BeatingBaseball - 2nd Half Thread

[No coincidences]

Sorry you took a hit there, No. I've taken some slaps myself of late and know the feeling.

It's hard to go against Wainwright, but as you well know there's a price at which you have to go against anybody, epecially when you think the other guy (in this case Wolf) gives you a chance. It's not like I knew Wolf was going to win, but at the price I had it I only need to hit 31% of the time to be profitable. Today just happened to be the day.

When we do this every day, it comes down to grinding it out against the price. GL tonight.

I really wanted to just pound the under, because I knew the Cardinals wouldn't hit much. Their offense is garbage. I still anticipated a 4-2 type StL win. Instead, they treated Wolf like he was Sandy Koufax until they finally decided to show up in the 9th.

Fitting that Ryan ended the game by whiffing on a 73 MPH change-up from Old Man River.

[BeatingBaseball]

Wednesday Results

Negative Night Games, Positive Day Games - Plus Day Overall

Wednesday 4 - 5, +1.59 Units

Cincinnati Reds -1.5 +145 +1.45

Cincinnati Reds -115 +2.00

Cleveland Indians -102 -2.04

Alt Cleveland Indians -1.5 +170 -1.00

Atlanta Braves -1.5 -105 -2.10

San Francisco Giants -102 -2.04

Alt San Francisco Giants -1.5 +165 -1.00

Oakland Athletics (1st 5 Inn) -122 +2.00

Milw Brewers (1st 5 Inn) +216 +4.32

[BeatingBaseball]

8-19-10 Thursday - Early Plays

ATL - FF for 1/2, ML, RL for 1/2
CUBS - FF for 1/2, ML for 1/2

ATL
Braves won in their final AB again last night - MLB best 21st time.
Nats had 2-0 leads last 2 nights and Braves took back both.
ATL feels invincible at home and Nats just looking to get out of Dodge.

CUBS
Padres and Latos the easy, overpriced, public pick today (much like Wainwright/Cards yesterday).
3 nights on Rush St. could show on a relaxed and maybe complacent Padres club here.
Cubs have nothing to lose, may spark up as club revamps with amped up new bloods.
Looking to just split FF/game at a nice price.

[BeatingBaseball]

8-19-10 Thursday Night Plays

TEX – ML, RL ½
SF – FF, ML, AltRL ½
CINC – ML, RL ½
COLO – FF, ML, AltRL for ½

[BeatingBaseball]

Thursday Results

Our 4 night games split profitably as the Giants cashed great prices of +1.55 FF, +1.66 ML and +2.63 on the AltRL cover – but the night did not overcome the two day game losses by the chalky Braves and underdog Cubs.

Overall for Thursday, we drop 6.26 Units. This sets us back to slightly negative (-1.46 Units) on the 2nd half once again.

A little more than a month in, we have yet to find our stride – a little frustrating, but the money season is still ahead and we’ll keep to our knitting.

One of the primary principles in successful sports betting is that you can’t force a break out. As hard as it is, you just have to be patient until you find some running room.

When it does come our way - we won’t miss it - we’ll be there to stack it up.

[BeatingBaseball]

8-20-10 Friday Early Play

ATL – ML, RL ½




Cubs - L's in 10/Last11 at home - SD just outscored them 20-9 in the 4 game sweep.

Jurrjens - has had some road struggles - but 5-1 overall with an ERA <3 since hamstring DL.

Dempster - pitched well in L3 overall - but not exactly a Bob Gibson mindset - expressed typical Cubs collegiality re his facing D. Lee - he loves the guy and hopes fans give him standing O - (visions of Sammy Sosa hugging Mark McGwire as Cards beat on Cubbies) – Nice.

Bobby Cox - not so nice. Braves team playing actual pro ball vs Baseball’s Lovable Losers

[BeatingBaseball]

Early Play Results

Braves cash both ML and RL on Rick Ankiel's 9th inning bases loaded triple.

Didn't get to see this one, but 2 points after reading the recap:

1 - Don't even want to hear the word "lucky." If we get the next six 2-out, last AB knocks, we still won't be even on them for August alone, let alone July.

2 - It's nice to see that some organizations actually watch games and utilize advance scouting. There's been a long standing trend in baseball that's been accelerating which really gets my groin. It's the trend of pitchers who have great stuff getting guys out on pitches that are not anywhere near strikes. This trend has been especially true of closers and most especially true of Marmol, who in my mind has been the poster boy for it.

Marmol is the kind of guy you have no chance to hit if you go up there wailing at his fantastic stuff, but will hang himself if you apply any kind of plate discipline and have any kind of strike zone - simply because so few of his pitches are strikes thru the zone. If you go about him using your head, he walks guys, puts pressure on himself and, when he's behind in the count, that's when you get the cookie to hit.

As I said, I didn't see the game. Marmol may have been so wild he didn't even give the Braves a chance to hand him the outs, but since the Cubs stayed with him I rather suspect the Braves were heads up on the guy and went up there with some idea as to how to go about it.

Another thing on this subject, supportive of the theory, is that teams seem to have had better results vs guys like Marmol when they are down MORE than one run in the 9th. In those situations they are naturally thinking more about baserunners, getting guys on, rather than hitting the Big Jack. - classic e.g., the Sunday night game, Yankees at Dodgers, earlier in the year when the Yanks had the big 9th and beat Broxton.

[No coincidences]

Outstanding post, BB.

[BeatingBaseball]

Thank you, No.

I'm sure you've seen what I'm talking about and hope you had a piece of that score.

[BeatingBaseball]

Friday Night Plays (more to come)

tex – ml, rl ½
mets – ff ½, ml, rl ½
fla – ml, rl ½

[BeatingBaseball]

Friday Night Added Plays (more to come)

milw – ff ½, ml, rl ½
sf – ff, ml, Alt rl ½
wsox – ff ½, ml, rl ½

[BeatingBaseball]

Friday Night Final Added Plays

Colo - ff 1/2, ml 1/2
cinc - ff 1/2, ml, rl (-1.5) 1/2
tb - ff 1/2, ml, rl 1/2

[BeatingBaseball]

Friday Results

Last Sunday (Post #129), I said that winning comes in bursts.

We experienced a big one Friday.

We had action on 10 games overall yesterday. One game (WSOX/KC) was rained out.
On the 9 games that were played we had a total of 23 plays (11 of them were at + prices of +1.15 to +2.35)

Of the 23 plays, we won 20.

The first 19 decisions hit for us on Friday - and we came very close to a perfect day on 23 plays.
In the only 2 MLs we lost - we had the lead Bottom 8 in one (TB) and had the lead Bottom 9 with 2 outs/2 strikes in the other (COLO). Both were 1 run decisions.

The day netted 28.34 Units and put us solidly back in the green for the 2nd half.

The main thing - we are back to profitable despite all that we’ve been through (aka Balt. Orioles).

The Unit count is just about back to its strong position going into the Lost Friday the 13th Weekend - and we did it without ever making a play bigger than our standard 2 Units (actually making more ½ plays than usual).

There are a couple of points to take away here:

1 – Even when you’re making positive EV plays, i.e., propositions that have an actual win expectation better than the win expectation implied by the price, you have a lot of losing days, even losing weeks, possibly losing months.

Variance is substantial in sports betting and winning just doesn’t come steadily day to day. Even the best handicappers do not see their bankrolls make new highs every week. The vast majority of the time they are off the highs. This is one of the things that make this game so tough. It’s easy to get frustrated and feel like you’re losing even if you’re a good handicapper and you are making +EV plays. It’s very easy to lose your patience and blow up your bankroll. It’s not enough to know the game. You have to be a good gambler as well. It takes both to win. (A certain, famous Reds manager demonstrated that pretty well).

2 – The other point is on the subject of making so many plays. Some say if you make a great number of plays the juice will eat you up. That’s certainly true if you’re laying 11 to 10 on games or point spreads that are 50-50 shots. That’s negative EV. The more games you bet like that the less chance you have of overcoming the edge against you and the quicker you will reach your inevitable demise. That is not true, however, if you are making +EV plays. It is in fact just the opposite. If you have an edge, even a small one, you take it. You want to make as many +EV plays as possible, just as a bookie wants to book as many as possible. The only question is the edge you have and if you are sufficiently capitalized to handle the variance. If the edge is not there, you don’t want the play at all. And if the bet is too big, you have to cut it back.

The acid test of our performance is this - when you’ve put on 500 plays at the same level and are still profitable, you know you’re making +EV plays.

[Pair of 5s Sir]

Congrats on the big nite. Looking forward to meeting up. My season props are holding strong with the Reds and Twins.

[No coincidences]

Can't keep a good capper down for long.

Enjoy the thread, BB.

[BeatingBaseball]

Congrats on the big nite. Looking forward to meeting up. My season props are holding strong with the Reds and Twins.

Thanks 5's. Will definitely see you this week

By the way - another example of the Pickmonitor situation last night. The Reds game was offered +1.5 on the RL and when you went to AltRL it was +1.5 as well. There was no way to take Reds -1.5. The other thing has been it seems there's another site jamming it and diverting you away from it at times. It's rare, but sometimes you just can't get in. And of course I have failed to get a couple in myself at times although they were posted here. I wish there was a way to get it perfectly squared away because I love the concept. The filtering analysis of performance history is a really valuable tool in itself. Thanks again for the heads up on both PM and SBR.

[BeatingBaseball]

Can't keep a good capper down for long.

Enjoy the thread, BB.

Thank you, No.

Always appreciate your input/comments.

Let's get'em today.

[BeatingBaseball]

8-21-10 Saturday - Early Plays

ATL – ML, RL ½
MINN – FF ½, ML ½, RL
TEX – FF, ML, RL

ATL
Hanson by far the best pitcher with no W’s in his last 8 starts in all MLB (1.93 ERA L8).
Hanson has had run support of 2 or less in 8 of L10.
D. Lee and Ankiel both owned Gorzelanny when he was with Pittsburgh.
The disparity in team dynamics right now between these two clubs is about as wide as it gets.

MINN
Slowey on string of 15 scoreless innings at home.
A patch work starter, bullpen guy Bell, on the mound for a team that is 8 games back, under .500 and, like that other team from LA, ready to call it a year.
Gardenhire is the Tom Izzo of MLB and getting near Sept. is like getting near March.

TEX
O’s hit 3 bombs vs Lee in his Texas debut. Not today. Expect Dr. Lee to be operating here.
O’s started 9-2 under Bucko, but have lost 5 of L7 and have been shut out 2/L4.
Showalter did not like Jeff Nelson’s strike zone last night and got tossed - not a good move with Mark Carlson back there today and Dr. Lee dealin’.

[BeatingBaseball]

Saturday Night Plays (more to come)

WASH – FF
METS – ML, RL ½
FLA – ML, RL ½
MILW – FF, ML
SF – FF, ML
TOR – FF, ML, RL ½



WASH
Nats outhit the Phils last night 10-4. We’ll take anywhere near that today for Strasburg
No doubt Stras will be on a tight pitch count once again, but he looked back to form in last.
WASH lineup has hammered Kendrick in 2 starts this year.

METS
Pirates loss last night made .500 mark impossible in 2010 – 18 straight years.
Mets at 61-61 overall. To get + the .500 mark always a reason to play hard.
Amazingly, Mets also playing for their 1st road series win over an NL team this year.
Jason Bay apparently out for the season – but Niese has been throwing it well.
-1.20 implies only a .545 win expectation. Nice +EV.

FLA
Marlins have not been able to win 5 straight all year. 3rd try today vs struggling Stros.
Volstad has been shaky but always seems to pitch well vs HOU.
Rodriguez has been very great his last 6 times out - but FLA 24-12 vs LH starters.

MILW
Brewers’ middle lineup really seeing it right now. MILW scored in 6 of 8 frames yesterday.
Correia great for his 5 or 6 since the break - but still only a league average WHIP.
Like MILW to split 5 and 9 here at home at a dog price.

SF
Most interesting game to watch today. 3 of L5 NL Cy Youngs out there.
Tim L has had tired arm and control issues - 1st time ever 3 straight losses (9.00 ERA in L3).
Carpenter is still Carpenter, but Cards have not been Cards (16 total runs in 5 straight losses).
With Cards pressing at the plate, I have to take Lincecum at the + price here.

TOR
Money keeps coming in on Dice-K here as he won this same matchup 7-5 about 2 wks ago and Jays have not fared well at Fenway.
But TOR put up 16 yesterday on 20 hits and that was vs BOS ace Lester.
Bautista hits them in bunches. He jacked one yesterday and Overbay launched a pair.
BOS only 1 game over .500 (20-19, .513) vs LHers and Romero better than average lefty.
At +1.27 we only need to win at 44% to break even. Like our chances to split 5 and 9 inn.

[GTeater]

Thanks for the picks, I really agree/tailing several. BOL!

[BeatingBaseball]

Thanks G.

Thanks for the picks, I really agree/tailing several. BOL!

Good Luck to you G.

Sure hope to do better tonight. The 3 early games were a disaster. You would have done well to have faded us there.

It's never easy.

[GTeater]

Not trying to be an A-hol, but I really liked SOME of your picks tonight. With some research/filtering I had a decent night .

I placed 30 unites on the Mets, 20 on the Marlins, 15 on the Nats FF, and another 15 on the Jays FF.

Any way, I went 3 for 4, made $500 (I'm 21 and in college making $8 an hour, that's a months pay for me), and feel like I owe you something. Thank you Sir! I owe you a beer at the least.


Please post your plays for Sunday.

[BeatingBaseball]

Thanks GTeater. By the end of the night, I only liked SOME of them myself.

Glad to hear you had a good night. And you certainly don't owe me anything. We're all big boys here and we all make our own decisions and play our own money. I don't want any credit (or any blame) for anyone else's play.

The purpose of this thread is primarily to organize and document my own thinking. It helps me. If it can serve other players as some form of food for thought or can facilitate an exchange of ideas among us that can help all of us improve our play and become more successful - so much the better.

I've been at this stuff a long time, G. And I still feel I have things to learn myself. But one thing I can tell you for sure is that you have to respect the downside of this activity. You have to have solemn respect for it. If you do not, it will take your head off. Guaranteed. From what you said so far, it sounds like you may be playing well over your skis for your bankroll and your experience. Be careful my man.

BOL

[Pair of 5s Sir]

GL today Mr. BB. The Contrarian Observation Tower was up early today after a successful 2-0 day.

[BeatingBaseball]

Saturday Results

Might give serious considertion to taking Saturdays off.

With the wipeout in the early session - 3 losses by division leaders ATL, TEX and MINN with top tier starters Hanson, Lee and Slowey on the hill against sub .500 powerhouses like the Cubs, O's and Angels - the day was destroyed before we could get out of the gate.

Cliff Lee has been our single biggest money maker over a couple of seasons - but when you have him and he loses - it costs you - no matter what you do to mitigate the risk by balancing the various plays within the game. The Braves and Twins were chalks as well and we had 8 plays on those first 3 games. The cost was more than 20 Units and it put us in no fun recovery mode the rest of the day.

We did make a comeback throughout the day to go 8-12 overall on plays, but still dropped 14.76 Units for the day.

We'll turn the page on that one.

[BeatingBaseball]

GL today Mr. BB. The Contrarian Observation Tower was up early today after a successful 2-0 day.

Congrats 5's. It was a great return to the fight for you and a great day to be a contrarian.

If this trend keeps up, however, contrarian plays will become so popular that you'll have to consider going counter-contrarian.

As Whitey Herzog said, when asked what it takes to be a successful manager:

"You gotta be thinkin' what he's thinkin' that you're thinkin' that he's thinkin'."

GL today.

[BeatingBaseball]

8-22-10 Sunday Plays (more to come)

FLA – ML, RL ½
METS – FF ½, ML, RL ½
MILW – FF, ML
TEX – ML. RL ½



FLA
Marlins have won 5 in a now - their longest streak of the year - going for 6 today.
A win would also be a season’s best 4 straight at home.
Marlins also have won 10/L11 overall vs HOU and had a nice comeback win yesterday.
Stros have 6 straight Ls OTR overall and a loss today would be a season high 7 straight.
Fish would have had hot Nolasco out there - but injury forces the LH prospect Miller into spot.
Nolasco vs waiver acquisition Figueroa would have been a lot more chalky.
Marlins seeing it, hitting it, catching it right now – have a nice team dynamic going.
If the kid can have any kind of decent outing, -1.30 a steal here.

METS
Pirates have lost 5 in a row, 12/L13 overall.
Mets looking for their first sweep since the middle of June - w/ their ace out there.
Santana vs Duke a monumental LH mismatch on the mound.
Mets only 1 over .500 overall - but 4 over vs LH starters.
Wright and Reyes are seeing it and hitting it.

MILW
Brewers have won 5 straight overall and going for sweep of 3 here.
MILW beat on LeBlanc and Correia pretty well, but Garland today.
Garland has been solid and SD has not been swept since mid-May.
Going with the Brewers’ good home team dynamic here at +1.24.
Plus Braun is a key guy for them - he had a good day and hit a bomb yesterday.

TEX
Rangers looking to get out of Balt with a split series.
Millwood is winless in 5 straight starts – hasn’t had a personal W since June.
If Rangers are facing a crisis of confidence they have the right guy to face today.
TEX should score enough if Hunter can keep the ball down and in the park.
Hunter the wild card here – terrible his last 4 starts and has fallen off a cliff since 1st half.

[BeatingBaseball]

Sunday Added Plays

SF – FF, ML, AltRL ½
ATL – ML, RL ½



SF
Cards opened at -1.40 and moving higher. Public liking the Cards.
Giants a chance to win the series, go over .500 on road overall and stay ahead of STL in wild card.
Zito pitching to stay over and not fall to .500 on the year.
Even after yesterday - it’s still only a 2-5 homestand for Cards and Garcia is not Carpenter.
At +1.35 we only need to hit at .430 win percentage to break even.

ATL
Rubber game in series today. Winning clubs win series. Losing clubs lose series.
If yesterday’s game lasted any longer the Braves would have won it.
Rookie LHer Minor looked good in his last one, his 1st MLB W.
Cubs 17-24 vs LH starters.
Lou’s Last Hurrah – only fitting Cubs drop it amid the distraction. Winning the game is always secondary at Wrigley.

[BeatingBaseball]

Sunday Final Plays

TB – ML, RL ½
CINC – FF, ML
COLO – FF, ML



TB
Battle of no-hit pitchers, both on their game recently. Braden’s perfect was vs Rays.
Last night a very tough loss for the A’s - that one may have left a mark.
They had a chance to move to only 6 out. They had it and it got away.
Have to go with the more talented team to break out today and get a split of the series.

CINC
Reds came back to Earth yesterday - but showed no quit whatsoever.
Kershaw formidable - but Arroyo has been great on the road and going for career W 100 today.
Another +1.35 play - have to think Reds can play .430 ball in this spot.

COLO
The series has matched the worst road team in MLB vs the worst bullpen in MLB.
So far the worst bullpen has prevailed – more than 7 scoreless innings in two games.
Hudson has been very impressive since going to AZ from WSOX.
Gonzalez may be back in lineup today or at least be available to pinch hit again.
Bottom line main thing - have to take almost any team +1.10 vs AZ.

[BeatingBaseball]

Sports 101 Stuff for Comment

I had a private message today from a poker player who is starting to get into sports play with a very small ($900) bankroll. He didn't want to get into any public thread chaos or B.S. re some questions he had, but I thought I would put my response out there for what it's worth in case anyone following this thread has any thoughtful or valuable comments or contributions on some basic subjects.

The subjects were Units relative to bankroll, parlays and assessing performance:


Of course there are a lot of different theories on all these questions, but I can tell you from the perspective of the pro sports bettors I know that have had any long term success the basic answers would be these:

Bankroll and Units - You are not going to like this - but there is so much variance in sports betting that the recommended max bet on any one play would be no more than 2% of total bankroll, i.e., only $18 on a $900 bankroll. A single unit for a real pro in this case would be $10, allowing them to go up to the $18 on a max bet. I know that sounds like nothing to you, but if a pro had $900 to work with for the season - that's what he would be doing. As the bankroll is built, the Unit goes up correspondingly. That way you can handle the variance and don't find yourself chasing when you're losing. You can't fool yourself that way - your bankroll tells you when you are doing well and can safely go up.

Bet Types - Straight wagers are by far the best way to go. I almost never make a parlay. As a poker player I'm sure you can do the math. The 2 team parlay proposition is simply letting it all roll on game 2 if you happen to win game 1. You're playing 2 games and in effect letting the bookie decide after the scores are in which one was the big all or nothing bet. One loss wipes it out completely. It doesn't pay true odds if it wins and losing one game gets you killed. The only way you come out ahead vs straight bets is if you lose both games. If you can pick 2 winners you don't need to parlay, you'll do fine. If you pick a lot of losers, parlays won't save you. And of course, as a player adds teams to parlays the mathematical proposition only gets worse.

There are a few exceptions to the no parlay rule - but that would take a lot of going into for right now.

Assessing your play - the longer the time frame the better. I use a half season of baseball, but you could use the whole season. Any shorter time frame, say a monthly assessment, is subject to quite significant variance.

Best of Luck.

Hope we all have a great stretch run and post season.

[GTeater]

TB – ML, RL ½
CINC – FF, ML
COLO – FF, ML



TB
Battle of no-hit pitchers, both on their game recently. Braden’s perfect was vs Rays.
Last night a very tough loss for the A’s - that one may have left a mark.
They had a chance to move to only 6 out. They had it and it got away.
Have to go with the more talented team to break out today and get a split of the series.

CINC
Reds came back to Earth yesterday - but showed no quit whatsoever.
Kershaw formidable - but Arroyo has been great on the road and going for career W 100 today.
Another +1.35 play - have to think Reds can play .430 ball in this spot.

COLO
The series has matched the worst road team in MLB vs the worst bullpen in MLB.
So far the worst bullpen has prevailed – more than 7 scoreless innings in two games.
Hudson has been very impressive since going to AZ from WSOX.
Gonzalez may be back in lineup today or at least be available to pinch hit again.
Bottom line main thing - have to take almost any team +1.10 vs AZ.

Cashed the Braves and I'm looking to cash the Rays as well .

One unit on the over for the LAA/MIN game, three on MIN ML.

If you see this in time let me know if you concur.

[BeatingBaseball]

GTeater -

Did not see your post before the Twins/Angels game went off last night - but it looks like you had the right side and split your plays with a nice profit.

I do very little with totals - so I wouldn't have much to say there. I concentrate on sides.

Always welcome your particiaption here. One thing I would ask, however - as a favor - please don't post the "Lock" smilie on the thread. I never use the word or the image. When you've been at this awhile you learn there is no such thing. On the other hand, although I'm not superstitious, if there exists something called "the kiss of death" - that word has to be it.

Thanks. Congrats. And GL today.

[BeatingBaseball]

Sunday Results

Got off to a rough start with the early plays Sunday, but things improved as the day progressed.

In the early releases only TEX came through, MILW a loss and we had two tight 2-1 games (FLA, METS) in which both our clubs outhit the opposition but lost by a run.

After splitting the two added plays (SF, ATL), we finally got 3/3 ML wins in our late plays (TB, CINC, COLO), but didn’t cash the TB RL and pushed the FFs on CINC and COLO.

Bottom line - we come up a game short of profitability on the day and go back to work.

[BeatingBaseball]

Weekly Contest Ended Yesterday

BeatingBaseball cashed (3rd place) in the SBR Weekly MLB Handicapping Contest (8/16) which ended yesterday.

It was our third cash finish of the 2nd half.


Congrats to 1. LUCKYCHUCK 2. greva 4. CarolinaDaze 5. havana

[GTeater]

Congrats!



What are you looking into for tonight?