Analyzing MLB season win totals
Chad Millman
ESPN Insider
The other day my 7-year-old son came to me with a problem. He's got a pretty long bus ride to school every day and it seems he was getting bored. He can't read because it makes him sick to his stomach while the bus is moving. He can't draw because they won't let him use pens or pencils or markers on the bus. Lately his buddy Sam just wants to pick on one of the kindergartners and, I was happy to hear, my boy didn't really feel like doing that. So I asked him, "What did you do before you became bored?"
"I talked with my friends about Bakugan and Bey Blades," he said, referring to a couple of battle-themed games all the kids are playing these days. "But now, everyone wants to talk about the Yankees."
"Well," I said. "I happen to know a lot about sports. I could probably help you with that."
"Nahh," he answered, "I don't care about the Yankees. I just wish everyone would stop talking about them."
Live in the New York area and that's what you're stuck with: the Yankees (and the broke New York Mets). The thing is, if you went to Vegas right now and eavesdropped on a couple of squares staring at MLB season win totals, you'd probably hear the same thing. Baseball is no different than football in that there are teams the public thinks they know everything about, and will therefore bet. The Boston Red Sox are on that list; the Yankees are on it, too. The Chicago Cubs usually make it and, this year, so do the Philadelphia Phillies. These are baseball's public teams.
And, in most cases, you should avoid betting on their season-win totals at all costs. Because of suckers like you, the numbers -- Philly at 97, the BoSox at 95 and the Yankees at 91.5 -- are inflated and overpriced. "Almost always, bookmakers are going to shade win totals for every team, especially the big names, over," said Vegas vet Jeff Whitelaw. "That's why I look for the unders."
<OFFER>Whitelaw is known around The Strip for his work on props, futures and win totals for all sports. He grew up in Buffalo, studied stats at SUNY-Albany and flirted with a journalism career while he was in college, interning for the local ABC station. Then he wised up and used his stats background to get a job on Wall Street, where he did time in a management program for one of the banks that eventually destroyed the economy. When he realized the big-city life and East Coast weather didn't work for him, he hightailed it to Vegas, where an aunt and uncle lived. This was back in 1990.
People always ask me how they get a job in the sports gaming industry, and the way Whitelaw did it is exactly how. He was hired by the Barbary Coast as a ticket writer, standing behind the counter taking bets. When things got slow he'd yap with customers about games on the board that he liked and why he liked them. One wiseguy in particular noticed that, more often than not, the games Whitelaw said he liked won -- and for the reasons he said, too.
"So one day the guy said to me, 'How much do you make here?'" Whitelaw said. "I told him, '$25,000.' Then he said he'd pay me that much to come work for him and help him pick games. I was reluctant to give up a steady gig. Then he handed me $25,000. 'Here's a year's salary,' he told me. 'If things don't work out keep the money and go find another job. If they do, consider that your Christmas bonus.'"
Whitelaw took the gig, and stayed with the gambler for about three years, honing his skills and picking winners. Eventually, he built up his own bankroll and went off on his own. For the past couple of years bookmakers like Jimmy Vaccaro and Bob Scucci have mentioned his name to me as a guy I should get to know.
When we finally caught up on Thursday morning I asked him: What are you looking for when betting MLB season win totals?
"First, I'm looking for teams I can bet the under on," he said. "I think that bookmakers don't do as much work on season win totals as they do on sides or over/unders. They can't. They don't have the time. So I think there is a lot of opportunity. Second, I'm looking at bullpens. They have become so much more important over the past decade or so, as starters just don't go as long. Look at San Diego last season. Once [the Padres] got to their bullpen there was no way they were going to lose too many games. And, finally, I'm trying to predict who will be getting rid of players and who will be trading for players come the All Star break."
That last point is key, and it's something Teddy Covers told me on the podcast the other day, too. Having a nose for midseason buyers and sellers, doing the work to understand how teams will be positioned in five months, can help you make money.
Where does Whitelaw see some opportunities?
"Well, I was lucky enough to get St. Louis at under 87, before the Adam Wainwright injury," he said. "I like the Nationals under 72 a lot. They won 69 games last year and really didn't do much to improve themselves. Meanwhile, their division, with the Phillies and the Braves and even Florida, got a little bit better.
"I like Houston under 72.5, for the same reasons as the Nationals. I think everyone around them improved, even St. Louis without Wainwright is better. And the Astros really didn't," he said.
"And I really like Baltimore under 76.5, which I know puts me on the opposite side of a lot of bettors. But here's how I look at it: Over the past five years the Orioles have won 66, 64, 68, 69, 70. So they have been pretty consistent. Their season wins this year is around 76 or 76.5 and while they have improved a little bit I just don't know if they have improved by 10 games, even with Buck Showalter. They still have to play the Yankees, Red Sox, Tampa and Toronto around 18 times each. That is 72 or so times playing a team that is better than them," he said.
"Bookmakers made the number high because Baltimore added guys, but Derrek Lee and Vlad Guerrero are overrated and not in their prime. I made the Orioles wins around 72, which is six above what they won last year. Making it 10.5 is too much."
I am going to run home with this info immediately so I can tell my kid. He loves birds. And I know he'll want to share it with his friends on the bus.
Everyone has their favorite way to predict who will win how many games each baseball season. Guys like Whitelaw plow through research and employ innate wisdom about opportunities in the line. Then there are the guys at Accuscore. They run a computer simulation of each team's season 10,000 times.
Since I was getting the old-school lessons from Whitelaw, I asked the guys from Accuscore to share their new-school ways, too. Below is a chart they sent me. The first column is the season win totals for each team from the offshore sports book Pinnacle. The second is the Accuscore prediction for how each team will do based on the Accuscore sims. The third is the difference between the first two -- in case you have trouble adding or subtracting.
<!-- begin inline 1 --><TABLE><THEAD><TR><TH>TEAM</TH><TH>VEGAS LINE</TH><TH>ACCUSCORE</TH><TH>DIFF</TH></TR></THEAD><TBODY><TR class=last><TD>Minnesota Twins</TD><TD>86.0</TD><TD>94.5</TD><TD>8.5</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Tampa Bay Rays</TD><TD>84.5</TD><TD>89.0</TD><TD>4.5</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Cincinnati Reds</TD><TD>84.5</TD><TD>88.8</TD><TD>4.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Texas Rangers</TD><TD>86.5</TD><TD>90.4</TD><TD>3.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Los Angeles Dodgers</TD><TD>84.0</TD><TD>87.5</TD><TD>3.5</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>San Francisco Giants</TD><TD>88.0</TD><TD>91.2</TD><TD>3.2</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Arizona Diamondbacks</TD><TD>72.5</TD><TD>75.4</TD><TD>2.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Detroit Tigers</TD><TD>83.5</TD><TD>86.3</TD><TD>2.8</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>San Diego Padres</TD><TD>76.0</TD><TD>78.6</TD><TD>2.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Chicago White Sox</TD><TD>85.5</TD><TD>86.7</TD><TD>1.2</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Atlanta Braves</TD><TD>88.0</TD><TD>89.0</TD><TD>1.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Milwaukee Brewers</TD><TD>85.5</TD><TD>86.2</TD><TD>0.7</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Philadelphia Phillies</TD><TD>97.0</TD><TD>97.6</TD><TD>0.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Boston Red Sox</TD><TD>95.0</TD><TD>95.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Florida Marlins</TD><TD>82.0</TD><TD>82.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Washington Nationals</TD><TD>71.0</TD><TD>71.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Oakland Athletics</TD><TD>83.5</TD><TD>83.2</TD><TD>-0.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>St. Louis Cardinals</TD><TD>85.0</TD><TD>84.7</TD><TD>-0.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Seattle Mariners</TD><TD>70.0</TD><TD>68.9</TD><TD>-1.1</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Houston Astros</TD><TD>71.5</TD><TD>69.8</TD><TD>-1.7</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>New York Yankees</TD><TD>91.5</TD><TD>89.5</TD><TD>-2.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Toronto Blue Jays</TD><TD>76.5</TD><TD>73.9</TD><TD>-2.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Pittsburgh Pirates</TD><TD>68.0</TD><TD>64.9</TD><TD>-3.1</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Los Angeles Angels</TD><TD>83.0</TD><TD>79.6</TD><TD>-3.4</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Colorado Rockies</TD><TD>86.0</TD><TD>82.2</TD><TD>-3.8</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>New York Mets</TD><TD>77.5</TD><TD>73.6</TD><TD>-3.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Baltimore Orioles</TD><TD>76.0</TD><TD>70.0</TD><TD>-6.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Cleveland Indians</TD><TD>71.0</TD><TD>64.2</TD><TD>-6.8</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Chicago Cubs</TD><TD>81.5</TD><TD>74.2</TD><TD>-7.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Kansas City Royals</TD><TD>69.5</TD><TD>62.2</TD><TD>-7.3</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Chad Millman
ESPN Insider
The other day my 7-year-old son came to me with a problem. He's got a pretty long bus ride to school every day and it seems he was getting bored. He can't read because it makes him sick to his stomach while the bus is moving. He can't draw because they won't let him use pens or pencils or markers on the bus. Lately his buddy Sam just wants to pick on one of the kindergartners and, I was happy to hear, my boy didn't really feel like doing that. So I asked him, "What did you do before you became bored?"
"I talked with my friends about Bakugan and Bey Blades," he said, referring to a couple of battle-themed games all the kids are playing these days. "But now, everyone wants to talk about the Yankees."
"Well," I said. "I happen to know a lot about sports. I could probably help you with that."
"Nahh," he answered, "I don't care about the Yankees. I just wish everyone would stop talking about them."
Live in the New York area and that's what you're stuck with: the Yankees (and the broke New York Mets). The thing is, if you went to Vegas right now and eavesdropped on a couple of squares staring at MLB season win totals, you'd probably hear the same thing. Baseball is no different than football in that there are teams the public thinks they know everything about, and will therefore bet. The Boston Red Sox are on that list; the Yankees are on it, too. The Chicago Cubs usually make it and, this year, so do the Philadelphia Phillies. These are baseball's public teams.
And, in most cases, you should avoid betting on their season-win totals at all costs. Because of suckers like you, the numbers -- Philly at 97, the BoSox at 95 and the Yankees at 91.5 -- are inflated and overpriced. "Almost always, bookmakers are going to shade win totals for every team, especially the big names, over," said Vegas vet Jeff Whitelaw. "That's why I look for the unders."
<OFFER>Whitelaw is known around The Strip for his work on props, futures and win totals for all sports. He grew up in Buffalo, studied stats at SUNY-Albany and flirted with a journalism career while he was in college, interning for the local ABC station. Then he wised up and used his stats background to get a job on Wall Street, where he did time in a management program for one of the banks that eventually destroyed the economy. When he realized the big-city life and East Coast weather didn't work for him, he hightailed it to Vegas, where an aunt and uncle lived. This was back in 1990.
People always ask me how they get a job in the sports gaming industry, and the way Whitelaw did it is exactly how. He was hired by the Barbary Coast as a ticket writer, standing behind the counter taking bets. When things got slow he'd yap with customers about games on the board that he liked and why he liked them. One wiseguy in particular noticed that, more often than not, the games Whitelaw said he liked won -- and for the reasons he said, too.
"So one day the guy said to me, 'How much do you make here?'" Whitelaw said. "I told him, '$25,000.' Then he said he'd pay me that much to come work for him and help him pick games. I was reluctant to give up a steady gig. Then he handed me $25,000. 'Here's a year's salary,' he told me. 'If things don't work out keep the money and go find another job. If they do, consider that your Christmas bonus.'"
Whitelaw took the gig, and stayed with the gambler for about three years, honing his skills and picking winners. Eventually, he built up his own bankroll and went off on his own. For the past couple of years bookmakers like Jimmy Vaccaro and Bob Scucci have mentioned his name to me as a guy I should get to know.
When we finally caught up on Thursday morning I asked him: What are you looking for when betting MLB season win totals?
"First, I'm looking for teams I can bet the under on," he said. "I think that bookmakers don't do as much work on season win totals as they do on sides or over/unders. They can't. They don't have the time. So I think there is a lot of opportunity. Second, I'm looking at bullpens. They have become so much more important over the past decade or so, as starters just don't go as long. Look at San Diego last season. Once [the Padres] got to their bullpen there was no way they were going to lose too many games. And, finally, I'm trying to predict who will be getting rid of players and who will be trading for players come the All Star break."
That last point is key, and it's something Teddy Covers told me on the podcast the other day, too. Having a nose for midseason buyers and sellers, doing the work to understand how teams will be positioned in five months, can help you make money.
Where does Whitelaw see some opportunities?
"Well, I was lucky enough to get St. Louis at under 87, before the Adam Wainwright injury," he said. "I like the Nationals under 72 a lot. They won 69 games last year and really didn't do much to improve themselves. Meanwhile, their division, with the Phillies and the Braves and even Florida, got a little bit better.
"I like Houston under 72.5, for the same reasons as the Nationals. I think everyone around them improved, even St. Louis without Wainwright is better. And the Astros really didn't," he said.
"And I really like Baltimore under 76.5, which I know puts me on the opposite side of a lot of bettors. But here's how I look at it: Over the past five years the Orioles have won 66, 64, 68, 69, 70. So they have been pretty consistent. Their season wins this year is around 76 or 76.5 and while they have improved a little bit I just don't know if they have improved by 10 games, even with Buck Showalter. They still have to play the Yankees, Red Sox, Tampa and Toronto around 18 times each. That is 72 or so times playing a team that is better than them," he said.
"Bookmakers made the number high because Baltimore added guys, but Derrek Lee and Vlad Guerrero are overrated and not in their prime. I made the Orioles wins around 72, which is six above what they won last year. Making it 10.5 is too much."
I am going to run home with this info immediately so I can tell my kid. He loves birds. And I know he'll want to share it with his friends on the bus.
<HR style="WIDTH: 50%">
Everyone has their favorite way to predict who will win how many games each baseball season. Guys like Whitelaw plow through research and employ innate wisdom about opportunities in the line. Then there are the guys at Accuscore. They run a computer simulation of each team's season 10,000 times.
Since I was getting the old-school lessons from Whitelaw, I asked the guys from Accuscore to share their new-school ways, too. Below is a chart they sent me. The first column is the season win totals for each team from the offshore sports book Pinnacle. The second is the Accuscore prediction for how each team will do based on the Accuscore sims. The third is the difference between the first two -- in case you have trouble adding or subtracting.
<!-- begin inline 1 --><TABLE><THEAD><TR><TH>TEAM</TH><TH>VEGAS LINE</TH><TH>ACCUSCORE</TH><TH>DIFF</TH></TR></THEAD><TBODY><TR class=last><TD>Minnesota Twins</TD><TD>86.0</TD><TD>94.5</TD><TD>8.5</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Tampa Bay Rays</TD><TD>84.5</TD><TD>89.0</TD><TD>4.5</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Cincinnati Reds</TD><TD>84.5</TD><TD>88.8</TD><TD>4.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Texas Rangers</TD><TD>86.5</TD><TD>90.4</TD><TD>3.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Los Angeles Dodgers</TD><TD>84.0</TD><TD>87.5</TD><TD>3.5</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>San Francisco Giants</TD><TD>88.0</TD><TD>91.2</TD><TD>3.2</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Arizona Diamondbacks</TD><TD>72.5</TD><TD>75.4</TD><TD>2.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Detroit Tigers</TD><TD>83.5</TD><TD>86.3</TD><TD>2.8</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>San Diego Padres</TD><TD>76.0</TD><TD>78.6</TD><TD>2.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Chicago White Sox</TD><TD>85.5</TD><TD>86.7</TD><TD>1.2</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Atlanta Braves</TD><TD>88.0</TD><TD>89.0</TD><TD>1.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Milwaukee Brewers</TD><TD>85.5</TD><TD>86.2</TD><TD>0.7</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Philadelphia Phillies</TD><TD>97.0</TD><TD>97.6</TD><TD>0.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Boston Red Sox</TD><TD>95.0</TD><TD>95.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Florida Marlins</TD><TD>82.0</TD><TD>82.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Washington Nationals</TD><TD>71.0</TD><TD>71.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Oakland Athletics</TD><TD>83.5</TD><TD>83.2</TD><TD>-0.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>St. Louis Cardinals</TD><TD>85.0</TD><TD>84.7</TD><TD>-0.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Seattle Mariners</TD><TD>70.0</TD><TD>68.9</TD><TD>-1.1</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Houston Astros</TD><TD>71.5</TD><TD>69.8</TD><TD>-1.7</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>New York Yankees</TD><TD>91.5</TD><TD>89.5</TD><TD>-2.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Toronto Blue Jays</TD><TD>76.5</TD><TD>73.9</TD><TD>-2.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Pittsburgh Pirates</TD><TD>68.0</TD><TD>64.9</TD><TD>-3.1</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Los Angeles Angels</TD><TD>83.0</TD><TD>79.6</TD><TD>-3.4</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Colorado Rockies</TD><TD>86.0</TD><TD>82.2</TD><TD>-3.8</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>New York Mets</TD><TD>77.5</TD><TD>73.6</TD><TD>-3.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Baltimore Orioles</TD><TD>76.0</TD><TD>70.0</TD><TD>-6.0</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Cleveland Indians</TD><TD>71.0</TD><TD>64.2</TD><TD>-6.8</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Chicago Cubs</TD><TD>81.5</TD><TD>74.2</TD><TD>-7.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Kansas City Royals</TD><TD>69.5</TD><TD>62.2</TD><TD>-7.3</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
