Betting Against the Worse Teams

gak555 · Mar 6, 2006

This year I am going to take a portion of my bankroll and focus on who to play against rather than bet on who I think will win. I mainly play dogs so this will be a small experiment.

I already know Colorado is horrible on the road. As a matter of fact, if you would have blindly bet every game against them on the road regardless of juice, you would have been plus money every year since the franchise started. The altitude change or whatever just makes them a completely different team on the road.

Also plan on taking a hard look at Florida every game unless Dontrelle Willis is pitching.

I won't lay more than -160 on any game.

Looking for opinions on other bad teams to keep a close eye on.

Thanks

heart222 · Mar 7, 2006

k.c. and tampa and the nats are bad road teams also. Dont think you can get many games at 1.60 or less on road. would think more 1.8-2.00. Yet in the a.l. last yr game 1 of a series excluding k.c. road dogs was a positive bet. best of luck.

bznofx19 · Mar 7, 2006

dont bet against the marlins on purpose if jason vargas is throwing either...

newb411breaker19 · Mar 7, 2006

here's a list of some pitchers I'm going to fade. their true era (xera) was substantialy higher than their regular era. xera doesn't include the support or lack of support from a bullpen. Players tend to regress towards their xera the next season:

Mark Buehrle era: 3.12 xera:3.62
Gustavo Chacin era:3.72 xera:4.36
Tom Glavine:era: 3.54 xera: 4.01
Tim Hudson Era:3.52 xera: 4.19
Kyle Lohse era:4.19 xera: 5.03
Kevin Millwod era:2.86 xera: 3.68
Carl Pavano era: 4.77 xera:5.8
Jeff Suppan era:3.57 xera: 4.58
Josh Towers era:3.72 xera: 4.45
Mike Wood era: 4.46 xera: 5.50

so if you're looking for value, you should find some by fading the pitchers on this list

Cubsmac · Mar 7, 2006

newb411breaker19 said:
here's a list of some pitchers I'm going to fade. their true era (xera) was substantialy higher than their regular era. xera doesn't include the support or lack of support from a bullpen. Players tend to regress towards their xera the next season:

Mark Buehrle era: 3.12 xera:3.62
Gustavo Chacin era:3.72 xera:4.36
Tom Glavine:era: 3.54 xera: 4.01
Tim Hudson Era:3.52 xera: 4.19
Kyle Lohse era:4.19 xera: 5.03
Kevin Millwod era:2.86 xera: 3.68
Carl Pavano era: 4.77 xera:5.8
Jeff Suppan era:3.57 xera: 4.58
Josh Towers era:3.72 xera: 4.45
Mike Wood era: 4.46 xera: 5.50

so if you're looking for value, you should find some by fading the pitchers on this list

where can you get a complete list of xera's for all of baseball last year?

Dubpoet · Mar 8, 2006

newb411breaker19 said:
here's a list of some pitchers I'm going to fade. their true era (xera) was substantialy higher than their regular era. xera doesn't include the support or lack of support from a bullpen. Players tend to regress towards their xera the next season:

Mark Buehrle era: 3.12 xera:3.62
Gustavo Chacin era:3.72 xera:4.36
Tom Glavine:era: 3.54 xera: 4.01
Tim Hudson Era:3.52 xera: 4.19
Kyle Lohse era:4.19 xera: 5.03
Kevin Millwod era:2.86 xera: 3.68
Carl Pavano era: 4.77 xera:5.8
Jeff Suppan era:3.57 xera: 4.58
Josh Towers era:3.72 xera: 4.45
Mike Wood era: 4.46 xera: 5.50

so if you're looking for value, you should find some by fading the pitchers on this list

You may go broke

bznofx19 · Mar 8, 2006

millwood's will definately inflate because he will be pitching in Texas!!!

glavine's in bound to go up due to age.

i like tim hudson but i watched about 6-7 of his starts and i noticed that he is VERY hitable and lacks a real good "out" pitch. he has played in pitchers parks his whole career.

WeakTight · Mar 8, 2006

You're fading Mark Buehrle? Good luck with that.

newb411breaker19 · Mar 8, 2006

oh thanks, yeah we'll see how it goes i suppose. in 2004 jose lima made something like 12 units and most people would've thought it would've been crazy to fade him and look what happened. the xera was a good indication that there would be value in fading him for the 2005 season. I think last year he lost about 10 units. oh yeah here's some more names i'll be looking to fade:
ryan dempster
Josh Fogg
Brad Halsey
Brad Hennessey
Livan Hernandez
Jason Marquis
Matt Morris
Tomo Ohka
Roy Oswalt
Andy Pettitte
Brad Radke
Kenny Rogers
Victor Santos
Brandon Webb

bznofx19 · Mar 8, 2006

i like that list....but Roy Oswalt? i think i'll find better people to fade than that stud.

johan santana is usually shitty in the first month (by his standards).

newb411breaker19 · Mar 8, 2006

cubsmac, i got the xera's from michael murray's book, "betting baseball"
here's the formula to calculate a pitchers xera:
(.575 * Hits allowed per 9 innings) + (.94 * Home runs allowed per 9 innings) + (.28 * walks allowed per nine innings) - (.01 * strikeouts per 9 innings) +2.68
dubpoet, what makes you think i will go broke? I guess will have to wait and see though...

newb411breaker19 · Mar 8, 2006

roy oswalt and andy pettitte i'll probably just fade on the road because houston's road defense is quite poor while they're solid at home

bznofx19 · Mar 9, 2006

newb411breaker19 said:
cubsmac, i got the xera's from michael murray's book, "betting baseball"
here's the formula to calculate a pitchers xera:
(.575 * Hits allowed per 9 innings) + (.94 * Home runs allowed per 9 innings) + (.28 * walks allowed per nine innings) - (.01 * strikeouts per 9 innings) +2.68
dubpoet, what makes you think i will go broke? I guess will have to wait and see though...

did you mean -2.68 at the end of the equation?

this is very interesting so i tried it out, but my calculations were way off from yours...so i want to know if you typed out that equation correctly?

JohnnyB · Mar 9, 2006

I believe people need to focus less attention on ERAs and more on WHIPs.

newb411breaker19 · Mar 9, 2006

whip ratio is a very important number that I normally look at when handicapping a game. bznofx, did you use walks, hits, Strikeouts per 9 innings?

Number_9 · Mar 10, 2006

gak555 said:
I already know Colorado is horrible on the road. As a matter of fact, if you would have blindly bet every game against them on the road regardless of juice, you would have been plus money every year since the franchise started. The altitude change or whatever just makes them a completely different team on the road.

gak555- While I like your idea in general, I have to say I think you are wrong about Colorado specifically. I have very high confidence in my MLB database, and here's what I show if you faded the Rockies in every road game they've played since 1996:

1996: +14.50
1997: - 6.50
1998: - 1.75
1999: + 4.75
2000: + 1.05
2001: +10.40
2002: +15.00
2003: +22.80
2004: - 1.20
2005: + 8.72

10 Years, 810 Games, +67.77 Units

Like I said, I'm pretty confident in these numbers, and pretty fanatical about maintaining my database. If your numbers are really off from these could you post yours? One of us is working with bad data and we should help each other out to get it fixed. Let me know, and thanks for posting!

:toast:

newb411breaker19 · Mar 10, 2006

according to statfox's numbers colorado is horrible on the road so maybe that's where he's getting it from. could you check baltimore at home in your database, because according to statfox they aren't too good at home. i would hate to be wrong and bet on this throughout the season thanks