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Picks for 6/10/09: Tigers With Verlander on the Mound
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Rivalry Page: Tigers vs White Sox
Rivalry Page: Marlins vs Cardinals
Result: +0.95 units
Detroit Tigers (-136) over Chicago White Sox (2.0 Units) - The Tigers are our game of the month play today. Although we rather avoid playing on divisional rivalry favorites, the Tigers fall under some decent betting systems.
First, the Tigers have batted up against lefty starters in three of their past 4 games. Lefties perform better than righties partly because of familiarity. Batters just don't face as many southpaws as they do righties. So with the recent familiarity that they have, they are in prime position to score some runs.
The White Sox lost their home series against the Athletics. They lost their home series to the Indians and with a loss today would lose their 5 game series to the Tigers.
The Tigers are 6 games above 500 and happen to be 8-4 in Verlanders' starts this season and they look to take advantage of a team that has been struggling to score runs lately... averaging just 3.3 runs a game L10 and going 3-7 in that stretch.
Today is technically the fourth game in this series because of the doubleheader that they had on the 8th.
So let's check this out. Road divisional rival favorites in the fourth game of a series are -9 units the past 11 seasons. But if the opponent has fewer than 10 wins L10, then they improve to +11 units in 89 games. Undervalued by an average of 13 points.
If our team is coming off a win, then our team improves to 32-14, +13 units over the past 7 seasons. And undervalued by an average of 28 points a game.
It improves even MORE when you look at teams that have won 2+ of the first three games in the series. 40-15 in the past 10 seasons, and teams being undervalued by about 35 points a game.
The main reason that this works as such is because of the fact that the home field advantage decreases as you continue onto the series. We have found that home teams and road teams are 50-50 in the fourth game of a series... all but nullifying the home field advantage by that point. Intuitively, home field advantage is the strongest in game 1 of a series.
Home dogs in a divisional rivalry game are always going to get respectable odds or else people would know to bet them. But you shouldn't bet them so deep into a series and especially not when they've been sucking over the past couple of games.
So we're going against contemporary wisdom in betting home dogs blah blah for the undervalued road favorite.
Take this game action regardless of pitcher.
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Florida Marlins (-107) over St. Louis Cardinals (1.0 Units) -
The Marlins do not necessarily fall into any specific angles worth mentioning... But this game has all the makings of value for the Marlins.
Based on how poorly the Cardinals have been playing, they should not be sitting at -103 today.
The Cardinals have lost 5 straight games and are 2-8 L10 but yet they are getting a pretty respectable spread here today on the road. Well, the Marlins don't exactly have much of a home field advantage. You'd find more people at a grass watching tournament than you would at a Marlins game so no way the home field advantage even really factors in here BUT...
The Cardinals are scoring fewer than 2.5 runs a game L5 and fewer than 3 runs a game L10. And they are at 3.25 runs a game L20.
The Marlins are also struggling scoring runs L5 but at least they are 6-4L10. And even though a team doesn't score runs, wins at least keep it from getting to their psyche and causing them to go into slumps.
Here is how we know. Small home non-divisional rivalry favorites going up against a team that has won fewer than 4 games L10 and is averaging fewer than 3 runs a game L10 are 44-24, +18 units dating back to the beginning of three seasons ago.
We define small favorites as any team with a spread in the -101 to -120 range.
Take this game action regardless of pitcher.
