Every year, the first week in July at the halfway point of the MLB season I like to play around with the end of season futures odds and prices.
What can I tell you, it's who I am, it's what I do.
I come from a long line of baseball junkies and number geek/nerds.
My grandpa was part of the first wave of TV electricians, when the TV was first introduced to the common man, and a numbers nerd.
My daddy was a 30 year career military engineer, and anumbers nerd.
And I'm an IT operations analyst in real life, and a numbers nerd.
But I digress.
At the halfway point, the playoff landscape looks like this.
Currently there are seven team that have a 5% chance or better to win the World Series and a 10% chance of wining the league pennant.
My objective every year at this time is to find the value.
The value is in the Texas Rangers, who currently have a 12% chance of winning the WS
The implied odds on 12 percent is +740, yet DK is offering +1300
Conversely there is absolutely no value in the Astros and the Dodgers, and the other four teams are priced fairly.
This exercise is not foolproof, nothing is, but I've been putting this theory to the test for several years, and it's pretty accurate.
So, I just hit the Texas Rangers to win the AL and the WS for small bets each.
Not for nothing, both the AL Central and the NL Central are not represented, as the oddsmakers believe the west and east wild cards are better than those two division winners.
I need to mention these numbers posted in the above tables are not my own, they're baseball-references data, and they base their numbers on 1000 simulations of the rest of the season and playoffs.
The teams estimated quality is based on the games played to this point and includes a regression to the mean factor.
What can I tell you, it's who I am, it's what I do.
I come from a long line of baseball junkies and number geek/nerds.
My grandpa was part of the first wave of TV electricians, when the TV was first introduced to the common man, and a numbers nerd.
My daddy was a 30 year career military engineer, and anumbers nerd.
And I'm an IT operations analyst in real life, and a numbers nerd.
But I digress.
At the halfway point, the playoff landscape looks like this.
| First Round Bye | Wild Card Round | |||||||
| Lg | Top Seed | Division Winner | Division Winner | Wild Card | Wild Card | Wild Card | ||
| NL | Atlanta Braves | Los Angeles Dodgers | Milwaukee Brewers | Arizona Diamondbacks | Miami Marlins | San Francisco Giants | ||
| AL | Tampa Bay Rays | Texas Rangers | Minnesota Twins | Houston Astros | New York Yankees | Baltimore Orioles | ||
Currently there are seven team that have a 5% chance or better to win the World Series and a 10% chance of wining the league pennant.
| Current | Average | |||||||||||||||
| Tm | Lg | D | W | L | W | L | Pennant | Win WS 5 | DK ODDS | Implied Odds | ||||||
| 1 | Atlanta Braves | NL | E | 58 | 28 | 103 | 59 | 42.40% | 24.40% | 330 | 23% | |||||
| 1 | Tampa Bay Rays | AL | E | 57 | 32 | 99 | 63 | 30.00% | 18.00% | 500 | 17% | |||||
| 1 | Texas Rangers | AL | W | 51 | 36 | 94 | 66 | 23.30% | 12.00% | 1300 | 7% | |||||
| 1 | Los Angeles Dodgers | NL | W | 48 | 38 | 89 | 73 | 15.10% | 7.00% | 650 | 13% | |||||
| 2 | Houston Astros | AL | W | 49 | 38 | 91 | 71 | 12.00% | 6.00% | 700 | 13% | |||||
| 2 | New York Yankees | AL | E | 48 | 39 | 91 | 71 | 11.20% | 6.00% | 1400 | 7% | |||||
| 2 | Arizona Diamondbacks | NL | W | 50 | 37 | 88 | 74 | 10.70% | 5.00% | 2200 | 4% | |||||
My objective every year at this time is to find the value.
The value is in the Texas Rangers, who currently have a 12% chance of winning the WS
The implied odds on 12 percent is +740, yet DK is offering +1300
Conversely there is absolutely no value in the Astros and the Dodgers, and the other four teams are priced fairly.
This exercise is not foolproof, nothing is, but I've been putting this theory to the test for several years, and it's pretty accurate.
So, I just hit the Texas Rangers to win the AL and the WS for small bets each.
Not for nothing, both the AL Central and the NL Central are not represented, as the oddsmakers believe the west and east wild cards are better than those two division winners.
I need to mention these numbers posted in the above tables are not my own, they're baseball-references data, and they base their numbers on 1000 simulations of the rest of the season and playoffs.
The teams estimated quality is based on the games played to this point and includes a regression to the mean factor.