May 19 Baseball Picks
WINNER -> St. Louis Cardinals (146) over San Diego Padres (1.0 Units) -
As you all may have noticed, there are times when we simply just ignore pitching as if it is a meaningless angle to betting baseball. And that is because, for the most part, the sportsbooks have already set the odds because of the relative strengths of the pitchers. Then the goal becomes to look at the angles that the sportsbooks may have discounted and/or overlooked and really make an effort to see where the true odds lie as a result of all that.
So when I look at this game, I am seeing a struggling Padres team that has just come off a long road trip with very little success... and a Cardinals team that is scoring runs and winning games coming off a long home swing. That benefits the Cardinals.
Home favorites that have won fewer than 2 games in their past 5 games are -110 the past 4 full seasons and overvalued by about 10 points. This mother gets WORSE if it is the first game of a series. During that span, this is -66 units but because these negative units are spread over a much smaller sample size, we see that these teams are overvalued by almost 20 points!
So as you can see, I really don't have to look at pitching here to know that these Padres are likely overvalued considering their road woes.. so we are getting these Cardinals at pure value.
----------------------------
LOSER -> Houston Astros (111) over Chicago Cubs (1.0 Units) -
The Cubs are one of those teams that are almost always overvalued because their fans will always bet them up like crazy no matter how well or poor they are playing. The Cubs are playing well right now so we mention that becase extra betting action is being poured into the Cubs today as a small favorite... But the fact that they are slightly overvalued gets even more pronounced as a small favorite. This is because folks would bet them like crazy as a small dog so the sportsbooks just shift the favorite/underdog and hope you don't notice.
To prove my point, just look at this season! The Cubs are 27-17 but only +5. units. Compare that to the Diamondbacks who are 28-16 but +11 units... or the Athletics who have won about the same units (+5.53) but are barely over 500.
Over the past 3 seasons, these Cubs have been overvalued as a small favorite by an average of about 10 points. BUT BUT BUT BUT they are 14-2 this season as a small favorite and 8-0 if going up against a divisional rival. Winning as a small favorite is more indicative of the fact that these Cubs are playing hard and winning the tight games than it is of the sportsbooks screwing up. In fact, teams that are able to win as small favorites are the types of teams that end up winning the World Series...
So all I have to prove to make this bet worthwhile is that we can expect a good strong game out of these Astros, enough to nullify the advantage the Cubs tend to have in closely projected games.
First, they are a divisional rival. Second, they are themselves playing good baseball. Third, they are at home.
We've found that road favorites in the first game of a series are overvalued by about 20 points if they are coming off an interleague game... home favorites in that spot are undervalued by about 15 points... and are on an incredible 44-15 run. I understand that these Astros are underdogs but according to our premise above that the Cubs are generally always overvalued, these Astros could just as easily be favorite and then fall into this great angle.
How coming off an interleague game benefits home teams are unknown to us but we believe it has to do with the intensity of baseball being played. Teams that are coming off a divisional rival series do better than if they were coming off a regular series. Because the intensity they have from the previous series translates into the new series. So with an interleague series, teams kind of it treat it as "whatever" so it just makes the home field advantage a bit more pronounced... This is what the data suggests.
----------------------------
WINNER -> Washington Nationals (117) over Philadelphia Phillies (1.0 Units) -
These Nationals avoided a sweep yesterday an
&&d this bodes well for them as they travel home. Just as we said in our earlier pick, the home team benefits after playing an interleague game... And these Nationals took yesterday seriously because they were fighting to avoid a sweep. So they have got to come to today with the right mindset.
Home dogs in the first game of a divisional rivalry series if coming off an interleague game are [38-32, +16 units].
