MLB Betting Guide: Nationals vs. Rockies

In last week’s article, I encouraged tracking major team statistics and plotting them graphically and then then overlaying a moving average of 3-days and 14-days. This clearly shows teams ebb and flow around their average performance levels.

The same can be said by plotting starting pitchers combined ERA, bullpen ERA, and others. This is an excellent starting point to a sound technical statistical handicapping methodology. There obviously needs to be more applied to this starting point. 

Systems and their use

We have all seen touts advertise Game of the Year releases based on a 90% winning system that has had just one loss in the past five years. Many of you have probably bought them and hopefully won with those plays. Unfortunately, using systems alone as a handicapping tool provides us with little more than a history lesson of specific criteria that make up the system. 

It is rare that any system over the course of fifteen years can make more than 100 units per one unit wagered. When one does, you have the ingredients that have stood the test of time and the evolution of the sport too. However, there is more than meets the eye. 

Supporting ‘century’ systems

In today’s game between the Washington Nationals and the Colorado Rockies, there are multiple systems that support a play on both teams. How do you decide which system is more valid than the other in this specific one game situation? No one system can win every game, and clearly in the systems that follow, one of them is going to lose. I will first present the systems and then identify the qualities of each one. 

Supporting System on Colorado

This system, which backs Colorado, has produced a 197-247 record for just 44.4% winners, but has made a whopping 104.7 units since 1997. The average play has been a +179 dog play and has obviously been validated by the fifteen years of profits. Play against all favorites with a money line of -150 or more that is starting a pitcher who gave up less than two earned runs in his last two outings and is now facing an opponent with a cold starting pitcher sporting an ERA that is greater than 7.00 over his last five starts. 

The qualifiers show that Washington starter Edwin Jackson allowed one and two earned runs respectively in this last two starts. Rockies starter Josh Outman, has been rocked over his last several starts posting an ERA of 9.00 and a 1.643 WHIP over his last three starts and an 8.41 ERA over his last five starts. 

This is one of the contrarian systems that clearly reflect the apparent randomness inherent in MLB, but also reflects how these are powerful money making opportunities to exploit. 

MLB odds makers currently have the Nationals as -155 favorites. The total has risen slightly to 11.5

A Second System

A second supporting system shows a more impressive winning percentage with a 57-37 record and 61% winners since 2006. Play on home dogs with a money line of +125 or more and with an overused bullpen that pitches more than 3.2 innings per game and stranding 6.9 or less runners on base per game on the season. This system has used an impressive +147 average dog play and has made 46.6 units per one unit wagered. 

This is certainly the case with the Rockies bullpen being overworked as the starting pitching ranks among the worst in baseball in several of the major statistical categories. The system again shows, why an obvious play on a first play team can many times be a huge bear trap and loss of money. 

I encourage you to track the systems that play on significant dogs of +150 and greater and ones that have made over 100 units over a 15-year span. I use these systems to SUPPORT the graded play produced by the simulator and often times the criteria of the system match up with the detailed projections from the simulator.