Red Sox vs. Yankees Odds & Pick (Monday, August 17): Hold Your Nose and Back Boston

Red Sox vs. Yankees Betting Odds

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Odds as of Monday at 8:00 a.m. ET via DraftKings. Get up to a $1,000 sign-up bonus at DraftKings today or see more offers and reviews for the best online sportsbooks.

Editor's Note: As of 5:00 p.m. ET, the Red Sox are now listed at +150 at DraftKings. The Yankees moneyline is currently -175.

New York will go for a four-game sweep of its archrivals on Monday as it sends Jordan Montgomery to the mound. The Yankees have dominated their AL East foe in every facet of the game so far this series, so the Red Sox will be looking salvage at least something before heading home to Boston.

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.

BaseRuns is a formula designed to estimate how many runs a team would be expected to score (or allow) given their underlying offensive (or defensive) performance. In other words, BaseRuns is a context-neutral run estimator used to evaluate teams. Major League average for an individual batter per game is 0.50 BaseRuns and a for a pitcher its 0.52 BaseRuns per inning. 

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Red Sox

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

Boston's offense has been pretty average to begin the season, holding a .318 wOBA and 97 wRC+. It has hit left-handed pitching a little better this year, with a .335 wOBA and 109 wRC+. Montgomery is a below-average left-hander, so Monday will be a good opportunity for the Sox to find their offense. 

Red Sox Projected Starter

Martin Perez, LHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

For the past four years, Perez's xFIP has been in the high 4s with no signs of improvement. He's been solid so far in 2020, allowing only eight earned runs on 15 hits in 21.1 innings of work. His biggest issue has been control — he's walked 11 batters already this season.

Perez primarily throws a cutter that is pretty effective, as it held opponents to a .269 wOBA in 2019. It's been his best pitch again in 2020, allowing only two hits off it in 115 pitches. He also has a decent sinker and changeup that can play well off his cutter, but they aren't anything special. His fastball is an issue, though, as opponents have been teeing off on it over the past few years. So, Perez will need to go to his main three pitches more often if he wants to be successful for the rest of 2020.

Yankees

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

The Yankees have been mashing the ball through their first 16 games. Up to this point in the season, they lead MLB with a .358 wOBA and 129 wRC+. The Yankees will most likely be without Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and DJ LeMahieu for this game, which will be a huge loss, as those three players all have wOBAs over .400. It'll be interesting to see who picks up the slack in their absence.

Yankees Probable Starter

Jordan Montgomery, LHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant) (2017)

Jordan Montgomery hasn't been great through his first three starts, allowing nine earned runs in 15.1 innings pitched, which has led to a 4.73 xFIP.

Montgomery hasn't pitched a full season for the Yankees since 2017. He suffered injuries the past two seasons, so he's been on the mound in limited fashion recently.

He primarily uses his curveball and sinker to get batters out. While his curveball has been effective — producing a 42.8% whiff rate in 2017 — his sinker is a different story. In 2017, hitters feasted on that pitch from Montgomery's arsenal, posting a .342 batting average and .414 wOBA. The Red Sox ranked second against curveballs this season, so Montgomery will have to utilize his sinker a lot on Monday.

Bullpens

Boston's bullpen hasn't been great thus far, but it's not all bad news. It has a collective xFIP of 4.22, which is 15th in MLB so far this year.

The Yankees bullpen has been as good as projected, with a 4.10 xFIP so far this season. New York has the more talented bullpen, so it has the advantage on Monday night.

Projections and Pick

Despite how pathetic the Red Sox have looked over the past week, I still think there's some value on them on Monday. The public has already jumped all over New York by taking it on 76% of tickets.

The absences of Stanton, Judge, and LeMahieu do have a major effect on the Yankees' lineup, so I am going to back the Red Sox at +148 (DraftKings) and would bet it down to +120.

Pick: Red Sox +148 (play down to +120)

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