Winning Baseball Picks - It’s About Value
When making baseball picks, inexperienced handicappers generally focus most of their attention on starting pitching. After all, in no sport does one man have as much impact on the odds than does baseball’s starting pitcher. The man on the mound can cause a swing in the odds of sometimes as much as a hundred points. But just how much of an impact does he really have on a game‘s outcome?
The most commonly used pitching stat is of course ERA (earned run average). When it comes to ERA, low means good, high means bad. Roy Halladay boasted an ERA of 3.19 in 2006, more than a full run better than averaging a quality start, which is an ERA of 4.50. He was solid, reliable, and above all, damn good. As you would expect, Mr. Halladay was often the favorite. In fact, only one time were you able to get him at plus money. In 14 of his 32 starts he was a favorite of more than -200. In those starts, the Blue Jays were 10-4, an outstanding team win percentage of 71%. However, they barely broke even in those starts for those bettors who backed them, generating a profit of just .19 of a unit. A different outcome in just one of those games would mean a loss overall.
C.C. Sabathia was also one of 2006’s more dominant pitchers with an ERA of just 3.22, .03 worse than Halladay. Unlike Roy, who at least did a little better than breaking even for his backers, C.C. lost over four units. In his 28 starts, the Indians were only a .500 team (14-14).
One of the more profitable pitchers in 2006 was, of all people, Steve Trachsel. His crappy 5.22 ERA generated a profit of over eight units. Contrast that with the semi-retired and not quite crotchety old fart Roger Clemens. In his 19 starts he had a miniscule ERA of 2.30. Of the dozens of pitchers in 2006 who started more than ten games, only one was better than Roger and that was Francisco Liriano. But Roger was a big loser in terms of money (-4.9 units).
True, there are some pitchers who sport flashy ERAs and make money. In 2006 Johan Santana was one, but the point of this article is to show that the effect a starting pitcher has on a game is not as significant as most people would think. Certainly not as much as the sports books think.
Precision Plays estimates the impact of a starting pitcher on a baseball picks outcome at around 50%, where sports books use the starting pitcher to determine most if not all of the odds on a game. We don’t fault them for that and do not feel they are mistaken in their approach. Because the betting public puts so much emphasis on starting pitching, the books have to as well.
This discrepancy, the difference between how important the starting pitcher really is and how important the sports books say he is, represents the single most important element in making a decision on any baseball pick. Baseball has the most developed and complicated system of statistics of any sport on the planet, and you can take all of them a toss them out the window because they mean very little when it comes to winning money betting baseball. There is only one thing you need to determine and one thing only when making a baseball pick, and that’s value.
To learn more about how a Precision Plays account can help you succeed at sports betting, please visit PrecisionPlays.com PrecisionPlays.com