Mets vs. Yankees prediction: Subway Series odds, picks Tuesday

That’s correct! These Yankees swept the lowly 29-73 Kansas City Royals over the weekend. 

The Royals are on pace to be one of the worst baseball teams of all time, but a win is a win, and the Yankees badly need those. 

• Probable pitchers: Justin Verlander (RHP) vs. Domingo German (RHP)

Mets vs. Yankees prediction

(7:05 p.m. ET, TBS)

The Mets dropped two of three to the Red Sox at Fenway over the weekend, dropping seven games back in the NL Wild Card race.

These teams are bad. I can’t remember the last time the Subway Series meant so little. 

The Yankees now host part two of this year’s rivalry series as the Mets come to Yankee Stadium for a two-game set. 

These two split the first part at Citi Field. 

Tuesday features a compelling starting pitching matchup between Justin Verlander and Domingo German.

It’s this starting pitching matchup that I’m looking to wager against as my best bet in this matchup. 

Domingo German had a perfect game this season.

Cool! It only means he’s overvalued.

Aside from that start, German has been a below-average pitcher with a 4.52 ERA and a lackluster batted-ball profile.

German’s fastball is far too hittable. Opponents are slugging .712 off the pitch this year. 

You can’t be a highly-effective Major League pitcher without a Major League Fastball. 

If you exclude the no-hitter, German has allowed 23 earned runs over his past five outings. 

He’s no Ace. 

Justin Verlander used to be an Ace. 

He’s coming off an Ace-like start. Verlander tossed eight innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts last time out.

But you may not have noticed that Verlander’s velocity and Stuff+ metrics during the outing were down, and a horrendous White Sox lineup bailed him out. 

(As an aside: Stuff+ is a metric that attempts to quantify the “nastiness” of a pitch/arsenal based on its physical characteristics, such as velocity, movement, release point, et cetera). 

If anything, it’s a good time to sell high on Verlander. 

Remember, this pitcher walked six guys and was booed by his home crowd in the prior start (against the Dodgers). 

Verlander’s overall profile is shaky at best. He’s only striking out 20% of batters faced (25% career average) and has seen his walk rate jump 3% year-over-year (7.6%). 

As a result, Verlander’s ERA is up in the mid-3.00s, and his WHIP is now above 1.15. 

It’s an understatement to say I’m low on this starting pitching matchup.

The Yankees bullpen has been excellent for most of the year, but they’re slumping, posting a 4.60 ERA, a 1.50 WHIP and a 12.6% walk rate over the past two weeks. 

The Mets relief unit is a disaster. 

The bullpen has capitulated without its leader, Edwin Diaz. The Mets rank among the bottom-10 MLB teams in reliever ERA (4.20), expected FIP (4.63) and win probability added (-1.52%). 

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Overall, the Mets have the third-worst bullpen in baseball by FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement metric (-0.4). 

Yes, I understand how pitiful these two lineups are – especially the Yankees without Judge. 

But given how bad these arms are, run prevention will be near-impossible across all nine frames. Somebody has to score!

At the minimum, our projections say the value is on the Over. 

Sean Zerillo of The Action Network projects about 9 total runs for this game.

So, catching the over 8.5 at even money is excellent value. 

I’m betting on the Over, but I won’t act surprised when these two lifeless teams fail to muster any action.