MLB Mid Season Wins Bets

[ericvanden2010]

Hey guys. I think there is a lot of value with Mid Season Adjusted Wins Totals. I have 5 that I think are incredibly solid. I think these 5 will go 4-1 at the worst. Any thoughts? If you have a BOL account, enjoy these free winners!

Cleveland Indians over 76.5 (-110)
Kansas City Royals over 68.5 (-110)
Atlanta Braves over 80.5 (-120)
Philadelphia Phillies under 79.5 (-110)
Chicago Cubs under 70 (-105)

[lincolnduff]

The braves we're actually 80.5 +120 on Saturday on 5dimes, seems like the lock of the century, but ya know what happens when bets seem like locks...

[ericvanden2010]

I think I saw that as well. For the Braves to get 81, they need to go 35-42. They have more Home than Away, 14 of their remaining series are against sub .500 opponents. Several of their remaining games are also against the Mets, who have overachieved in my opinion. I think Atlanta finishes at 86-76. We'll see come 1st weekend of October.

[Beyond the Bets]

(07-09-2012 06:40 PM)ericvanden2010 Wrote:  Hey guys. I think there is a lot of value with Mid Season Adjusted Wins Totals. I have 5 that I think are incredibly solid. I think these 5 will go 4-1 at the worst. Any thoughts? If you have a BOL account, enjoy these free winners!

Cleveland Indians over 76.5 (-110)
Kansas City Royals over 68.5 (-110)
Atlanta Braves over 80.5 (-120)
Philadelphia Phillies under 79.5 (-110)
Chicago Cubs under 70 (-105)

These lines were ALL off market price and have since been changed or will be changed. Bookmaker had the Braves at 88; the Indians at 81.5; the Cubs at 65.5; the Royals at 74; and the Phils, I think, at 77.5.

[seneca15krookk]

I am seeing the white sox at +130 to win their division at BOL and tigers are -120 yet the white sox win total is at 88 and -125 towards the over. The tigers win total is at 84.5 and -155 towards the over. Yes the tigers have more juiced over but it doesn't make sense to me they are the favorite to win the division with a much smaller win total.

I am curious if there is anyway to make free money off this

[ChiefZilla]

Shoot, I just now saw this thread and now all the lines are gone. The Royals at only 68.5? Braves at 80.5? Those are wack.

[JetsMetsRangers]

I think Boston is on the upswing and should finish with at least 85 wins. They're getting key players back from the DL and haven't seen the normal performances from guys like Adrian Gonzalez.

Toronto should win 79 as well but they could be sellers at the deadline. Probably best to avoid that one.

SD over 66 is interesting. They've come on lately with improved hitting and they have a decent staff. 66 is REAL bad. I think they can approach 70ish wins.

Does anyone see any value with the current odds?

[bart41]

5dimes updated all the lines. Table with old/new is below. I have no idea how to format it to be readable.

5dimes - 7/5 5dimes - 7/12 Variance
Atlanta 80.5 87.5 7
Kansas City 68.5 74 5.5
Cleveland 76.5 80.5 4
LA Dodgers 83 86 3
Cincinnati 86.5 89 2.5
NY Yankees 93 95.5 2.5
Detroit 84.5 86 1.5
NY Mets 82.5 84 1.5
San Diego 64.5 66 1.5
Arizona 83 84 1
Miami 76.5 77.5 1
Chicago W 88 88.5 0.5
Seattle 68 68.5 0.5
LA Angels 91.5 91.5 0
Minnesota 70.5 70.5 0
Tampa Bay 83.5 83.5 0
Pittsburgh 87.5 87 -0.5
Colorado 67.5 66.5 -1
Houston 65.5 64.5 -1
Oakland 80.5 79.5 -1
San Francisco 89 88 -1
Toronto 79.5 78.5 -1
Boston 86 84.5 -1.5
Texas 96.5 95 -1.5
Milwaukee 80.5 78 -2.5
Washington 94.5 92 -2.5
Baltimore 84 81 -3
Philadelphia 79.5 76.5 -3
Chicago C 70 66.5 -3.5
St. Louis 91 87.5 -3.5

[mount187]

As a stats-junkie, I find this page from Baseball Prospectus fascinating: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/.

The essence of the page is to adjust each team's wins and losses based on their hitting and pitching metrics, rather than the outcome of their games. It obviously can't change the past, and there is something to be said about teams that "find a way to lose", but it's a good source of finding teams that are better than what their record indicates.

Having said that, it seems like the Red Sox and Phillies may actually hold some value moving forward. There won't be a ton to leverage there, since they're pretty public teams, but according to the work BP has done, the Sox "should" be winning .564 of their games (after adjusting their record for runs scored, runs against, strength of schedule, etc.), which would be 5th best in all of the Majors. The Phillies, while still bad, were also playing about 5 games worse than the statistics would suggest they should be playing. If you tie that in with the return of Utley and Howard for the 2H of the season, they could go on a nice streak. My assumption with them, however, is that their prices will be inflated for that very reason (Utley + Howard returning).

Anyways, I hope this list is useful to some of you guys in finding future value. Good luck in the 2H.

[Edit] One last note, look at the D1 column for BAL, CLE, and MIA. D1 is an adjustment just based on runs for and runs against, but BAL is playing 6 games "above their heads", while CLE and MIA are both in the mid-4.0's. BAL, by all of their metrics, is just getting lucky (I don't know of a better way to put it), while CLE just seems to have a weird run differential based on their other metrics being within 0.5 wins of their actual W%. MIA is somewhere in the middle.

[Skating Tripods]

(07-12-2012 12:55 PM)mount187 Wrote:  while CLE just seems to have a weird run differential based on their other metrics being within 0.5 wins of their actual W%.

The Indians run differential is bad because in games where they get beat, they get beat really bad. Their record in one-run games is really good. It's when a starter gets pummeled and they don't use Smith/Pestano/Perez, the other guys have completely blown.

Not to mention, guys like Lowe and Gomez strung together a bunch of starts with ERAs around 8.

Plus, with RD, it's really hard to bring it back to a manageable number if it gets out of hand. If you're -30, unless you roll off 8 or 9 straight wins, you're going to take some losses and some ugly ones at that. It's rare to win by 5 or 6 runs for a prolonged period of time.

[JetsMetsRangers]

Great post mount. I think I'm going to bet the Jays and Sox. With the resigning of Encarnacion, Toronto appears to not be in sell mode this summer. I think they'll win over 78 games. Very confident in this.

[Skating Tripods]

(07-12-2012 02:35 PM)JetsMetsRangers Wrote:  Great post mount. I think I'm going to bet the Jays and Sox. With the resigning of Encarnacion, Toronto appears to not be in sell mode this summer. I think they'll win over 78 games. Very confident in this.

No knock on the Blue Jays or their talent, and they might get a starter or two back, but do you honestly like that rotation when it has to face the Yankees 16 times in August and September, 10 days of Chicago, Texas, and Detroit in August, and go head-to-head with Tampa's pitching 10 times?

Their saving grace is that they play the dregs of the AL West and end with awful Minnesota. Beyond that, their schedule is a bitch, and they're only 12-16 against the East so far.