April 14, 2008 Baseball Picks

Los Angeles Angels over Texas Rangers (1.5 Units) - Here is what Yahoo Sports is saying about this game:

"The Los Angeles Angels managed to avoid a three-game sweep to start out their five-game road trip. To make this swing successful, however, they'll have to overcome their troubles facing the Texas Rangers in Arlington."

such reporting will cause folks to be tentative in wanting to bet the Angels but in our experience, it is important to really look into why mini-struggles occur. If it is because a team is on the road, then it is not as destructive as if the team was at home. Home-Road characteristics could be at play causing us to look too much into the details of this.

Besides, the Angels won on Sunday and our data suggests that it is much more important to go into a season with a win than a team's performance leading up to their previous game. Essentially a win can solve all your problems.

Besides, these Rangers are coming into today having been swept at home. Remembering the home-road dichotomy we mentioned above, the fact that these Rangers are losing at HOME is much more detrimental to their psyche than losing at home. The reporting of this game by Yahoo Sports is wholly one-sided.

Now that I had a formulated opinion on this game based on the angles each team fall into, let's see if the data supports our argument.

Teams coming into a series playing a team that got swept at home was not necessarily all that great over the past 10 seasons but what makes it a promising angle is if the two teams are divisional rivals. It becomes [75-49, +14 units], about 10 points of value on the spread. It makes a whole lot of sense in the sense that these Angels will not let up.

Now it is time for us to consider the pitching/hitting dynamics. The Angels just put up double digit runs while the Rangers have been average. Ervin Santana has had two pretty decent outings this season Jason Jennings has been god awful this year. He was 2-9, 6.45 ERA last year for the Astros. Studies have shown that when pitchers move from the NL to the AL, their ERAs go up by 1, it goes up down by 1 when they go the other direction so Jennings is bound to have a horrible season. Thus far his ERA is 7.45 on the year. We look for the Angels to pummel him. This game is action regardless of pitcher though, we just like the situation the Angels find themselves in.

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Tampa Bay Devil Rays +112 over New York Yankees (1.5 Units) - As the Yankees recuperate and rejuvenate after two straight losses to the Red Sox, we will fade them today. Not only area they coming into this game off of two straight losses, but they are in their third consecutive road series. Home teams have the advantage in game 1 but have the greatest of advantages when they face off against a team that has been on the road for so long. While New York has been travelling, these Devil Rays have been stuck here at home for three full series. Looking at the pitching matchups, we see that neither team is putting out great pitchers which thus mean the Yankees are overpriced if you are betting them at -120.

We just ran the numbers and find that when two teams are paired up, one starting off its third home series off a win against a team starting off its third road series off a loss, we have an angle that is [35-15, +15 units] over the past 8 full seasons. It went a combined 0-6 in two of those 8 seasons, but the rest of those games were money in the bag.

So I hope I have convinced you that you would be much better off taking the rested home team agains the tired, old, Yankees team that just played the Redsox. I will also be posting this angle on the website shortly.

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Minnesota Twins +149 over Detroit Tigers (1.0 Units) - You have got to be kidding me if you think the Tigers, as the 2-10 team of 2008, is worthy of being as heavy of a favorite as they are. They are totally overvalued in this game right now Yesterday we indicated in an article posted on our website that the Royals found themselves in a very profitable system involving going for teams off of two consecutive shut out losses but it does not count for the Tigers today because of how heavy of a favorite they are... Also the fact that they are travelling and have so much expected of them as they travel home, it is much better to just fade this team so long as they look like a mediocre Double-A (AA) team.

Today's Premium System Plays

• Devil Rays falls into the following premium systems: DC, DI
• Twins falls into the following premium systems: DI
• Angels falls into the following premium systems: D