Money Moves | August 14, 2026 | Hour 1

**SPEAKER_1** (0:09)
This is Money Moves on VSiN, the SportsBetting Network.

**Jonathan Von Tobel** (0:18)
Welcome in to another wonderful edition of Money Moves. It's Jonathan Von Tobel flying solo for the day. Stormy by the Tony out on assignment. She'll be back on Tuesday, but we have a really good show on Tap Free today. I laugh because it feels like a loose and fluid Friday.
Hectic start to the day behind the scenes, lots of traffic and all sorts of crazy stuff happening, and we have a lot to get to on the program today as well. So we're to keep it loose as we generally do when Stormy is out. Although I do get a little bit more straight line, a little bit more serious when Stormy is not here because why not? We do have a Major League Baseball Contest set to begin in the next 20 minutes. Let's start there before we get to our rundown, get to a little bit of the National Football League and some more, but the St. Louis Cardinals set to do battle here with the Chicago Cubs. Let's hit some numbers really quickly as this game is going to get started in the next few minutes. Matthew Liberatore getting the start for the Cardinals, plus 168 dog Cubs, minus 180 coming back on the other side. Clay Holmes making his second start in a Cubs uniform. Last time we saw him, the first time in the Cubs uniform on the road against Kansas City, four innings, faced 18 batters, gave him six hits, four runs, struck out one and walked two. It is the fourth consecutive start for him in which he has walked two or more, but it's a little misleading considering of those four, three of them came in May.
Of course, shelved with some injuries. So I think you're just waiting. You know, this, I think buy from the Chicago Cubs was hoping that Holmes is gonna round into form by the time we get to the postseason. So seems pretty strong to lay that buck 80 here, considering what we know about Holmes at this point, Libertor not really coming in in great form. ERA of 515, expected at 5 flat and a fit before 70 Last time we saw him, gave him five earned runs against the Colorado Rockies. Nothing really strong, but we're gonna keep track of this throughout our program here today. But worth noting, the Cubs look like they're set to go off as about $1.80 favorites with Holmes on the Hill. So with that, we'll wait for that one to begin. Until then, let's get the show started as we always do.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:12)
It's time for the top headlines and topics of the day.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:15)
This is the Rundown.

**Jonathan Von Tobel** (2:18)
You know, I haven't seen a lot of movies, but I have seen the Jungle Book and Bear Necessities, I believe is one of the tracks of the movie, right? I think it's Blue that sings the song. Bear Necessities are at the top of the list today.
Because there are some necessities for the Chicago Bears, two things. In fact, we got to see if Caleb Williams can be on track. Can he actually do the little things, the easy things better this year? And can this defense continue to do what it did last year? Bear is one of those teams that look like they're going to snap back to reality this season. So it would be necessary for them to maintain some sort of form if they want to make it back into the postseason. We'll see if they can do that as part of our training camp tour, which will continue in Chicago next year. Or I don't know the timeline exactly, but one day will it be in Indiana? We'll find out. Next stop, campus and club houses. We do have a lot to get to in college football. Cole Cubelic is going to join us here. Former Auburn offensive lineman covers the SEC for the SEC Network. A lot to get to with the Southeastern Conference and of course Major League Baseball in full swing. We do have to talk about the rest of the Major League Baseball card. And speaking of college football too, we cannot forget Von Del Zell is going to be with us.
We are getting closer, so we might as well continue our coverage. We talked to Tim Murray yesterday about week zero and week one plays. We will do the same with Von of NBC Sports coming up in the second hour. But we start with the big one. First impressions from last night, the first full day of NFL Preseason action.
We got a lot of data to sip through, even though we only had six games on the card yesterday. But a rough day generally for better, specifically those betters who moved the market yesterday in those contests. VSirca graded line, so these are the closing lines, the opening lines that I'm using my data for yesterday. A smattering of differences in some of the numbers obviously, but we use Circa for the sake of our experiment here. Underdogs go 5-0 against the spread. Chargers here, they closed as a pick. Some spots, they were a dog, so that one, it depends on where you look, go 6-0. Two outright wins from the underdogs though, here at Circa. Pittsburgh and Arizona get those victories outright in the preseason action last night. Totals, a perfect 6-0 to the under yesterday in the NFL Preseason. For the postseason, preseason as a whole, we include the Hall of Fame game, 6-1 so far. And I thought this was the most interesting nugget, and it does speak to what we have hit on on this show, what you have heard from many other shows as well, which is the preseason, the volatility of the lines, and where you're betting them. We discussed this at length with the Lions and the Bengals. Lions end up staying inside of that number pretty much the entire way against the Cincinnati Bengals. But those bettors that shape the market, and the ones that you potentially want to tail, well, they were laying three and a half of the number that closed six and a half, seven in multiple spots yesterday. So yesterday, sides that moved two or more points, you went two and three against the spread if you bet the opening line. So the two games that covered Tennessee and Indianapolis, you went o and five against the spread in the games that moved two or more points if you bet the closing line. So if you're just chasing steam, came in late yesterday, you went over, you at least got two in the pocket and dampened the blow, we'll say, if you actually got in on those opening nine lines again, that moved about two or more points. Again, I'm only mentioning five games here, did not include the Chargers game, because here at circuit was kind of ping pong and back and forth. So for the sake of that data point at the very least, the transparency being that just the five games, if you bet the opening lines, you were two and three against the spread on the side that moved two or more points, you're own five against the spread against the closing lines. So it speaks to a couple of things, right? First thing is, you just got to bet, if you're going to bet some of these things, guess what? Getting the best of the number is the best opportunity you're going to have to set yourself up for success. You still went two or three against the spread, but guess what? I'd rather go two or three against the spread than own five against the spread. If you're just chasing, you took it on the chin yesterday. But the other part of this too is, look, preseason in general, betters like it because you can get a ton of closing line value and closing line value generally sets you up for success in the larger sample size. It also just goes to show that you don't really mean or know that much. And you can kind of guess what's going to happen here and the value of players as well. Arizona is a pretty good example. Carson Beck, while we were on the air yesterday, we had missed the news, I had missed the news that he had a rib injury and that's why that line was moving while we were on the air, but it doesn't really mean that much for Arizona in the grand scheme of things when they actually go out and get the win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Let's talk about the Raiders because they were front and center, maybe it's just because we were here in Las Vegas, I was doing local radio as well, so probably a little bit more of a focus on this Raiders game, but was an interesting one nonetheless, total had gotten better up there, talked about the line movement, the Carson Beck injury, and of course the debut of the number one overall pick in Fernando Mendoza, so a lot of eyes out there on Allegiant. Fernando Mendoza yesterday, 10 of 16 and 97 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, said to the media afterwards that, you know what, it was a good experience.