A-Rod, Albert Pujols among long ball bets
Performance enhancing drugs have been wiped clean from baseball. April fools! What's not a joke is the season opens Sunday, making now the time to get down on prop bets.
No fooling – it’s baseball season.
Spring training has been pretty quiet this year. It isn’t just the lack of headlines about steroids or labor negotiations; it’s the lack of any headlines at all. The MSM seems to have taken a step back in its preview coverage of the 2010 MLB season, instead devoting considerable time and effort to, well, Tiger Woods.
I guess we could blame Alex Rodriguez for getting that monkey off his back. He hit six home runs with a 1.308 OPS in the 2009 playoffs as the New York Yankees won the World Series. The betting odds say there will be more of the same in 2010. Rodriguez is heavily featured on the MLB props market; his 'over/under' for home runs this year is 39.5, which leaves A-Rod at 9-1 to hit the most homers in the majors.
Hitting 40 homers is pretty impressive in this plausibly steroid-reduced day and age. But Rodriguez is only fourth on the “Most Home Runs” prop list:
Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies 4-1
Prince Fielder, Milwaukee Brewers 5-1
Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals 6-1
All three of these big bombers hail from the National League, noted for its softer pitching in the absence of the designated hitter. Only five players hit 40 or more home runs last year, and all were from the senior circuit, with Pujols (47), Fielder (46) and Howard (45) leading the way. Here’s how the over/under looks for them in 2010:
Howard: 45.5
Fielder: 44.5
Pujols: 42
Why the downgrade for Pujols? Well, in 2007 he hit “only” 32 home runs, and he followed that up in 2008 with 37. So some of that famous “regression to the mean” could occur here. Also, Pujols starts the year with a stiff lower back, although he says he feels much better after having an injection last week. Howard has hit at least 45 home runs in each of the past four seasons, while Fielder has been inconsistent in his four full years in the majors.
Still, it’s mostly a toss up among these three gentlemen. Why not go for Pujols and the biggest payment? For that matter, Rodriguez is priced generously after missing the first five weeks for the Yankees last year and hitting 30 home runs.
The new Yankee Stadium had the highest park factor for home runs in the majors last year at 1.261. If A-Rod stays healthy (now a concern as he nears age 35), he could turn in another 54-homer season like he did just three years ago.
As for the Yankees themselves, they’ve got the highest win total up on the board at 95½, one more than the rival Boston Red Sox. Reports indicate the betting public is pounding the 'over' on the Yankees, who won 103 games during the regular season last year. A bet for the incredibly popular Yankees usually involves eating a lot of chalk; for greater value, consider someone with a lower profile and lower expectations, like the Cleveland Indians at 74½ wins. Cleveland is one of the rising young teams in the big leagues and should rebound strongly from last year’s injury-plagued 65-97 campaign.
If you like a little dash of schadenfreude in your MLB props, you can go a little beyond the mainstream and lay some wood on which manager will be fired first. You can almost hear the New York Mets sharpening the ax for Jerry Manuel (2-1); the Mets didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 after Manuel took over for Willie Randolph, and they didn’t come close in 2009 at 70-92. Their total of 81½ wins for 2010 doesn’t bode well for Manuel’s continued employment.
Other candidates for the chop include Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington (11-4) and Chicago White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen (9-2). Washington admitted to using cocaine during the offseason, and Guillen is constantly saying things that would get most people fired, but both men are old-school managers playing in an old-school league. They’ll have to do worse to get fired.
Manuel, on the other hand, works in New York, where the local papers will do their best to ride Manuel out of town on a rail. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
Performance enhancing drugs have been wiped clean from baseball. April fools! What's not a joke is the season opens Sunday, making now the time to get down on prop bets.
No fooling – it’s baseball season.
Spring training has been pretty quiet this year. It isn’t just the lack of headlines about steroids or labor negotiations; it’s the lack of any headlines at all. The MSM seems to have taken a step back in its preview coverage of the 2010 MLB season, instead devoting considerable time and effort to, well, Tiger Woods.
I guess we could blame Alex Rodriguez for getting that monkey off his back. He hit six home runs with a 1.308 OPS in the 2009 playoffs as the New York Yankees won the World Series. The betting odds say there will be more of the same in 2010. Rodriguez is heavily featured on the MLB props market; his 'over/under' for home runs this year is 39.5, which leaves A-Rod at 9-1 to hit the most homers in the majors.
Hitting 40 homers is pretty impressive in this plausibly steroid-reduced day and age. But Rodriguez is only fourth on the “Most Home Runs” prop list:
Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies 4-1
Prince Fielder, Milwaukee Brewers 5-1
Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals 6-1
All three of these big bombers hail from the National League, noted for its softer pitching in the absence of the designated hitter. Only five players hit 40 or more home runs last year, and all were from the senior circuit, with Pujols (47), Fielder (46) and Howard (45) leading the way. Here’s how the over/under looks for them in 2010:
Howard: 45.5
Fielder: 44.5
Pujols: 42
Why the downgrade for Pujols? Well, in 2007 he hit “only” 32 home runs, and he followed that up in 2008 with 37. So some of that famous “regression to the mean” could occur here. Also, Pujols starts the year with a stiff lower back, although he says he feels much better after having an injection last week. Howard has hit at least 45 home runs in each of the past four seasons, while Fielder has been inconsistent in his four full years in the majors.
Still, it’s mostly a toss up among these three gentlemen. Why not go for Pujols and the biggest payment? For that matter, Rodriguez is priced generously after missing the first five weeks for the Yankees last year and hitting 30 home runs.
The new Yankee Stadium had the highest park factor for home runs in the majors last year at 1.261. If A-Rod stays healthy (now a concern as he nears age 35), he could turn in another 54-homer season like he did just three years ago.
As for the Yankees themselves, they’ve got the highest win total up on the board at 95½, one more than the rival Boston Red Sox. Reports indicate the betting public is pounding the 'over' on the Yankees, who won 103 games during the regular season last year. A bet for the incredibly popular Yankees usually involves eating a lot of chalk; for greater value, consider someone with a lower profile and lower expectations, like the Cleveland Indians at 74½ wins. Cleveland is one of the rising young teams in the big leagues and should rebound strongly from last year’s injury-plagued 65-97 campaign.
If you like a little dash of schadenfreude in your MLB props, you can go a little beyond the mainstream and lay some wood on which manager will be fired first. You can almost hear the New York Mets sharpening the ax for Jerry Manuel (2-1); the Mets didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 after Manuel took over for Willie Randolph, and they didn’t come close in 2009 at 70-92. Their total of 81½ wins for 2010 doesn’t bode well for Manuel’s continued employment.
Other candidates for the chop include Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington (11-4) and Chicago White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen (9-2). Washington admitted to using cocaine during the offseason, and Guillen is constantly saying things that would get most people fired, but both men are old-school managers playing in an old-school league. They’ll have to do worse to get fired.
Manuel, on the other hand, works in New York, where the local papers will do their best to ride Manuel out of town on a rail. Best of luck in your future endeavors.