Triple-A International League plays 4/8/10

[minor threat]

Hey y'all, tomorrow's the season opener for Minor League bases, and I've got some picks. Yeah, it's a small market, and only a few books offer it. But that's where you make bank, amirite?

Lehigh +105
Toledo +150
Buffalo +130
Charlotte +105
Columbus -120
Rochester +100
Durham -110

All plays for a unit, needless to say. Lehigh Valley, Buffalo and Durham should be able to put up serious points. Toledo, Charlotte and Rochester have powerhouse pitching (for AAA, anyhow). Neither the Clippers nor Indy have much in the way of pitching, but Columbus has better hitting, so that's where my money goes. Good luck to all!

[ZetaPsi808]

what book has lines for these games?

[phillip]

I've never heard of betting minor league games, but good luck.

[Terrapin Station]

Good luck. I've never bet on minor league games before. Interesting.

[minor threat]

These numbers are at the Greek. Bookmaker and 5Dimes have booked these games intermittently over the years, but I've been banned from betting MiLB at both, so I have no idea if they're doing it currently. It's a lightly bet market, so if you do the work, there's money to be made. On the downside, there are so few lines offered, and limits are so low, that you almost have to take an opinion on every game to make any money. It helps to drop the 30 bucks on a MiLB.tv subscription, so you can see the teams play at least occasionally. Also, you need to pay really close attention in the hours before a game, because callups happen at the last minute, and invariably involve the best players. The first couple weeks of the season, though, I'm not really worried about that, so I'll bet overnights.

This has been my bread and butter gambling for the last three years. I'm pretty much "recreational" at everything else, but with the minors I've got a knack for it. It's baseball the way the game was meant to be, the way I experienced it growing up by Wrigley in the 70's, the way my father and grandfather remembered it. Nowadays when I go to Yankee Stadium and such, I'm like wtf, I paid $58 for this seat and I can barely see the field, plus they want eight f'ing dollars for a beer? I'll tell ya, it's not like that when you're seeing a game in Scranton.

I'll share more about strategy and modeling as the season goes on. Just like in the majors, it's still early yet, and preseason info on players (other than basic stats) is mostly anecdotal and based heavily on private sources. If anyone here lives on the East Coast and goes to any of these games, I'd love to hear your feedback. I'll certainly offer mine.