Analysis of a 37-12 Baseball System - If Only Baseball Managers Knew Something About Handicapping

I was taking a look at all of the baseball games as I generally do each day as I make picks for this website and I found the Pirates-Cubs game a bit appealing. My program told me to pick the Pirates but as they say in handicapping, "if there's one 70% system telling you to take one team, there's another equally strong 70% system going the other way" so I do not rely on my systems to exclusively make picks but rather to narrow the scope of games that I analyze.

In looking at the Pirates game, the first thing that stood out at me was the fact that Zach Duke is a lefty. Lefties can be dominant in major league baseball if put in the proper position. A typical spot that lefties would thrive would be if they were going against a team struggling to score points and just came off a start against a righty. The lefty-righty switch on a struggling offensive team can be devastating because not only is a team struggling but their hitters will be off balance to face their next opposing pitcher.

The Cubs, I found, were in a completely polar situation. They just scored double digit points much of those runs against Gorzelanny, a lefty! So not only are these Cubs in a groove offensively, I see nothing to keep them from continuing that groove against lefty pitcher Zach Duke.

Let's look at how teams have performed historically if they are in this position. They are 122-77, +42.0 units over the past 8 seasons. And if you constrict the results to home favorites as these Cubs are, they are 36-12, +21 units across the same time frame. These teams are undervalued by an average of 45 points, meaning that a -120 Cubs team today should be -165.

Knowing that Gorzelanny just got smacked around, he is foolish to put Duke out there on the mound today. He should try to put out a righty pitcher to get these Cubs hitters off balance and then put Duke on the mound. As it is, he is setting himself up for failure. Poor management! The only manager that I have known to make game time decisions that seemed to coincide well with past results and system analysis is Bobby Cox. His game day pitching changes would drive me crazy! But I think with him, his changes were a gut-feeling change rather than a look at the numbers.

Either way, a manager should be more flexible in how they use their starting rotation. The Pirates manager is irresponsible to put two lefties back to back today but don't be surprised if he takes Duke out of there.

Now the Cubs are not our pick for today despite falling into such a profitable system. It is just too early in the season at a time where too much fan money is coming in. The Cubs have a lot of devout fans out there and will always pour money into the Cubs no matter what, specifically after their offensive rout yesterday. This devalues the odds that we get when we bet them causing them to lack as much value as we would like.

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