Betting baseball 101 : my two cents

[TORONTO-VIGILANTE]

in continuation with ray's thread....here's some additionals...
but by no means to use them as your ONLY Way of capping...

take these angles into account when wagering on a team:

1) look at some teams' records when playing on grass and on turf
ex: BOSTON was 18-7 when playing on turf , seattle was 10-2 and detroit was 4-11 when playing on turf....time to load up...!!


2) take into account day and nite games....some teams' bio clocks get all messed up when they have to play during the day..or some teams just play better at certain times of the day...
seattle was 36-13 during the day....yanks were 40-26 during the day...TB was 29-56 at nite...(but then again, they were pretty
bad...LOL)

will continue later...

 

[TORONTO-VIGILANTE]

hmm..what else.....

oh yes.....

DOUBLE HEADERS!!!

my fave:

3) a bunch of us kept track of doubleheaders throughout the year...my record for betting on doubleheaders went as this:

record: 7-2 betting on the other team to SPLIT the doubleheader...
not a bad stat...

4) AVOIDING SERIES SWEEPS :
some teams that were in danger of getting swept would put forth a BETTER effort to avoid being swept.
Not necessarily on sundays, but to avoid being swept on ANY given day

5) Some teams come to play on certain days...
For some reason, Detroit couldn't for their life show up on a sunday....

6) Teams coming home off long road trips tend to be ripe for an upset.
An example of this was cleveland. For some reason, the oddsmakers were giving HUGE juice to cleveland to win at home for the start of a homestand. Problem was, clev wasn't covering their first game of a homestand 70% of the time....and there was money to be made there...around +180, that is.

7) IMPORTANT stat...always check the HISTORY of a pitcher against another team....it helps.Some pitchers pitch well against some teams...others, don't. I like this stat better than checking batters' history against certain teams...but that's just me.

 

[TORONTO-VIGILANTE]

8) make sure you check to see that the pitcher you WANNA bet on is pitching that day....
many times in the baseball forum we saw people who bet and then later in the day, the starting pitcher is changed...injury or such...

but don't worry, sportbooks usually try to list that certain pitchers MUST pitch....and it's always safe to go over your wagering ticket before you hit that SEND button.

9) rivalries
some teams that play head to head have certain trends...
example: blue jays vs boston went UNDER the total about 80% of the time when they played head to head last season.

10) WEATHER
this came up BIGTIME during our regular discussions of wrigley field (damn day games....how the fawk can i bet on them when i'm at work and teaching all day????)
is the wind blowing HEAVILY out of the park, or is the wind dead?
made a HEFTY amount of $$$ on the UNDER in wrigley day games...

 

[TORONTO-VIGILANTE]

11) keep track of teams that get blown out...certain teams tend to give a better effort after being shuout or blown out.

one stat: a team that had 20 runs scored on them went 19-4 the next game.

 

[JT]

I like #4. Use that alot especially if it is a so-so team at home as a puppy or small favorite.

 

[Nick Douglas]

One thing to add is that it is generally better to play LISTED rather than ACTION. Listed means that if one of the two pitchers listed to start at the time you make your wager doesn't pitch for whatever reason, the ticket is void. Check your books. I know last year Sportsinteraction did not offer a LISTED option. Every bet was ACTION. If you bet ACTION and the starting pitcher changes, you get the game at the *opening price with the new pitcher*.

For instance, let's say Albie Lopez is scheduled to start for Atlanta, but you find out that Maddux is going instead and a book still has Lopez listed. If you bet Atlanta as an ACTION wager with Lopez listed at the time at +120, you don't get the +120 if Maddux starts. You get whatever line they come up with when the listing is changed to Maddux, say -180.