2021 National League Playoff Betting Preview

National League Playoff Predictions

WagerTalk handicapper Tony Finn offers his National League Playoff betting preview, which includes thoughts on Wednesday night’s NL Wild Card showdown between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St Louis Cardinals and predictions for the Milwaukee Brewers vs Atlanta Braves series.

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National League Playoff Odds

Odds below, courtesy of the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook as of Monday, October 4:

• Wednesday’s NL Wild Card Game: Dodgers (-230) vs Cardinals (+205) with the total at 7.5 runs.
• Despite playing in the NL Wild Card game, the Dodgers are still the +180 favorites to win the National League and the +300 favorites to win the World Series.
• The Milwaukee Brewers have opened as -145 favorites in their NLDS series with the Atlanta Braves.

Dodgers vs Cardinals Preview

The Los Angeles Dodgers (106-56) host the St. Louis Cardinals (90-72) in the love-hate relationship we summer-ballers have with the win- and- advance one-eyed Jack postseason penalty for not winning one’s division. The Dodgers, the winners of the girls-gone-wild card event, earn the honor and the shame that is a best- of- five rather than seven series against the San Francisco Giants (107-55) in a Division Series.

The Cards announced Adam Wainwright (17-7, 3.05 ERA) would start and oppose L.A.’s Max Scherzer (15-4, 2.46 ERA with L.A. and Washington).

Toss together the Dodgers’ run differential in combination with a couple of underlying spices, add a raw egg to bind together all the metrics, and what you have is a Dodgers team that owned the league’s top expected win total of 108 games. And those who insist on seeing the dark side of the moon with or without Max Muncy (36 home runs, 94 RBI) who is dealing with an elbow contusion, the Dodgers take care of this silly business with a Cardinals team that is nothing short of a sacrificial lamb and do so without mercy on Wednesday night.

Finn Factor NL Wild Card winner: Max Scherzer -225 and the L.A. Dodgers

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San Francisco Giants Outlook

No matter where you go, where you turn, where you end up, or what you think you thought the next week or four, everything that is anything will be about Saturday and Sunday football and weekday Major League Baseball. A potpourri of the best that North American sports have to offer.

Whether you experience those sweet sounds at your locally owned neighborhood watering hole or one of the pre-fabbed God awful chains with Margarita mix better known for causing sugar comas blended carelessly with bathtub tequila – all of the talk, the smiles, the joyful screams from the girls and the sounds of butt slaps from the transgender bathrooms are all because the NFL is your daddy and MLB your baby mama.

The Finn Factor NL Cy Young-winning Walker Buehler will take the pill to the Oracle Park hill followed by Julio Urias, and because he did the grunt work and earned the wild card win over the Cards, Mad Max will fall in line as the third piece to the postseason rotation. Yes, Clayton Kershaw could be in the mix but not unless he or the witch doctor on the Dodgers payroll fixes what ails him.

Those damn Giants, under the spell of one of the world’s best magicians, Gabe Kapler, have had a season in which only a World Series title could create a scenario of righteously celebrating their season.

This is the spot where my season-ending World Series future composition flip-flops.

Why?

The Fat Lady has begun to hum. While the vibration is a simple yet weak wave, the sound is unmistakable. Soon the hum transforms into song, and the peal is distinctively biting.

By every metric but one, the Dodgers are the best team in baseball. L.A. houses a stable of arms and players with elite hip rotations and backup starters who throw 100-plus for fun. The Dodgers bench contributors are talented enough to be All-Stars for most other organizations.

The single variable that I can and do bestow to the Giants is the quality of their pen.

The question that I have been asked most this baseball season is how and why is this Kapler crew still, after 162 games, outperforming their pay grade? How many sacrifices of cows, lambs, chicken, goats, or San Fran souls did it take to buy the introduction, the storyline, and the unlikely conclusion to the 2021 Giants season that in a fairy tale fashion finished with the Giants one game ahead of the Dodgers in the National League West standings?

The short answer to the how is ridiculous determination and the power of faith. The longer answer is that while the success of this 2021 campaign started with a pitching staff that was so good in April and May that even after the fire that was the Giants pitching rotation subsided, it was then that the who became a lineup that hit more home runs than any other team in baseball. Furthermore, the league’s top home run hitting team compiled their offensive numbers in a park that has been rated as one of the most difficult venues to go deep at.

Several veterans reinvented themselves and were a major contributor to the team’s overall success. Brandon Belt led the team with 29 home runs. Kapler performed some of his best magic by putting complementary players in the right spot at the right time. The excellence of the trio LaMonte Wade Jr., Darin Ruf, and Wilmer Flores can’t be overstated.

Belt is, for today, out for the first game of the N.L. Division Series will be the Dodgers and Giants. However, is there more evidence that there isn’t an easy out on this Giants roster than Belt’s 29 home runs led the team – yet the totality of the team – led the league in home runs?

2021 will not be a season soon forgotten by those of us who were neck-deep in covering the entire league for our client base. It certainly won’t be a lost season for the Bay Area fanbase. Unfortunately, without a World Series title, a season for the ages will have a book and a DVD that will get little to no love. The book – that someone will write about the 2021 Giants – will be a Christmas gift bought and given by Giants fans for Giants fans.

Finn Factor NLDS winner: Los Angeles Dodgers in five

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Atlanta Braves Series Preview

Trusting the Brewers to put themselves in positions to be offensively successful consistently isn’t possible. Not completely and not without reservations. The pitching rotation, the front line, is the lifeline to almost everything this team collective achieves.

Where the Brewers can outpitch the Braves, it is in the same room that you will find the Braves working the pitchers count at every turn to fight off good pitches and take advantage of mistakes. All the while not offering at pitches outside the zone and stealing walks at just the right time and when the Brewers least expect it.

Reliable portals that cling tightly to the metrics of baseball are invaluable when accessing situations, matchups and, most important, provide data that allows those of us who are always working to be better, more informed, and grinding 365 days a year to improve our vision, the ability to project probabilities of sporting event outcomes accurately.

A longstanding and savvy group of baseball fanatics at Baseball-reference.com list the Brewers “wins above average” at 9.8 WAA. The starting pitching of the Brew Crew owns a 10.4 WAA. The Achilles of this Milwaukee roster isn’t their history of significant stretches where the entire roster lacks focus at the plate but the profile of the bullpen.

Typically the most reliable location to capture the talent and form of a team’s bullpen is from the player who squats behind the plate as their livelihood. In the case of Milwaukee, that player is catcher Manny Piña who has been right in the middle of the organization’s four straight postseason appearances.

“I feel the group in 2018 was similar,” Piña said in an interview with MLB.com contributor and Brewers correspondent Adam McCalvy. The Milwaukee catcher was referring to a team that clawed their way to Game 7 of the N.L. Championship Series against the Dodgers. “Right now, our pitching staff is better than 2018. And the offense is there. I think October is going to be a special month.” The question asked of Piña was the state of the bullpen which he conveniently neglected to address.

Milwaukee will square off against Atlanta without a key piece to the Brewers 2021 success in Devin Williams. The reigning N.L. Rookie of the Year wasn’t just a key piece to the team’s success this season his 2.50 earned run average and 87 punchouts in 54 innings are gone are not replaceable. Williams out pitch, a changeup that is considered a lethal weapon (to a players batting average) and described by more than one player, coach, and beat writer as “filthy-nasty” it has its nickname: “The Airbender.” Williams could recover in time for the World Series if the Crew could muster the wins to get that far.

It wasn’t until August that the Atlanta Braves earned more wins than losses and found their record above the baseball-Dixon line. On a Thursday night in the dog days of summer, Atlanta fresh off a neat and tidy three-game sweep over the St. Louis Cardinals. It was August 5th and the Braves’ 99th game of the season when the Cardinals pitchers walked five consecutive batters in the eighth inning, assisting in padding the lead Atlanta already had. The result of the handful of free passes allowed the Braves pitchers to shut the door on St Louis and preserve the victory.

The Braves discovered who they could be after the four months found them tossing and turning, as well, being pushed and pulled between wins and losses. The Braves acquired important personnel depth at the trade deadline. Players that allowed them to be more than who they could be before, especially in the outfield, a position that had been depleted by injury.

For all the work the front office did to key a late-season run that not only found them pushing their way to the front of the postseason line but ultimately to a division title. The Braves could field a group of infielders that all yielded a power bat. That group started and ended with the best hitter in the Bigs, Freddie Freeman. Joining the Braves’ first baseman were Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, and Dansby Swanson, who had over 100 dingers combined, each having hit 25-plus home runs.

Atlanta has my respect for fighting through injuries and naysayers that labeled this team quitter at the All-Star break. The Braves didn’t quit, not the players, coaches, or the talent in the front office. They did what they could before the trade deadline without selling the farm. At the same time, they battle their way to a fourth straight division title.

They don’t have the bat and leadership of Ronald Acuña Jr. The team lost starter Mike Soroka to injury before he threw a 2021 pitch. Injuries and life put Marcell Ozuna on the shelf. The losses I just outlined are a small part of a large list of reasons why this Braves squad has gone as far as they can go. The team’s skill-set has maxed their credit limit.

Finn Factor NLDS winner: Milwaukee Brewers in five

MLB First Pitch

In this episode of WagerTalk’s First Pitch, our panel of professional bettors preview Tuesday’s American League Playoff showdown between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The Yankees have opened as small road favorites in Boston, with the total sitting at 8 runs. Join Drew Martin, Dave Cokin and Steve Merril for First Pitch as we preview tonight’s MLB playoff clash from a betting perspective.

WagerTalk Live Odds Screen

WagerTalk’s live odds screen features up-to-the-minute lines from a variety of offshore and domestic sports books. Track the National League playoff moneylines, runlines, team totals, first five lines and so much more from your desktop or phone.

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