We are now about a week away from the midpoint of the 2011 Major League Baseball season, so this seems like a good time to take a look back at the fist half and see which trends have been working so far this season and which trends have not.
We took a look at MLB prop betting last week, but we are looking at the more mainstream options this week that you should be able to take advantage of at every sportsbook in the world. All the started units won or lost are based on the closing betting odds from Pinnacle Sports through completed games of Thursday, June 23.
Best/Worst Money Pitchers (through 6/23/11)
Let us begin with the starting pitchers. The stated records are the team records when each pitcher starts.
1 – Jason Marquis, Washington (12-3, +12.94 units)
2 – Dillon Gee, New York Mets (10-1, +9.73)
3 – Roy Halladay, Philadelphia (13-3, +8.87)
Marquis is showing no sign of slowing down as he tossed eight scoreless innings in his last start. He has a 3.53 ERA and has allowed three earned runs or less in 11 of his 15 starts, thanks to significantly cutting down his walks compared to past years.
Gee finally tasted defeat in his last start, as he walked six batters while allowed four runs in the first three innings after not walking more than four batters in any entire game in his previous 10 starts. He still has a 3.21 ERA and 1.14 WHIP while limiting batters to a .208 average, but we want to see how he does his second time through the league.
Halladay is the only pitcher in the top three that you would expect to be there, as he remains truly one of the best pitchers on baseball.
And then there is the opposite side of the money spectrum:
214 – J.A. Happ, Houston (3-12, -8.38)
215 – Chris Carpenter, St. Louis (5-11, -10.81)
216 – Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado (3-10, -12.17)
Happ pitches for a team that cannot score, but you really cannot use that excuse when you put up a 5.33 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP like he has.
The huge surprises are the bottom two, as Carpenter and Jimenez were two of the best pitchers in the league last season. Carpenter, in fact, has been great for many years, but he has an uncharacteristic 4.26 ERA this season. However, he did look like his old self when allowing one run and five hits in seven innings last time out, so he may be turning things around.
Jimenez has been more unlucky, as he has now allowed three earned runs or less in his last four starts with just one win to show for it. He has also been overvalued all year after finishing third in the Cy Young voting last season.
A Game of Streaks?
It has been a long held belief that baseball is a game of streaks, and that teams play better after a win and worse after a loss. Well, the effect has been minimal so far as all teams coming off of a win are 556-551, 50.2 percent and all teams coming off of a loss are 551-559, 49.6 percent.
Here are the top three and bottom three teams so far in each category, ranked by winning percentage.
Following Win (through 6/23/11)
We took a look at MLB prop betting last week, but we are looking at the more mainstream options this week that you should be able to take advantage of at every sportsbook in the world. All the started units won or lost are based on the closing betting odds from Pinnacle Sports through completed games of Thursday, June 23.
Best/Worst Money Pitchers (through 6/23/11)
Let us begin with the starting pitchers. The stated records are the team records when each pitcher starts.1 – Jason Marquis, Washington (12-3, +12.94 units)
2 – Dillon Gee, New York Mets (10-1, +9.73)
3 – Roy Halladay, Philadelphia (13-3, +8.87)
Marquis is showing no sign of slowing down as he tossed eight scoreless innings in his last start. He has a 3.53 ERA and has allowed three earned runs or less in 11 of his 15 starts, thanks to significantly cutting down his walks compared to past years.
Gee finally tasted defeat in his last start, as he walked six batters while allowed four runs in the first three innings after not walking more than four batters in any entire game in his previous 10 starts. He still has a 3.21 ERA and 1.14 WHIP while limiting batters to a .208 average, but we want to see how he does his second time through the league.
Halladay is the only pitcher in the top three that you would expect to be there, as he remains truly one of the best pitchers on baseball.
And then there is the opposite side of the money spectrum:
214 – J.A. Happ, Houston (3-12, -8.38)
215 – Chris Carpenter, St. Louis (5-11, -10.81)
216 – Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado (3-10, -12.17)
Happ pitches for a team that cannot score, but you really cannot use that excuse when you put up a 5.33 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP like he has.
The huge surprises are the bottom two, as Carpenter and Jimenez were two of the best pitchers in the league last season. Carpenter, in fact, has been great for many years, but he has an uncharacteristic 4.26 ERA this season. However, he did look like his old self when allowing one run and five hits in seven innings last time out, so he may be turning things around.
Jimenez has been more unlucky, as he has now allowed three earned runs or less in his last four starts with just one win to show for it. He has also been overvalued all year after finishing third in the Cy Young voting last season.
A Game of Streaks?
It has been a long held belief that baseball is a game of streaks, and that teams play better after a win and worse after a loss. Well, the effect has been minimal so far as all teams coming off of a win are 556-551, 50.2 percent and all teams coming off of a loss are 551-559, 49.6 percent.
Here are the top three and bottom three teams so far in each category, ranked by winning percentage.
Following Win (through 6/23/11)| Rank | Team | W | L | Win% | Units |
| 1 | Boston | 31 | 13 | 70.5% | +13.73 |
| 2 | Cleveland | 24 | 15 | 61.5% | +10.56 |
| 3 | Minnesota | 19 | 13 | 59.4% | +9.54 |
| 28 | San Diego | 10 | 21 | 32.2% | -10.67 |
| 29 | Houston | 8 | 19 | 29.6% | -9.57 |
| 30 | Chi Cubs | 8 | 22 | 26.7% | -14.28 |
Following Loss (through 6/23/11)
| Rank | Team | W | L | Win% | Units |
| 1 | Philadelphia | 20 | 8 | 71.4% | +9.52 |
| 2 | NY Yankees | 18 | 11 | 62.1% | +5.20 |
| 3 | Tampa Bay | 20 | 14 | 58.8% | +4.83 |
| 28 | Kansas City | 16 | 27 | 37.2% | -8.51 |
| 29 | Baltimore | 13 | 25 | 34.2% | -11.31 |
| 30 | Minnesota | 13 | 27 | 32.5% | -11.23 |
The Twins have been the best example of the streak theory, as they are in the top three following a win and in the bottom three following a loss on the MLB odds results. However, there are also great examples of regression to the mean, which is actually the antithesis of the streak theory. Examples of those are the performances of the Cubs and Astros off of a win and the Phillies and Yankees off of a loss.
Year of the Road Team?
Home field advantage has always meant less in baseball than it has in other sports, but it has still always existed to a small degree. However, the oddsmakers may be overcompensating for the home teams this season.
All home clubs are a collective 591-534 for just 52.5 percent, and blindly playing all the home teams has produced a loss of -58.25 units. What has been most revealing over the first half though has been that blindly betting on all the road teams has produced an MLB betting profit of +18.06 units!
A breakdown of home and away team favorites and underdogs follows. Please note that favorites are defined as closing higher than -103 at Pinnacle, and underdogs are teams that closed at either -102, -101 or at positive odds. The 20 MLB games that have closed at -103 for each side so far this season are omitted.
MLB 2011 Breakdown through games of 6/23/11
Home Favorites: 438-352, 55.4%, -51.38
Home Underdogs: 143-172, 45.4%, -6.57
Road Favorites: 172-143, 54.6%, -3.96
Road Underdogs: 352-438, 44.6%, +22.32
As you can see, the road underdogs have produces a nice 22.32 units of profit if bet blindly, and even though road favorites have produces a loss of -3.96, they has still been significantly “less bad” than home favorites.
Run Lines
Break up the Washington Nationals! Not only are the pesky Nats a surprising 38-37 this season, but they also have the best run line winning percentage in baseball at 44-31, 58.7 percent while earning 3.86 run line units. As you might expect however, Washington is 39-22, 63.9 percent as a run line underdog, but only 5-9 as a run line favorite.
In fact, no team in the Major Leagues is over .500 as a run line favorite, although the Philadelphia Phillies are right at .500 at 32-32 overall. That is why the oddsmakers make it so desirable to lay the 1.5 runs by attaching attractive odds to the run line chalk, knowing full well that no favorite this season has covered the run line in more than half of those games, and only five teams have won by at least two runs as favorite more than 45 percent of the time.
Here is a list of those five teams.
Run Line Favorites (through games of 6/23/11)
| Team | W | L | Cover% |
| Philadelphia | 32 | 32 | 50.0% |
| Cleveland | 14 | 15 | 48.3% |
| NY Yankees | 25 | 28 | 47.2% |
| NY Mets | 14 | 16 | 46.7% |
| Detroit | 20 | 23 | 46.5% |
Now remember that even 46.5 percent may be good enough to turn a profit with run line favorites as long as the odds attached to the -1.5 are sufficient enough, so keep your eyes on this for future betting lines. Also, do not be so quick to automatically dismiss run line underdogs either, especially with teams like the Nationals.
No comments:
Post a Comment