-the-order ERA of 1.20. That makes the Nationals extremely unlikely to do any damage early, especially with CJ Abrams on the injured list.
The other good thing about Skenes' starts is that the other offense is the Pirates. They're the worst hitting team in baseball by wRC+ this season and have scored just two first-inning runs in 16 games.
That's enough to overcome the uncertain projection on Lord, as well as the juice we have to pay for the NRFI.
Royals at Yankees NRFI/YRFI Prediction
Starting Pitchers: Seth Lugo vs. Carlos Carrasco
I was hoping to get a slightly better price on the YRFI, but that was probably optimistic considering the total has risen to 9.0 after opening at 8.5.
I'm showing a slight value on the YRFI now, but I want to lock in the current price in case the total continues to climb.
Both pitchers have been worse their first time through the order than overall, and Carrasco has been pretty bad overall. When we combine that with Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr. getting first inning at-bats, it pushes a lot of the expected scoring here to the early part of the game.
If you don't want to pay the juice, the Yankees' team specific YRFI at north of +200 is also interesting, as I have them as the likelier team to score based on the strength of the top of their lineup.
