Baseball’s Daily Grind Adding Profits
Baseball’s Daily Grind Adding Profits
A Baseball bettor is a different breed then most, having far different circumstances to work with. As compared to the winter sports where basketball bettors often have 2-3 light nights per week with varying teams playing, for those betting on baseball, it2007-07-02
A Baseball bettor is a different breed then most, having far different circumstances to work with. As compared to the winter sports where basketball bettors often have 2-3 light nights per week with varying teams playing, for those betting on baseball, it is 15 games almost each and everyday with the same 30 teams. The goal of any baseball bettor should be to win units on a weekly basis, not daily. Putting that kind of pressure on one’s self only leads to making bad choices and worse yet, losing streaks and dwindling bankrolls.
In the last two and a half seasons of MLB wagering on baseball, StatFox Doug’s results have been rather ordinary, up about six units in that time period, including +7.98 units this season on straight bets. While the results have not been spectacular, they have been positive. He gives credit to understanding line value based on a scale he set up that compares the actual line like those from Sportsbook.com or others, versus how he generates his own money line for a game. Last year he wrote what turned out to be the most read major league baseball article on the StatFox website about betting baseball. The overall results on this method turned out to be dull. Still believing the idea was correct, he went ahead and fine tuned the extraction of numbers. The results have been dramatically different. Take a look.
Here are the factors used for comparing oddsmakers lines to Doug’s.
1) Each teams winning percentage
2) Each teams winning percentage in road/home games
3) Record over the last seven games (percentage)
4) Bullpen won/loss record (percentage)
5) Bullpen Save percentage
6) Starting pitchers current record + record since 1999 against current opponent. (percentage)
Here is an example from Sunday’s Oakland and New York Yankees game as to what this would look like. New York was a -130 favorite.
Oakland
New York
1) 513
1) 481
2) 487
2) 583
3) 285
3) 285
4) 428
4) 500
5) 576
5) 455
6) 857
6) 588
Adding all the numbers of for each team gives…
Total – Oakland 3146
New York 2892
He then takes the Totals and divides by the number of lines, in this case six.
3146 divided by six and 2892 divided by six.
Oakland’s new number becomes 524 and the Yankees 482. Then he subtracts the higher number against the lower.
524 – 482 = 42
He uses this number and divides by 2.
42 divided by 2 = 21
What this tells Doug is that the Athletics, with Danny Haren pitching in this case, should be a -121 road favorite over New York. One of the changes I made from previous seasons is the differential has to be 40 or greater. In this case the Yankees are -130 favorite; Doug has the A’s at -121, for a difference of 51. I used to have it difference at 30, and those numbers have not been as reliable. The other change made has turned out to be just as important. Besides raising it to 40, the underdog has to have a true opportunity to win the game based on the money line.
For example, if the favorite is say -225 and the method shows that same favorite is -150, that is a change of 75. Before the strategy used to count those, and the first two years created it worked very well, totaling almost 40 units. However, this is no longer the case. A favorite at -150 should still win the vast majority of the time. Instead the underdog must now be no higher then -105 or a favorite in order to qualify, this has produced solid results since making the change.
By now you are probably saying enough, what are the results? Breaking this down into three areas, favorites, dogs and picks. Since making the adjustments starting May 21 here is what the totals add up to.
Favorites – 40-33 -1.55 units
Underdogs 55-51 +20.45 units
Picks 0-2 -2.10 units
Grand Total of 95-86 +16.8 units
It become readily apparent this system offers the best value of playing the underdog, with results that show true merit. While not suggesting playing every game if you truly don’t like the matchups, it’s still hard to argue with the results. Acquiring these numbers does take some work; however the numbers are easy to find if you are a FoxSheets customer, as they are right on each game page. Hopefully you too can start to see some of the success we’re happy to report.