[RollinDo]

Cards are definitely strong. 14-6 on the RL this season.

Is there a stay for this on each team?
Good info to have...whether to bet on a favorite at ML, -1, or -1.5

If not, will start a Spreadsheet...was going to do Overs/Under, but too much work.

[RollinDo]

Posey - you play some Unders from what I remember last season.
I think in April it's tough to know what will happen.
From my perspective, a lot of good hitting early on, which seems a little odd since April is typically when bats are cooler and pitchers have an edge.

Only been following mlb for 2 seasons...from a betting POV.
Maybe I am off in thinking that?

[Pushbet]

Rollin: Go to donbest, mlb, classic view, advanced matchup

[posey]

Posey - you play some Unders from what I remember last season.
I think in April it's tough to know what will happen.
From my perspective, a lot of good hitting early on, which seems a little odd since April is typically when bats are cooler and pitchers have an edge.

Only been following mlb for 2 seasons...from a betting POV.
Maybe I am off in thinking that?

Don't overstress monthly stats for over/under bets. The bookies know as much as we know. And in general it's not much different compared to other months. ML or RL are more profitable at the start of the season IMO (as well as overall) since the bookies do not know who will come out of the gate strong or weak and therefore there's lots of value on dogs (if you pick the right ones).
As always I would look into hot/cold streaks, starters, weather, umps. Umps are more important regarding OU than many people think (that's why Mitch has made such a good amount of money betting solely based on Umps). But you don't know how the Umps will do at the start of the season. Some carry over from last season and have the 'same' strikezone like in recent years, others change it a little bit. They're all humans.

But, there are some teams to look for regarding OU. I am thinking especially about the Rockies at home, as I think from August to September there have been a ton of overs nearly every season with has much to do with the air and weather @ Denver in those months.

Is there a stay for this on each team?
Good info to have...whether to bet on a favorite at ML, -1, or -1.5

If not, will start a Spreadsheet...was going to do Overs/Under, but too much work.

You can look it up at killersports.com with a simple SDQL-query. As far as I remember it right there are indeed teams which tend to win on the RL most of the time when they win a game. Blue Jays have been such a team in the past IIRC. More than 90% of their wins or so came with at least 2 runs difference last season or so.

Great work I agree with this write up 100% and was on the -1 RL large

Rightfully so.

Cards are definitely strong. 14-6 on the RL this season.

Yeah, as I said, Cards are a good team to put an end to 'Harang's fairy tale'. Cards already seem like 110% in groove.

Great job Posey!
Look f/w to the play today.

Since Waino got injured indefinitely, the odds for Cards to win ML dropped to +800.
I LOVE this futures bet...already got +650 a week ago and now they're not giving Cards a good shot because of 1 starting pitcher...it's a big loss- yeah, but Cards are clutch...I believe it will get down to +400 or so mid-summer.

Future's may have some value but you never know how the season will progress. Some injuries here or there, some slumps, some hot streaks and everything is like nobody would have thought. Good luck nonetheless.

[Big Bear]

any leans today

[posey]

I am currently writing on my POD.

[posey]

4/30
White Sox (C. Sale) @ Twins (T. May)
Twins ML +147

Starters:
Sale is 2-0 in 3 starts this season and already looking like the dominant starter from recent seasons. He hasn’t been K-ing as much as in previous years until now, but he has walked less guys, too. He already was up against the Twins a few weeks back and held them to 5 hits and 1 ER in 6.0 IP. The White Sox are 8-1 with Sale against the Twins. This stands out as a reason for not picking the Twins. Nonetheless I will do it. First reason is that he has ‚only‘ a 3.44 ERA since 2012 at Target Field. Suzuki, Hunter, Escobar and Plouffe have respectable stats against him. Sale has gotten a suspension for his role in the brawl with the Royals, but he is allowed to start until the process is complete. Maybe this rattles him a little bit, at least I give this a 50-50 chance of doing so.
Twins starter Trevor May looks like a douchebag when looking at his ERA. He started 12 games for the Twins in his career and they won 5 and lost 7. His ERA stands at 4.91, which looks quite bad. But he hasn’t walked many guys (3.3 BB%) and struck out batters at a respectable rate (21.3%). His WHIP looks very solid thusfar (1.16) and he’s allowed only 1 HR in 14.2 IP. His main problems have consisted with runners on base (57.7% LOB). Against a shaky White Sox offense he has the chance to improve his ERA IMO, although I may be quite alone with that opinion. He is a FB/Changeup guy, a combination the White Sox had some trouble with this season. He has faced some of the White Sox batters, but none to a rate that I would call it relevant. May was injured in his last start but according to his own words he is at 100% again.

Batting:
Thusfar the White Sox feature one of the worst offenses in the AL. They average only 3.4 runs a game (3.2 on the road), out of their 17 games they scored 2 runs or less 10 times already. They have a AVG of .250 against RHP this season, but only 3 guys (Cabrera, Abreu, Garcia) have been batting better than .240 (with at least 20 PAs). LaRoche, Eaton, Ramirez and Gillaspie have been quite bad in this category, all batting .222 or worse. They strike out a lot, too, as their K% is at .221. The White Sox offense has talent, but while they can demolish anybody on a good day, they can also suck the next day against a weaker pitcher (Milone held them scoreless in 7.2 IP with 2 H, 2BB, 0 ER and 7 K). This is one of my main points for the bet. The White Sox lineup looks to shaky to not go against them with odds of +147, no matter who is starting. The White Sox have good stats with men on base or RISP, but to profit from that they have to get on base first. They are the 2nd worst team in the whole league with bases empty. I can imagine the White Sox a little bit out of rhythm because of the two delayed games at Baltimore. The last game in front of an empty crowd saw them only getting 4 hits and 1 walk against Ubaldo Jimenez, Kevin Gausman and Zach Britton.
The Twins haven’t done much better overall. Against LHP they looked mediocre thusfar as a team, batting .248 with a 20.1 K% (players with 20 PAs or more). Arcia, Dozier, Robinson, Santana and especially Vargas (.304) and Mauer (.342) have done well against LHP, while Suzuki, Plouffe (.198), Hunter (.148) and Escobar (.130) have done bad against them. But as you can see in my pitcher report, those 4 guys are exactly those who have done well against Chris Sale over their career. The Twins offense, which averages 3.5 runs per game, is significantly better at home, where they average 4.4 runs per game. After being held scoreless by the Mariners and King Felix on April 24th, they were up against James Paxton (LHP, W), Roenis Elias (LHP, W), David Price (LHP, L), Anibal Sanchez (RHP, W) and Shane Greene (RHP, L). It looks like their offense came alive in those, as they scored 26 runs and had at least 9 hits in each of those games. Most of the guys they faced in the last 5 are either proven or quite talented, so this achievement is quite respectable and all in all this drives me to the opinion that the Twins should be able to score some runs against Sale, too. They have similar stats like the White Sox with RISP.

Bullpens:
Let’s face it, the White Sox have a much better bullpen than the Twins. Well, maybe the Twins have one of the worst BPs in the MLB. The White Sox pen has much better stats in nearly all categories than the Twins. The White Sox BP is quite rested, but the Twins BP has pitched 19.2 since Saturday and has blown a quite safe lead yesterday against the Tigers, but the season is still young and therefore I don’t put too much weight on that. This game should be mainly decided by the starters and the lineups, but of course it’s no question that the Twins BP could suck again. But the Twins are dogs for a reason, although I see value in the pick overall.

The Twins have nothing to lose against Sale and I like those spots.

Some more facts:
- White Sox are 13-20 on the ML (+20.4% ROI on the opp) and 13-20 on the RL (+30.0% ROI on the opp) when Sale started for them in a road game with a temperature of 65° F or more (it looks like the temp. will be at 67° F @ MIN)
- White Sox are 5-6 on the ML (+23.0% ROI on the opp) and 4-7 on the RL (+18.2% ROI on the opp) as road favs against teams from the AL Central when Sale started for them and they are 3-6 in the last 9 of those games
- White Sox are 29-52 on the ML (+11.7% ROI on the opp) in 81 road games since 2012 when the game was the first game of a series; they are 9-10 on the ML (+7.9% ROI on the opp) at the Twins in those
- White Sox are 5-13 on the ML (+17.4% ROI on the opp) on the road since August 2013 against a team from the AL when they lost the previous game with a difference of 4 or more runs
- White Sox are 8-21 on the ML (+18.5% ROI on the opp) on the road since July 2012 against a team from the AL Central when they scored 2 runs or less in their previous game
- Twins are 10-4 on the ML (+54.6% ROI) at home since 2013 against a team from the AL Central when they scored 7 or more runs in their previous game
- Twins are 10-8 on the ML (+19.6% ROI) at home since July 2012 against a team from the AL Central when they allowed 8 runs or more in their previous game
- Twins are 24-11 on the ML (+33.4% ROI) at home since 2012 between April and June against teams with a losing record
- Home Dogs (odds of +100 or bigger) are 20-16 on the ML (+25.4% ROI) since 2004 from April to August when the game is the first game of the series between two division rivals, when both teams lost their previous game with 3 runs or more and the total of the game is below 9.5

[mitch51]

Posey is right about capping the umps. There won't be enough info until at least mid May because the umps need at least ten games behind the plate and most only have 4-5. The more Posey writes the more I like him. He's probably the most solid capper in SBR. These picks are gonna be golden by the end of the year when you are totalling up units.

[mitch51]

Damn. Nice work, Posey, on your analysis of this game. You are raising the bar for every capper here.

[mitch51]

WoW Posey, I have that game. Nice write-up too

Ali

[RollinDo]

I was going to play ChiSox -1 until I saw this...can't argue.
Even if Sox end up winning, I am fine with that.

[posey]

Thanks Mitch.

I was going to play ChiSox -1 until I saw this...can't argue.
Even if Sox end up winning, I am fine with that.

Ah it's far from impossible that the White Sox win. Maybe even with a big margin. But the line at +147 is a joke. As I wrote above, WS have a strong record with Sale against the Twins, but the Twins have done quite well on offense recently. I don't think that many guys would have said that they will average more than 5 runs per game when facing Paxton, Elias, Price, Sanchez and Greene.
The Twins biggest advantage is that they have nothing to lose.
You know, Sox have lost against guys like Bruce Chen, Erik Bedard, Jarrod Parker, Kevin Correia, Luis Mendoza, TJ House or Zach McAllister on the road when Sale started. The Sox seem to not look like a team which turns it up for their ace, especially on the road. He only gets a run support of 3.7 runs per game since 2013 in his starts. On AL standards that's really not that much.

Teams which are thought of being in a very bad spot come out stronger often. This applies to most sports.

[nktmpp]

May's 8.24 ERA in his own park and Sale at 2.45 in his 5 starts at Target Field and May's 8.39 ERA for night games and Sale at 2.66 all has me a bit worried. Also, the Twins are slugging % of .333 against lefties so far this year with an almost 3/1 K/BB ratio. On paper it seems the White Sox are the easy choice but i don't trust the CWS offense enough to play em in this spot and/or with that much juice so its a no play for me. GL to you and great write up. i know its not just me who appreciates your hard work. Hope it cashes for you

[posey]

Please don't take SIX home games of Trevor May for the Twins as a valid sample size. You can't cap a guy or a team based on 6 games, especially when the opponents were of such caliber like May's opponents.

And if you look into it, please also realize the following:
- Sep 9, 2014, May's home start against CWS: MIN v CWS 11-4; May: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 HR, 1 BB, 6 K
- Sep 14, 2014, May's away start against CWS: MIN v CWS 6-4; May: 6.0 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 0 HR, 0 BB, 10 K
- Apr 19, 2015, May's last home start: MIN v CLE 7-2, May: 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 HR, 0 BB, 4 K

One such outing and the Twins have all the chances to win it.

This guy has thrown 64% of his pitches for strikes over his short career (this season even 66%, in ST nearly 90%). Don't be fooled by his bad ERA numbers. This guy has 6 career stats at Minute Maid Park, that's not much. And when you also consider that 3 of his 4 home starts in 2014 were against the (back then) red hot Tigers, Royals and Tigers, does that still look so bad?

May's biggest problem in the past season were his control issues. He walked too many guys and then he 'had to' throw strikes which often ended up being over the plate which causes trouble against anybody, especially against good teams. He has adjusted significantly in spring training and in his first few starts. This guy is better than last season. Believe me or not, but this guy can and IMO will be a solid third or fourth starter in the future. Expect him to improve his K%, BB%, GB% and HR/FB ratio over the course of the season compared to last season. This guy is not as shitty as his ERA suggests. His FB is solid, his changeup is already more than solid and his curve is also quite good. And he's still only 25 years old.

Guys, do yourself a favor and stop capping games based mainly on the ERA. Madison Bumgarner had a home ERA of 4.03 in 2014. So what? What does this tell us? Next to nothing.

You know, there are so many 'strange things' around in baseball. That's what you have to look for. Not the common play. The numbers you posted would worry me if the line was MIN +120 or +130, but not +147.


You can't take a single number without looking into it.
When you pitch at home at night against the powerhouses who are red hot of course it's more likely that your stats may be worse compared to day games when you are up against struggling lineups. Maybe you have even pitched better at night but since you faced a much tougher lineup your stats are worse.

As I said, the Twins are dogs for a reason. It's simply me picking them because the line is too high and I expect May to get better in the future and in games like this. Pitcher vs Batter (or vice versa) is a stat you have to look into. But it's not the end of the world.

It's no bashing of your opinion, it's valid, but I simply think different. That's all. And for all of your points I have a counter. And still this doesn't mean that I am on the right track. But when I notice that the White Sox are 5-12 in their last 17 away games as favorites with Sale starting (average score 3.4-4.4), I will never hesitate to take a deeper look and if I like it I won't stand still, I will put my money on the dog. Especially when he/they has/have lost to other shitty teams with pitcher who aren't better than May.

Based on the ERA I would have been never ever allowed to pick the Cards RL against Harang yesterday. But I did it. And I will do thing like that often.

[Apache888]

Posey, I was going to play white sox till I read your write up. You brought up valid points and also took your advice when Madbum played the Dodgers. You're by far one of the best mlb capers here that not only provides a pick but makes me think about finding value. keep up the good work.

[posey]

Thank you. As I said the CWS will win eventually. But maybe not. No matter the score I won't regret my pick. That's it. There have been some things lately many guys were afraid of playing (fading De la Rosa at home, fading Kershaw, things like that). Look for average odds of +100 or higher. In 90% of the time playing mostly minus odds you will have a hard time. Pick +odds. You will lose some of course. But if you win about 50% of them, what is far from impossible, you will be up a fair amount of units in the end. Baseball is the closest sport I know of. Take advantage of that.

[Apache888]

Do you have any other leans aside from twins today?

[BadLuckSanta]

posey how much do you bet on a single POD?


a lot of words

good luck

[Apache888]

I was thinking about taking the overrated Strasbourg later on today for the price. Nats bats have woken up and we'll we know what Strasbourg track record has been but I see value in it any thoughts on the play

[posey]

posey how much do you bet on a single POD?


a lot of words

good luck

Hm, do you mean how much money or how many units? I play with flat stakes, 1 unit each game. No matter if it's the dog of the day, pick of the day, beer of the day, meat of the day or whatever. 1 unit = 1% of my bankroll. Am I correct with the assumption that you would like to know my bankroll now?


Ya know, the PoD is simply one pick of my daily picks. I pick one and write an in-depth analysis. In general most of my picks are analyzed the same way, but it's impossible to write something for every pick.

Do you have any other leans aside from twins today?

I have picked Astros ML (although slightly minus odds) and consider the RL playable as well. Under 7 MIN/CWS (plus odds) looks also good. Both based on queries (SDQL) and some logical thinking and mainly pitching matchups. Maybe I lose all 3 plays, who knows. Won't stop me. I had days this season where I went 0-4 and others where I went 4-0.

I was thinking about taking the overrated Strasbourg later on today for the price. Nats bats have woken up and we'll we know what Strasbourg track record has been but I see value in it any thoughts on the play

I wouldn't call Strasburg overrated. He's got a very high BABIP and very low LOB% thusfar, suggesting he was very unlucky. He has no Ace-caliber, but he is a guy who can be a good 2nd or 3rd starter on many teams. As I see the Nats were dogs when the bookies opened the odds, but have become favorite in the mean time. I wouldn't play it to be honest. It's a 50-50 game as I consider deGrom the better pitcher overall and he is capable of silencing the red hot Nats bats. And in 50-50 games I would pick the dog if I had to pick one team. Nonetheless I don't play anything because the Mets are only at +100. Don't see any value.
But to come back to Strasburg, most guys act like he would be the ace of the Nats and base their criticism on him off of that. That's wrong IMO. Their ace is Scherzer.

[Alex Vaile]

Great writeups Posey!

[FlyinAir]

Posey ontop of it today

[mitch51]

Thank you. As I said the CWS will win eventually. But maybe not. No matter the score I won't regret my pick. That's it. There have been some things lately many guys were afraid of playing (fading De la Rosa at home, fading Kershaw, things like that). Look for average odds of +100 or higher. In 90% of the time playing mostly minus odds you will have a hard time. Pick +odds. You will lose some of course. But if you win about 50% of them, what is far from impossible, you will be up a fair amount of units in the end. Baseball is the closest sport I know of. Take advantage of that.

This is all the gospel truth. We have faded De la Rosa twice in Colorado and have faded Kershaw twice. You cannot win betting minus numbers in baseball. You do what Posey does and handicap dogs up to 50%, we have done this for years. You are up a lot of units at the end.

Posey, I'm not hijacking your thread but you have just given out the Holy Grail of baseball betting. Capping and Flat Betting dogs. Simple as that.

[Rbyrne]

Where's ur pick of the day pusssy ohh wait I mean posey aka nosey

[ses_d]

Tough play going against Sale, but I like it. CWS offense is terrible and Twins are heating up. They could've easily won yesterdays game if it was any team other then the Tigers.

I'm on this play "to win" one unit.

[VegasPlayer]

Originally Posted by posey
Thank you. As I said the CWS will win eventually. But maybe not. No matter the score I won't regret my pick. That's it. There have been some things lately many guys were afraid of playing (fading De la Rosa at home, fading Kershaw, things like that). Look for average odds of +100 or higher. In 90% of the time playing mostly minus odds you will have a hard time. Pick +odds. You will lose some of course. But if you win about 50% of them, what is far from impossible, you will be up a fair amount of units in the end. Baseball is the closest sport I know of. Take advantage of that.

This is all the gospel truth. We have faded De la Rosa twice in Colorado and have faded Kershaw twice. You cannot win betting minus numbers in baseball. You do what Posey does and handicap dogs up to 50%, we have done this for years. You are up a lot of units at the end.

Posey, I'm not hijacking your thread but you have just given out the Holy Grail of baseball betting. Capping and Flat Betting dogs. Simple as that.

To all - The truth is written right here. This is how it is done....

[Coach Potato]

Good luck tonight posey. Wat was ur record last season?

[mdunlap3]

Love this man, appreciate your hard work my fellow SDQL miner

[Big Bear]

Congrats on the Twins winner

Poster posey might be the smartest man alive!

[Big Bear]

give it up for Poster Posey

5-2

ball game over

[mdunlap3]

9-2 now. Great call Pose. Keep it up.

[trebongs]

Very ballsy to choose such a heavy dog as your 2nd posted pick. You're killing it so far

[Big Bear]

dude has nuts bigger than Mike Tyson

[2buckluck]

Great pick Posey!

[FlyinAir]

Lowkey Posey snapped on that Twins pick