9/9/2005 Friday's MLB Picks (6)
Let me preface my picks with a little bit of history. When we first started the season, we focused a lot on the home/away records for teams as motivations for betting. Then we started analyzing pitching matchups, lefty/righty combos and now we are focusing on momentum as we end the season. Early in the season, we start to see teams that are good struggle on the road such as the Astros did. We also saw teams that could not lose at home i.e. Nationals and we rode that for a while. After a certain point in the season, home/away statistics already get factored into the spread and value can no longer be found. Now, there's the momentum angle. As we near the end of the LONG season, some teams have a lot of motivation and some teams could care less. Momentum is HUGE at the end of the season. Did you know that blindly betting on teams with 6+ wins L10 that are going against a team with less than 5 wins L10 is +99 units over the past 7 seasons? These teams are 783-483 with a 62% winning percentage and are on average of 8 points off the spread. Although this system has had only 1 losing year, that losing year was -14 units! That is a lot. Anyways, I constrained the betting system by removing bad angles and found it to become 252-120 (68%) +122 Units. This system has already gone 11-4 this season. Incredible. We are now including all of these games as part of our betting arsenal.

Florida Marlins -125 over Philadelphia Phillies (1.5 Units)
Momentum play on these Marlins. This game matches our 252-120 system but also matches another betting angle that I like to use. That angle involves going for road teams coming off 3+ consecutive wins and go against a team off 3+ consecutive losses. The 252-120 system improves to 118-44 (73%) for road favorites.

Atlanta Braves -125 over Washington Nationals (1.5 Units)
Same 2 systems that apply to the Marlins apply to these Braves.

St. Louis Cardinals -150 over New York Mets (1.0 Units)
We were betting against the Cardinals a few games ago citing that they did not need to win those games. But we see them playing well. The Mets, once were in the playoff race have now been demoralized to the last place in the NL East and at 500 with 2 wins L10. They struggle again today against Marquis. Seo gets a rare loss.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays +105 over Toronto Blue Jays (2.0 Units)
People just dont realize that these Devil Rays are actually pretty good. What's hidden behind their 59-82 record is their 37-32 home record. Heck, they have a better home record than the Wild Card leading Cleveland Indians . Anyways, we are 2-0 the past 30 days backing the Devil Rays at home in the first game of a series. Here, in Game 1 of this series, we like them.

Texas Rangers +115 over Oakland Athletics (1.5 Units)
Rangers are 7-3L10 and the A's are 4-6L10. Remember we wanted to go for the Athletics against Jamie Moyer because of their greatness against left handed pitching. Well, they score 2 points fewer against right handed pitching. I loved how the A's were -160 with Moyer pitching but -200 with Franklin. It should have been the other way around strictly based on the lefty/righty dynamics. A similar situation here today. We see these Athletics who have been playing horribly and are slowly falling out of the AL Wild Card picture as favorites. The fact that the Rangers are division rivals, they will not let up for any reason and we can expect 100% of their effort. Take the streakin Rangers with a Righty starting pitcher against these A's. The A's are struggling because of injuries and a loss of chemistry. Listed Pitcher of the Rangers would be any Righty.

Boston Redsox +120 over New York Yankees (1.0 Units)
You always want to bet the underdog of a Red Sox- Yankees game. The reason behind that is because both teams put out their best efforts against each other and as a result, the underdog always wins at a higher percentage than predicted. No joke but the Underdogs in every game between these two teams are actually +41 units over the past 7 years with a 68-60 record. This is odd but heck it happens. If the underdog is the road team in Game 1 of the series, it is 18-9 over the past 7 years. This is a sign that with this being such a high profile rivalry, both teams should be -110 every game, every day, regardless of pitchers. You may think it is odd for an underdog to win higher than 50% but when you realize that the best pitchers on either side struggled against the opposition, such as Pedro strugging against his daddy the Yankees, it makes a little bit of sense. David Wells is coming into his second start off suspension/DL and you expect it to be a good one against his hated rivals. Remember the Yankees struggle against Lefties, why else do they lose so often against Lefty-stacked Devilrays. And the Red Sox are coming off a shutout loss but a series win.