Baseball Capping Question

This will be my third season capping baseball. The first was fantastic and the second was a disaster. What I've realized is doing everything on feel over a 162 game season is a recipe for disaster.

I would never be disrespectful enough to ask anyone for their systems/formulas but I was wondering if any of you would feel comfortable sharing what you look at when capping baseball? For example I've always played based mainly on starting pitching. But, are there certain stats you guys look at, etc...?

I apologize if this is an offensive or ignorant question, just trying to develop a system or at least a pattern or two of my own with some input from others and then post it here to try and help everyone.

Thanks.

I think this is a very good inquiry and one of the purposes of this forum. Many people look at many different things when capping a game. Personally, I like to be patient and sit back a couple of series at the beginning of the season to get a good feel for teams and players. Below are some of the factors I consider when I do start playing:

Pitching matchups are one important aspect which I pay much attention to. I like to look at factors in pitching such as the health of the pitcher, make sure there is no pitch count restriction, etc. I usually stay away from a pitcher who is fresh off of the DL as they tend to not be as strong and a tad rusty. He maybe limited to pitches in these circumstances as well. Also, I pay attention to pitcher vs. batter matchups to see if a lineup, as a whole, has struggled or been successful vs. a pitcher in the past. Also, some lineups, collectively, may struggle against lefties; whereas, some lineups may do very well against righties. So pay attention to a teams bullpen roster in these circumstances. You can find these statistics on www.espn.com.

There are other intangibles that are very important to consider such as game time. Some afternoon games have an effect on scoring due to the position of the sun i.e. depending on the stadium, shadows fall between the mound and the plate and make it hard to see the ball for a batter....love hitting the -under first 5 innings- in some of these circumstances.

Also, I always check the weather before making a play on a game; particularly, the wind. For example, when the wind is blowing in strong at Wrigley, it is very likely to be a very low scoring game. When it's blowing out hard, you can bet the scoring will be much higher than usual. Here is a link that I use to follow the wind conditions: http://dailybaseballdata.com/cgi-bin/weather.pl.

One more consideration is the stadium. Some ballparks are very pitcher friendly such as Petco in San Diego. Some parks are very hitter friendly such as Colorado and Texas. When the wind is blowing from the south in Texas, it creates a jet stream inside the stadium that blows out. What would normally be a pop fly turn into a homer under these conditions. So keep info like this in mind when looking at a game.

There are many other factors I consider as well such as being careful with a team who is in the middle or toward the end of a long road trip ie. "road weary", umpire crews (see game matchups at www.covers.com), etc., but above are a few of the most important aspect I look at.

Lastly, utilize this forum. There are many good cappers in here. Also, there are a lot of people in here that offer very good information on games. This can be very helpful throughout the season.

Best of luck :toast:

Hookem

Great info Hookem. And great picture as well!

Thank you so much for your insights.

I understand that it's difficult but watch as much baseball as possible, you'd be amazed on what you pick-up on. Also, streaks...pitchers, teams get on hot streaks and become difficult to beat, same for teams if they're winning and ripping the cover off the ball look to stick with them, IF they are losing and can't seem to get out of their own way look to wager against them. I suggest you look to dogs as baseball more than anyother sport has dogs winning at a decent clip. Last look for value, a more expecienced 'value palyer' could explain this alot better than myself. I also suggest you flat bet (same wager amount per play.) Like said above look at this forum for information, one thing to remeber there just as many losing picks on this forum as there are winners, DO NOT tail blindly.

Good Luck!

nojuice9 said:

Also, streaks...pitchers, teams get on hot streaks and become difficult to beat, same for teams if they're winning and ripping the cover off the ball look to stick with them

Click to expand...

Research that carefully before making any bets based on streaks. In general streaks can only be identified once they're over and don't have any benefit in making bets. In other words, it's easy to retroactively look back at a team's winning streak once it's over and realize you could have made money by riding it from the first game on, but those are actually statistical anomalies. Betting on a team that has won, say, five games in a row does not generally make money. Nor does betting against them.

Streaks are apparent to us in hindsight, but research has pretty much disproven the theory that teams and/or players are prone to "streakiness."

Starting pitching is the first thing you look at.
Then you look at how the opposing line ups fare against the starters.
There are several links out there that will give you such information.

You always look at bullpens too.
If one teams closer was used in three straight games, it's likely he won't be available in the next, (or if the closer was used like 4 times in 6 games, he might not be available)

When looking at bullpens, take a look at the previous 2 games or so, did the previous game go 14 innings, and 5 relievers were used? Did the previous started get rocked and pulled in the third and the opposing team had to use 6 innings worth of relievers? If so, the 'pen might be depleted the next game forcing the manager to go with a mediocre starter a little longer than he'd like to go.

Teams that have a elite starter, but has a crappy bullpen, you might want to consider wagering the first five innings, rather than betting the whole game risking a solid start going into the toilet by a leaky 'pen.

nojuice, AllAmerican and Billhill...thank you very much for the information. I appreciate it.

BILLHILL99 and BASICALLY EVERYONE HIT IT ON THE NOSE...1 SUGGESTION I WILL MAKE IS TRY TO STAY AWAY FROM THE HUGE NUMBERS..THEY LOOK EASY BUT IF YOU LOSE 1 GAME YOU HAVE TO WIN NEXT 2 OR 3 TO MAKE UP FOR IT..PLAY THE RUN LINE INSTEAD...ANYWAY BOL...

gl to all

In the beginning of the yr...i like to look for overs in games involving starters who usually don't last long(generally #4/5) in games with tired bullpens...especially with american league games..Also a rule of thumb for me with Yankee games... if i'm betting on the Yankees i bet the game. if i'm betting against the yankees i bet only first 5 innings as with Robertson and Mariano the Yankees seem to have a large late inning edge

Thanks to everyone for their advice and insights. Greatly appreciated.

One more to throw in the mix for you. Follow along on Pops69 master thread. You will learn more there than just about everything else combined.

That thread is NOT for getting picks to follow, etc,. It is a thread that pops provides to us the data we need to allow ourselves to make our own picks. He publishes a spreadsheet that is beyond compare containing ALL, and I mean ALL, the information you could possibly think of, everything from ERA, WHIP, odds, totals, etc, to humidity, game time temp, etc.

It will take a good, long time before you become comfortable with Pops' data. Heck, I've followed for a few years and I'm still learning - but the resources he provides there are just amazing. Take some time to read this years thread, then find last years thread and read that as well. this year he's up to 20 pages already - last year was hundred's of pages.

Good luck.