Hooligans Sportsbook

Puzzled by MLB lines - what am I missing?

  • Start date •
  • Replies
    14 Replies •
  • Views 1,150 Views
Follow
Mudcat

Mudcat

yap
Since
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
32,603
Score
436
Tokens
0
atl/WAS (Kawakami/L. Hernandez) - Washington is the home team with the better overall record and the starting pitcher with vastly better numbers this year. Atlanta is 3-10 on the road. Atlanta has a bit of an edge in the bullpen but nothing dramatic.

Seems like Wash should be a favorite but the line opened around a pick 'em and has actually moved as if Atlanta money is coming in.

:dunno:



az/HOU (Kennedy/Oswalt) - Houston is 5-11 at home, Zona is 5-9 on the road. Comparable. But Houston is starting Oswalt who has markedly superior numbers to Kennedy for the year and career. Just a flat-out better pitcher. The opening number of HOU -142 makes sense to me but it has since moved to HOU -110.

:dunno:




What am I missing on these?
 
I think there's good value on HOU at -110.

I like ATL, though. Bullpen is actually quite a bit better, among other reasons.

You can't read anything into Home/Road records this early in the year. It's actually pretty questionable to read anything into them ever. You're usually better off assuming average HFA unless you have very solid reasoning why a team should have more or less HFA.

Which brings us to another thing, it's also close to useless to look at W-L records this early. To make any reasonable assessments, you'd better at least go down to runs scored and runs allowed, but even those aren't anywhere near the best indicators of skill with so few games played.
 
The fact is, for my regular MLB system bets, I don't look at won-lost records at any point of the season. I also don't look at runs scored/allowed.

At least I haven't traditionally. However what I am doing here is trying to adapt some principles that have been extremely effective for me with NFL where I use home/away records with great success (and obviously, with NFL, they are going to reflect even smaller numbers of games.)

There is more than one way to skin a cat. It has been going well so far with MLB this season but the night is young.
 
Mudcat
There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'm just saying that there will be a lot of lines that look out of whack compared to W-L records at this time of year, because a lot of teams and starters are much better/worse than their records and the market, for the most part, knows it.
 
well I'll chime in

sabermetricians I am sure would say hernandez has gotten lucky so far in his starts this year. I like Atl in that one but only a little

the other game I am annoyed by, in my notes I liked Arizona in the +120s but I didn't take it waiting to see where the line would go and what the lineups would be

that movement is surprising and makes me think strongly someone, probably berkman, is out for houston. I like over 8 in that one
 
Some good points in here. What struck me right away is that WAS is playing above their head and ATL is playing below.

I'm not saying WAS is nearly as bas as last year but just giving insight as to why I don't think the WAS line is off
 
You must log in or register to reply here.