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By Bradley Owen
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Monday, April 18, 2005
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Play On Or Against Starters In MLB
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It is much said that sports books base their baseball money lines on
who is on the mound for each ball club. That may be true to a certain
extent and in my view it forms the basis (starting point) for the
line marker. But I am also sure that books incorporate into their
lines a number of other variants such as; how sides are batting
over their last 5 and 10 games, has the bullpen seen extended work
in recent games, how teams hit against left or right handed pitching.
I know I do, and I also use many other elements of the game such as
runners lost on base, runners in scoring position with two outs, how
deep pitchers are going with pitch counts. Is it a night or day
game and especially if it’s a day game following a night game
the day before.
Of course most recreational bettors don’t have the time or
inclination for that matter to delve inside the numbers and keep
records as full time jobs and family commitments take up so much
of their time. So this brief article is designed for those that
would like to cap their own match-ups with some simple but
effective systems that require as much time as it takes to read
the back page of the sports section in the newspaper.
Let’s start with strikes and walks. When I handicap games
I have all the starters for that day "KW" stats for their last
game, last three and five games and overall on the season These
stats are an indication to how much control a pitcher has around
the plate. A pitcher who walks a lot of batters is a sitting
duck for the batting team as no doubt they will be sitting on
the fast ball over the plate as the pitcher falls continually
behind in the count. Furthermore, the starter is not going to be
pitching many innings unless he keeps living by the double play,
so the bullpen has to work over an extended period.
The following systems are all based on starting pitchers.
Situation #1;
PLAY ON a starter who has good KW control (better than 4-1
strikeout to walk ratio in his last 3 starts) vs. a starter who
has poor KW control (more walks than strikeouts in his last 3
starts). This simple system is 32 games over .500 since the
start of 2003. You may be surprised that most of the qualifiers
have been small favourites and dogs.
Situation #2;
PLAY AGAINST starters who have more walks than strikeouts in
their last 3 starts combined and also has more walks than
strikeouts in their last 3 starts vs. their opponent. This
little system is very effective going 63-37 the last
100 occurrences.
Situation #3;
A good angle to be on the look out for is a match-up where both
starting pitchers have a better than 4:1 strikeout to walk ratio
in their last three starts. This will not happen that often
during a season as pitchers who are able to put together quality
starts with regularity are a hot commodity and they are few
and far between.
Not surprisingly by wagering on the UNDER in these match-ups
would have produced a record of 41-23 (64%) over the last
two seasons.
Situation #4;
On the flip side of situation #3, when you have both pitchers
that have more walks than strikeouts in their last 3 starts,
by playing the OVER would have given you a 65% play on
system over the last two seasons.
Finally, and one of my favourite situations is looking for
starters that won their last game after allowing twice as
many runners on base than innings he has pitched. When a
starter has done exactly that above, it is often referred
to as "a phony win" and no doubt the starter
has relied upon double plays and/or great production
from his teams offense. This sets up another opportunity
worthy of support that I call playing against the
"phony win".
Situation #5;
PLAY AGAINST a starter who in his last start allowed twice
as many base runners as innings pitched and still came
away with the win. The PHONY WIN situation is 78-49 the
last two years.
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