May 13, 2008 Baseball Picks
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (123) over New York Yankees (1.5 Units) -
The Devil Rays fall into many of our applicable betting systems for underdogs -- the underpinnings of which involve the fact that they are at home, the Yankees are a divisional rival, and they are on a major winning streak. The Yankees are also in the middle of a road trip... all of which is being ignored by the sportsbooks because Wang is pitching today.
We understand that Wang, of all their starters, will give the Yankees their best chance at winning each night.. The Yankees are 7-1 with him on the mound and the only loss comes because they got shut out on May 7 against the Indians. Without his starts, these Yankees are a terrible 12-19... good enough to be the worst in the AL.
So the overemphasis on Wang pitching today is justified but to make the Yankees as big a favorite is not. First, Wang has a career road ERA that is 1.2 higher than his home ERA despite the fact that his road starts this season have been impressive. Second, these Devil Rays have been quite impressive with respect to their pitching and allowing a very number of runs. They're giving up just 1.5 runs per game in this home swing of theirs which started with a complete game by Shields. So we expect the Devil Rays to use their bullpen as effectively as necessary to win today. They know going up against Wang that it will take their all to make sure they win today.
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Baltimore Orioles (155) over Boston Red Sox (1.0 Units) -
We'll take a chance on these Orioles as they are a home dog that finds themselves coming off a shutout loss. They preceeded that shutout with a string of 3 road wins against the Royals. So the fact that we get such a team as a +155 dog is pure value.
Home underdogs in the first game of a series trying to BOUNCEBACK from a shutout loss has only had 2 losing seasons over the past 9 full seasons provided that they had at least 2 or more wins preceeding that shut out. The wins preceeding the shut out loss is important for this system to work and here's why.... shut out losses could at times be a sign of offensive woes. And when a team is going through offensive woes, they cannot bounce back, can they?
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Milwaukee Brewers (-106) over Los Angeles Dodgers (1.0 Units) -
These Brewers had a brutal road trip that has since gone away thanks to a home swing against the Cardinals, in which these Brewers grabbed 3 of 4 games. The Dodgers, on the other hand, have an anemic offense. They've scored less than 2 runs per game their previous 4 games!! We weren't really betting against them during that stretch because they were at home but now we've got them traveling to Milwaukee. Teams that struggle offensively at home and then go on the road have trouble.
That is our theory, and here are the facts. Teams that are averaging 2 or fewer runs their previous 4 games are [53-85, -17 units] points provided that they are playing on the road after a home swing. One thing that we've noticed that has an ability to change a team's trajectory is whether they play a divisional rival or not. But because these Dodgers will not be so psyched to play the Brewers, we doubt that will occur here. The teams playing non-divisional rivals in the system above is [22-39, -12 units] and overvalued by about 17 points. So we predict these Brewers could easily by -123.
Besides, if these Dodgers continue to struggle to score, Brad Penny's performance today would be meaningless. This game is action regardless of pitcher.
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Picks 4&5
Pittsburgh Pirates (135) over St. Louis Cardinals (1.0 Units) -
Atlanta Braves (119) over Philadelphia Phillies (1.0 Units) -
We like both the Pirates and Braves because they are both underdogs in a divisional rivalry game. They both have 7 wins in their last 10 and are both on the road. So they are undervalued because of the fact that they're on the road, undervalued because they are underdogs to begin with, and the momentum they have coming into this game is going under the radar because of their poor overall record.
To put that to the test, we ran the numbers and found that road divisional rival underdogs in the first game of a series with 6+ wins in their last ten are +62 units dating back the past 10 seasons with only two losing seasons. Each of those seasons losing less than 1 unit! If those teams have fewer than 6 wins in their last 10, it is +30 units but the E[x] facor is only 4 points. For teams in our system, the E[x] is 11 points, meaning that they are undervalued by about 11 points, 250% more than if they had fewer wins in their last 10. So it all boils down to the fact that both these teams have been winning games and they are flying under the radar.
