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Baseball Totals: Some Thoughts

Posted By: baba looey
Date: 18 Sep 01, 7:12 am

It occurred to me that totals of 8.5, 10.5 and 12.5 might be good overs bets in evenly matched games because a good number of the 'under' games could be expected to be 4-4, 5-5, or 6-6 after 9 innings and therefore be pushed into 'overs' in the 10th or later innings.

Some quick research confirmed there might be something in this. First I identifed all games for 1996-2001 where the total line was one of these three. Then I identified those games which could reasonably be considered "even" (I used the money line to identify games where the probability of the favourite winning was 55% or less). Using this data set I got the following results:

Line Games Overs% Unders%

8.5 699 55% 45%

10.5 544 52% 48%

12.5 35 57% 43%

Not bad. Overall % of just shy of 54% for over 1200 observations. This would imply that a line of -115 or better on the over at these totals for the last 5 years in even games was profitable.

However, is this a bettable strategy? Maybe. The only game today which meets both my criteria of "evenness" and having one of the three key totals (Florida-Montreal) has an opening line of -110 for the 8.5. I have not checked yet but I am sure I will be able to do better than this by shopping. That said, there are a number of 8.5s for less even games, and almost all of them have the overs as -120 or worse.

Thought I would throw this one open to the Board for comment. Are the linemakers alive to this? Do they take this into account in setting their total lines? Any insights from would be appreciated (I am looking at this from a great distance in Australia).

By the way, while I was looking at the baseball totals data I noticed some other trends which also made some intuitive sense to me, eg:

* Of 1211 "uneven" games (I defined as favourite with 65%+ probability of winning) 55% went under (because low proportion of arm-wrestles which push the game into 10th innings and beyond?). The only game which fits this profile today, Anaheim-Seattle, has the under at -125 which would be unprofitable at the 55% -- does this mean the linemakers take this into account when setting the line for "uneven" games?

* Of 1866 games with "big" totals (I defined as 11 or more) 53% went under (because lower proportional chance than "small" totals of the game being tied after 9th inning and being pushed into 10th or beyond?). No games today against which to test this theory.

Sorry for the essay, but I find this stuff interesting.

Baba Looey

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Messages In This Thread

Baseball Totals: Some Thoughts -- baba looey -- 18 Sep 01, 7:12 am
Nice work. Question: -- Colin Caster -- 18 Sep 01, 5:00 pm
Good question...but no data -- baba looey -- 18 Sep 01, 5:18 pm
How about frequency of extra innings? (nt) -- Colin Caster -- 18 Sep 01, 5:21 pm
Would be a good proxy but... -- baba looey -- 18 Sep 01, 5:30 pm
Rats -- Colin Caster -- 18 Sep 01, 5:51 pm
Wanna swap? -- baba looey -- 18 Sep 01, 6:13 pm
Extra inning games -- StevieY -- 18 Sep 01, 7:49 pm
177 out of how many? (nt) -- baba looey -- 18 Sep 01, 8:31 pm
2154 games this season before tonight (nt) -- Colin Caster -- 18 Sep 01, 8:59 pm
runs scored in extra innings?? -- baba looey -- 19 Sep 01, 2:30 am
Runs scored in exrta innings -- StevieY -- 20 Sep 01, 7:04 pm

 


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