MLB Odds, Picks and Predictions: Minnesota Twins at Chicago White Sox (Friday, July 24)

Minnesota Twins at Chicago White Sox Odds

Odds as of Thursday 7 p.m. ET and via BetRivers, which is now live with online betting in Illinois. Get an INSTANT $250 deposit match today.

Two young studs meet on the mound on Friday night as Jose Berrios and the Minnesota Twins visit Lucas Giolito and the White Sox.

The Twins had one of their best seasons since their World Series years in 2019 only to be swept by the Yankees in American League Divisional Series.

The White Sox are an up-and-coming team with a lot of young talent and there are plenty of pundits picking them to be a dark horse in 2020.

If you want to know more about BaseRuns and how I use it to build my projections, check out this deep dive on my model.

Advanced Stats Glossary

FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching measures what a pitcher’s ERA would look like if the pitcher experienced league-average defense and luck. xFIP  is a regressed version of FIP that adjusts or “normalizes’ the home run component based on park factors.

wRC+ or Weighted Runs Created Plus takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for critical external factors — like ballpark or era. It’s adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average, and 150 would be 50 percent above league average.

wOBA or Weighted On-Base Average is a catch-all hitting metric with more predictive value than on-base percentage. An average MLB hitter can be expected to post a .320 wOBA. xwOBA is a regressed version of wOBA that accounts for variables like park factors.

Twins

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

The Twins were one the best power-hitting lineups in 2019 and they project to get a little deeper with the addition of Josh Donaldson to a roster that hit a league-leading 307 dingers last year.

It's tough to get by the Twins lineup with fastballs, cutters and curveballs. The Twins finished first in weighted fastball runs (also written as wFB and is a stat that tries to answer the question, how well did a team/player fare against a fastball), second in weighted cutter runs (wCT) and weighted curveball runs (wCB).

They do however somewhat struggle against sliders and changeups, so it'll be interesting to see how the Twins fare versus Giolito, who's main two secondary pitches are changeup and slider.

Projected Starter

Jose Berrios, RHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Jose Berrios does a great job interchanging all of his pitches, but he has trouble with control, as he hangs one too many pitches (7.5% meatball rate). However, Berrios has some nasty stuff and sometimes it looks like he's throwing a Wiffle ball out there.

Berrios has been dubbed at the Twins next ace for the past few years and it's now time for him to take the next step and become a CY Young contender.

If he can improve his control on all four of his pitches, he could be one of the best pitchers in baseball.

White Sox

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

The White Sox added Edwin Encarnacion and Yasmani Grandal during the offseason, but their biggest addition could be top-prospect Luis Robert. The three of them should provide a much-needed lift to an offense that finished near the bottom of the MLB in 2019.

Probable Starter

Lucas Giolito, RHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Lucas Giolito took a massive step forward in 2019, becoming one of the best young arms in the game. He's predominantly a fastball pitcher, but has solid secondary pitches that play well off his elite fastball.

He'll have a big challenge against the Twins lineup that was the best in MLB against fastballs a year ago.

Bullpens

As you can see the bullpens in this matchup are pretty much a wash, so I'm expecting this game will be decided by the starting pitchers.

Projections and Pick

Despite this heavyweight pitching matchup, I actually project this game for 9.13 runs, so I am going to back Over 8.5 at plus-money.

Pick: Over 8.5 runs (+102)

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