System for Second Game of a Season
As you could see from our First Game of the Season System, we loved taking the underdogs. What happens to the favorite in the second game if they lose? Do they bounce back or continue to lose?
I checked how favorites did off of a loss and saw them go 33-16, +10 units. There were only two losing seasons over the past 7.
We checked to see whether or not it matters if this team is a home/road team. It does. Home teams in this spot were an average 19-14, -2.00 units. Nothing special about them and nothing horrible about them.
BUT where we get our system is when we analyze whether this team is playing on the road. They are an incredible 14-2, winning their games by an average margin of 3.9 runs per game.
League-wide when teams win, they have only won by an average of 3.5 runs per game. So seeing that system go 14-2 and win by an average marging of 3.9 runs per game so that it is a very profitable angle.
We cannot call it a system because our sample size is too small but there definitely is value taking road teams in the second game of the year if they are coming off a loss as a favorite.
Reinforced Third Game of a Season System
In our First and the Second Game of the Year systems articles, we found that favorites tend to be asleep in the first game. But they bounce back in the second game. What happens in Game 3?
Teams off of a win in Game 3 are a respectable 56-34, +17 units. The system works almost identically regardless of whether the team is at home or on the road. But I noticed it was not so hot for American League teams.
If they lost the first game of the year, it improves to a beautiful 35-15, +21 unit system with only one losing year.
I did some massaging of all the variables to get this to become a 24-6, +22 unit system.
These were additional constraints to make my system pop:
- Must be coming off a game in which it scored 4 or more points.
- The team must not be a road favorite
This system has gone 9-1 over the past 2 seasons.
Check out all of our systems.
