Never said they weren't important. I just think you guys put too much emphasis on umpires.
That's the opinion my partner had too, he specialized in totals. Didn't matter the sport, NBA, football or bases, he bet nothing but totals. Anyway his opinions were that the umpire angle had been severely reduced in value over the years. He claims years ago it was important information, worth it's weight in gold, now it's mostly overvalued. I don't remember all the reasons he gave, I know one of them was that once a clear OVER or UNDER umpire was identified the guy was encouraged to make changes to get back in the middle of the mix. Allegedly it's not a good thing to be too far either way these days, I guess the brass doesn't look kindly on it and they make more of an effort to have some sort of continuity behind the plate. As a result the guys with the tight strike zones are trying to expand it as the season goes and vice versa with the others.
Again, this is not my opinion so leave me out of it, simply someone else I used to bet bases with was always telling me this. I don't pretend to know all there is about totals, I know there is some correlation with the umps and totals, the magnitude of it is where people disagree. I had asked TN about all this in another thread as I knows he feels strongly on this subject, for the record I don't agree or disagree, I don't have enough information to form a strong opinion either way at this point.
