 |
| Maybe more people (well, men I suppose) would like baseball if it was a coin flip in this sense. |
Apparently the Philadelphia Phillies are already the 2010 World Series champions. Just like the Cubs were already the 2008 champions heading into October. Also, in '05, I think the Red Sox and Yankees were no doubt gonna face each other in the ALCS again for the 205th year in a row. Oh shit, none of those things happened? Ahhh, yes...see where I am going with this?
Well, probably not, especially if you don't give two shits about baseball. But let's pretend you do for a second. Predicting/betting on baseball is the dumbest thing anyone can do. The results of any given game are so unpredictable that you may as well use a dartboard to pick your bets. Granted, you can do a certain level of statistical analysis, but why don't you ask Oakland Athletics fans how many championships, hell, even recent division championships, that Moneyball has won them and see how much that's done? While it's not hard to predict what teams will do bad over a 162 game schedule from year to year (the Pirates and Royals, among a few others, will continue to suck until they change ownership), it is damn near impossible to be a baseball savant with gambling. I have yet to meet anyone who is good at it- then again, me and most of my friends generally suck at all sports gambling.
With that being said, let's defy everything I just said and try guessing what's gonna happen. I'm gonna flip a coin for each series, starting in the AL w/ the Minn/NYY series and ending in the NL with Phil/Cin. Heads is home team, tails is road team. I'm wondering if this will yield just as good of results as trusting my baseball knowledge.
First round: Yanks win 3-1; Texas wins 3-1; SF wins 3-0; Cincy wins 3-2
LCS's: Texas wins 4-2; Reds win 4-2
WS: Reds win 4-3 (come back after 3-0 deficit)
My actual predictions would look a lot different than that (probably Phillies vs. Rays), but if there's any sport that lends itself to a coin toss for betting purposes, baseball would be that.
Also, I know I shouldn't, but I'm gonna dabble a little in postseason betting.
Wednesdays bet: Rangers over Rays.
Flip a coin, make a bet, and enjoy an afternoon beer as playoff baseball begins Wednesday afternoon.
I've been crunching some numbers recently and the luck/skill factor of a baseball game is pretty damn close to a single point in tennis (service-neutral of course). A 3-set match between comparable players is indicative of a full baseball season in probability of the better player winning and better team having the better record. Imagine Wimbledon matches - still fearful of 5th set tiebreaks - being decided by one service game without deuce. That's what the MLB playoffs do.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I never looked at it from a tennis perspective before. My coin flip experiment didn't work, but from a game-by-game basis, it's definitely as hard to read baseball as it's always been. In their three game sweeps, Yanks & Phils were favorites in all three games. The dogs have won all 4 games in the Rays/Rangers series and Giants/Braves has seen 2 of 3 dogs. That puts favorites at a 7-6 mark, which would be negative cash flow assuming one were to bet just favorites. Not much value in betting favorites (especially huge ones) in baseball, especially playoffs when the level of competition is a lot more even on a game-to-game basis than regular season.
ReplyDeleteSample size is the key. You can't trust the legitimacy of results until you place at least 1000 bets, when you might start regressing toward the mean instead of just being the victim or benefactor of natural swings in fortune.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right about the huge favorites in most cases, especially with regards to starting pitcher matchups. Those are extremely overrated, as the overall impact doesn't come close to the value placed on them by the public. In general, when a strong favorite has their ace on the mound, back the underdog.
Hot and cold streaks are another area to potentially exploit. There is a very slight game-to-game correlation of continued streaks for hitters. I previously didn't think they existed at all, but it appears they do to a statistically insignificant degree; a guy with a true skill wOBA of .350 on a 5-game hot streak might be expected to hit .351 for the next few games). These can be ignored in terms of their predictive value, and used to your advantage in betting a recently hot or cold team with adjusted lines to reflect these streaks.
Pitchers have a bit more predictive value within their hot streaks. A guy with about 4 strong starts in a row can be expected to perform above his true skill for at least the next game. Nothing too major; maybe 0.3 runs in expected ERA, probably less than what the betting line will reflect for his past performance. Cold streak pitchers, on the other hand, perform with no apparent streak penalty.