El3m3nt and Co.'s All Things MLB

[High3rEl3m3nt]

MLB is the only professional sport that I have made decent money wagering.

Thread is not so much a season long tracking thread, but a thread to share handicapping resources, trends, and other pertinent information. Intelligent discussion on anything baseball related is welcomed.

I'll start this off by sharing some of my favorite MLB resources to visit--many of you also frequent these sites.

* covers has some useful stadium over under trends based on different weather conditions
*Baseball Press
*Baseball Prospectus
*Brooks Baseball
*Cleanup Hitter
*Daily Baseball Data
*FanGraphs
*Odds Shark
*Prediction Tracker
*SBR Odds
*Sport Spyder
*Statfox

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Wizard of odds (MLB information)

[High3rEl3m3nt]

According to poster, Palmtree--top notch guy and Vegas local, Westgate (LV) will be putting up season win totals February 15.

[mlb]

Great, can't believe pitchers and cathers reporting is right around the corner.

[EXhoosier10]

According to poster, Palmtree--top notch guy and Vegas local, Westgate (LV) will be putting up season win totals February 15.

great news. Been watching WS for about a month now. I'm getting antsy

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Just a note about PNC Park in the Spring on Sunny Days (earlier games).

The stadium's lighting creates shadow that hits home plate towards the
final third of the game--all depends on how much offense
has slowed the game down in prior innings.

Last April, the Cards and Wainwright visited the 'rats and Volquez,
which was a low scoring affair. The shadow began to edge home plate in the
top of the 8th. Game time was 11:35 AM ET. The shadow moves in front of
home plate over the course of an inning or so.

Going over select early season games last year and looking
at various things. Let me know if you guys have any requests.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

I know Busch Stadium has one of the most devastating shadow effects in MLB. If I remember correctly, it occurs more towards
late summer/early fall (early game).

[EXhoosier10]

Great thinking re: shadows. It's something that a lot of people don't think about because they don't get to see games for every other team. Seattle is another one to throw in the mix with Pit and Stl. It's those 3pm games when this stuff has an effect

[DiggityDaggityDo]

What are the key things to look at when capping a MLB game?

[High3rEl3m3nt]

I tend to focus on travel, previous pitch counts, bp usage, and overall team trends--there's going to be periods where a team's bats are on fire or are ice cold. I'd consider myself a qualitative handicapper, who believes that a shallow, quantitative approach does not generate meaningful gambling insights. This means that I have to watch a sh.it ton of baseball.

More than any other sport, baseball is a game of repetition and poise. Every player and team is going to have interruptions and will present value situations from a bettor's perspective. Also, books expect to take such lopsided action when certain pitchers are pitching and on certain teams.

I tend to ignore shallow stats because they aren't predictive as much as they tell a story that's already unfolded. Shallow stat capping encourages lazy and inaccurate handicapping. Gamblers who subscribe to shallow stat handicapping fail to recognize the significance of what those stats might indicate.

I only say this because some of SBR's most respected handicappers are nothing more than shallow stat handicappers who believe they are pulling one over on the books. It looks like they are doing their homework because they are citing boxscores and batter/pitcher matchups, but it's nothing more than a lazy and bogus approach. There's edges to be gained, but shallow stat handicapping is the equivalent of putting a t-ball team up against a MLB team.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

3D, not sure if know, but I use to track a bunch of different cappers. Some were touts and others were posters.

Long story short, the only touts that ever won a significant amount were those that past posted odds and line moves that were long gone at at all of the respectable shops and often, they were no longer offered anywhere. I discover this and they'd get tossed into the Hall of Shame--you wouldn't believe how many touts have threatened to sue me over what they believed was defamation.

Over a large sample, you will profit if you beat the market. Yes, picking winners is critical, but if you pick the same amount of winners and get in with the best of it, it makes a difference.

I tend to gamble and hope that I am getting in with the best of it, which means I take a shot on a lot of openers. That's another way that I attack MLB. I tend to have more success getting in on the best of it when I select dogs. Limits aren't the best, but you'll never have problems getting a decent amount down unless you're a high roller. I give enough back betting NHL and other sports to still have my reduced juice

[DiggityDaggityDo]

Element, I bet you have tons of spreadsheets.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Another thing that I am going to take a look at is daily fantasy baseball wagering at DraftKings and some of the other sites.
Fantasy sports are what I would consider the new Wild West and there's opportunity to be had.

Like the NHL, there are correlations that can be exploited when trying to select lineups. For example, when I do larger NHL tournaments, I am not selecting a bunch of players from different teams. I am attacking several NHL teams in order to maximize scoring correlations e.g. Sidney Crosby rarely scores a goal without two assists occurring. Now, it's expensive to draft a significant number of players from the top teams' lines, but you can do it on lesser teams. Last night, I did well drafting a lot of players from the Blue Jackets top line.

In these tourneys, it's better to go big or go home than to try and draft a bunch of players from different teams.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Great thinking re: shadows. It's something that a lot of people don't think about because they don't get to see games for every other team. Seattle is another one to throw in the mix with Pit and Stl. It's those 3pm games when this stuff has an effect

I'll take a look to see about what innings shadows come into play in safeco.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Shadows hit Safeco a little after 7 pm ET in the spring, which probably makes for a rare situation. Most game starts are either 4 pm ET on the weekends or 8 pm ET. You could find some in-game wagering opportunities if there's been some offense early on.

Athletics and M's played a low scoring affair on April 13, 2014. Game started 4:10 PM ET and shadows didn't near the plate until the bottom of the 9th. M's managed only 3 hits, the game lasted 2 hours and 44 minutes, which was close to a half an hour below the average length of game for the 2014 season. Shadow situation might have some value for in game wagering opportunities.

I'll have to go through a few games in the mid and late summer to see when the shadows cover the pitcher mound/home plate.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Looked over a few games in September and that's when the shadows hit the pitcher mound and home plate in the middle innings.

Exhoosier, you are right, shadows come into play are are certainly worth considering. 4:10 PM ET starts and the shadows hit the mound around a little after 5 and the batter's box close to 5:30 PM ET--for a game in late Sept.

Any other stadiums and day games I should look into?

August 10, Sunny, start time 4:10 PM ET. Shadows don't come into play.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Busch Stadium in September is no joke.




5 PM Start time in late September/ Early October

[EXhoosier10]

awesome research, HE. I started to think about looking into mlb.tv games, but then realized i don't have any info on gameday weather conditions nor do i have any idea what parts of the year are more likely to have shadows and didn't want to spend hours going through a team's 81 home games.

Overall, these mid afternoon games probably only pop up a handful of games each week, and are obvisouly highly subjective to weather conditions, so it's not something that will happen every week even when those mid afternoon games come around. This is one of the reasons why watching games is of huge importance

[Mase of Base]

Nationals Park gets some tricky looking shadows. I recall Stras having a couple of really good outings helped by the shadows.

Trouble with those games is the bats just go out with an all or nothing approach and if they run into one she's gone!

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Thanks for the head's up, Mase. Will check into that ballpark when I get an opportunity.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

I thought this was a worthwhile article concerning the Athletics roster shakeup over the offseason and some insight into a shift in style of play that we might expect this season. If you guys run into any interesting articles, from a gambler's perspective or ones that are simply interesting, feel free to share them.

MLB.com Link

[Big Bear]

According to poster, Palmtree--top notch guy and Vegas local, Westgate (LV) will be putting up season win totals February 15.

But will they let you parlay those?

That is the million dollar question.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

No idea, I could ask PT for you. Or ask ExHoosier.

[EXhoosier10]

But will they let you parlay those?

That is the million dollar question.

No idea, I could ask PT for you. Or ask ExHoosier.

IIRC, they do not let you parlay these bets. They're all interrelated (how the cubs finish is directly, on a small scale, correlated with how the cardinals do this year), so I'd say this is a very unlikely scenario.

[Big Bear]

thanks fellas.

i have heard that 5Dimes will let u parlay win totals but i just wish Vegas would allow it.

You think odds to win divisions will come out around the 15th as well?

[High3rEl3m3nt]

this shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone, but Yahoo had a decent article (here) highlighting the travel distance that the M's will cover this season. I know this is a trendy team going into the season, and they keep making moves that generate attention, but I think they're going to come up short of expectations.

[EXhoosier10]

they are the team that travels most every year. Their nearest divisional opponent is further than just about everyone is in the NL central combined. Their flight times to division rivals range from 2 hours (Oakland) to 5 hours (Houston). Most East and Central teams can drive to their division rivals in that amount of time. This is nothing new and SF has been near the top of the league every year as well and has won multiple WS's recently.

At worst, Seattle's far location gives them an advantage at home every time another team not on the west coast has to suffer through a 5 hour flight to get there.

[mlb]

Was going to ask if extended travel really mattered all that much - obviously short term travel can play a role but most miles traveled seems like it would even be less of a problem then prior years

[Big Bear]

this shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone, but Yahoo had a decent article (here) highlighting the travel distance that the M's will cover this season. I know this is a trendy team going into the season, and they keep making moves that generate attention, but I think they're going to come up short of expectations.

just signed rickie weeks!!!!!

world series baby!

[Big Bear]

they are the team that travels most every year. Their nearest divisional opponent is further than just about everyone is in the NL central combined. Their flight times to division rivals range from 2 hours (Oakland) to 5 hours (Houston). Most East and Central teams can drive to their division rivals in that amount of time. This is nothing new and SF has been near the top of the league every year as well and has won multiple WS's recently.

At worst, Seattle's far location gives them an advantage at home every time another team not on the west coast has to suffer through a 5 hour flight to get there.

suffer through a 5 hour flight?

nah man these professional athletes have plenty of leg room and they are sitting back chillin playing card games and drinking whiskey

[EXhoosier10]

suffer through a 5 hour flight?

nah man these professional athletes have plenty of leg room and they are sitting back chillin playing card games and drinking whiskey

considering the Giants just this year bought a plane that has more than 20 first class seats, you continue to have no idea what you're talking about.

[Big Bear]

considering the Giants just this year bought a plane that has more than 20 first class seats, you continue to have no idea what you're talking about.

what?

you probably have never been on a plane before. Sitting on a plane is not hard work.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Was told about this handy trick on another forum.

For those of you, such as myself, who are planning on purchasing MLB.TV, DL google chrome and install 'Hola Better Internet." Once it is installed, access NHL Game Center Liver or MLB.TV and you can watch blacked out games. One of the posters in the thread mentioned that the MLB blackouts were going to be done away with this year, but I am not sure about that. Anyhow, this is a nice little workaround.

[EXhoosier10]

Brilliant, HE. Thanks for sharing. Getting rid of cable is a terrible idea when it comes to sports.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Coyotes and Avs have always been blacked out, but I just accessed NHL.com through Hola Better Internet and I now have the option to watch these games. This should provide a workaround for users wanting to watch ESPN streaming content too. I am sure this trick will be much more useful to those in other parts of the country, who face larger blackouts.

EDIT: Also, MLB blocks all of the midday Saturday games that Fox has the rights to, and this should allow us to access all of them.