Betting Baseball in April - Punch Pedal or Tread Lightly?
Doug Upstone
This is a great question that applies to any sport that has wagering options on a daily basis. What separates baseball from the rest is teams play essentially every single day, not three or four times a week like in the NBA or NHL and most college basketball teams are hitting the court twice a week at best unless they are in a preseason tournament in a far away destination.
The month of April in the Major Leagues is very much like a golf tournament. In golf, not very often does the first round leader end up winning the tour event after four days. This same logic is also true in baseball with many pretenders that are not contenders later in the season.
Need proof read on:
April 30, 2009 standings -Division leaders
Boston -Kansas City - Seattle- Florida- St. Louis - L.A. Dodgers
Two teams won their divisions, three made the playoffs.
April 30, 2008 standings -Division leaders
Boston -White Sox- L.A. Angels-Florida-Cubs- Arizona
Three teams won their divisions, four made the playoffs.
April 30, 2007 standings -Division leaders
Boston-Cleveland- L.A. Angels-Atlanta- Milwaukee-Arizona
All the American League teams won their divisions as did the Diamondbacks.
April 30, 2006 standings -Division leaders
Yankees-White Sox-Texas-Mets- Cincinnati- Colorado
Two teams won their division and no other clubs made the postseason.
So what is the best way to bet baseball to start the season, here are the pros and cons for each method.
Running hard - Preparation is really the key. If a sports bettor has done his homework, no reason not to jump into the deep end. Knowing what off-season moves teams have made to improve weaknesses in the lineup or the starting pitching should allow any sage baseball bettor to get off to fast start.
Often team that closed the previous season well is an early precursor as to what they might do early in a new season. The Kansas City Royals were 20 games below .500 on Sept. 1 2008 and finished the year 18-8. They carried this momentum into the next season by being in first place in the Central Division and though they would finish 65-97, they picked up +2.10 units the first month of the year.
Slow and easy - Does preparation help you when the Los Angeles Dodgers start the season with suspect pitching staff and they run out to 15-8 record? What about the defending American League champion Tampa Bay, the best young team in baseball right, occupying the AL East basement at the end of April last season at 9-14!
Much like the standings, many things will change from May 1 to August 31 giving every baseball bettor time to get a feel and ease into the season. A formidable pitching staff or lineup gets off to slow start and lets be honest, preconceived notions are often hard to let go of. Believing in a team that SHOULD be good and is underachieving will drain a wagering account faster than printer ink cartridge.
Running hard - Great logic if you are afraid of your own shadow. The argument of letting things settle in holds no water. If a real sports bettor is interested in winning, you begin at the start. Sure a slow start is possible, but like the previous point, you have four months before football season to make it up. Ever heard of hot streak? And what happens if you catch fire from the start and go up 15 to 20 units, you could be strictly average the rest of the season and still take home the money you made in April.
Slow and easy - Not exactly sound reasoning for those that understand baseball is truly a betting marathon. The psychology of most sports bettors is to press once behind. This can lead to irresponsible wagers, taking chances when not necessary, which could lead to further depletion of bankroll or having to cough up more money in say May or June with more than half the season to go, which erodes confidence.
That other aspect of burning money early is limited bankroll. Say you start with $1,000.00 and you hit bad stretch early, using up half of your dough. You still want to bet all season, so instead you start making smaller bets. All of the sudden you begin winning, yet are gun-shy and keep wagering lesser amounts, grinding away. You finally get your record back to .500, yet are down say $150 because of cautious approach. Do you return to original betting amounts from the first month of season or keep going with what has been working?
A more conservative method takes the guess work out when you are more in tune with all 30 teams.
Running hard - Negative thinking produces negative results. Did Bill Gates, Steven Jobs or Warren Buffet make their billions by not taking a chance or risk on opportunity?
If you dont know what you are doing you deserve to lose. The old school way of betting baseball was to find underdogs that can win and playing favorites no larger than -150 on the money line. Thats fine if you want to use coupons to go out to eat, but the preference here is steak and lobster whenever the mood strikes.
The idea is to uncover winners wherever they are. Above -170 favorites that lose means you have to hit two winners basically to squeak out a profit; however you can still fire on those in the first month if you follow simple rules. Have the starting pitcher edge, the bullpen is in order, with pre-assigned roles from the beginning of the year (not assembling pen on the run) and lineup of hitters that hit home runs with quality on-base percentage.
Nobody likes to lose, thus playing underdogs continually might show profits from time to time, but who likes to win less than 50 percent of the time? If you are wagering nickels and dimes, that makes sense because the dollars add up quicker.
And dont forget those cold-weather totals, lots of cash to be made on Unders if you know upcoming weather reports in advance of released numbers.
Slow and easy - Betting favorites over -150 is foolish in April. In todays game, 80 percent of teams only believe they have their bullpens set from the middle innings to closer. If you watch most teams, they are searching to find right combinations and might need a month or more to figure out a plan of attack. Already this season a number of teams (like Kansas City) have carried leads into the eighth inning and lost.
Knowing a team has a bad bullpen can allow you to take more chances later in the year on underdogs and favorites.
This same variable applies to totals. A 3-2 game with a listed total of 8.5 can blow up in the later innings when one pen has too many weak pitchers to contain opposition, sending the number well above the total.
The best method to bet baseball is the one the works best for you. Make certain you have all the tools necessary at your disposal that provides you the best chance to profit.