TB vs Yanks, +300 today 4/19

[DougOzzzz]

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You mentioned the worst teams win 40% of the time and the best win around 60%, but how often do teams that win 40% beat teams that win 60%. I am almost positive from my research (i just moved so I have no idea where my notes are) that 40% teams do not beat 60% teams 40% of the time. Regardless though...


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There's a formula for calculating win percentage for Team A against Team B based on A's and B's win percentage. Here it is:

Win Pct. = A - AB / (A + B - 2AB)
If we use .600 for A, and .400 for B, we get .692 for Win Pct.

Another thing - If the Yankees are a 60% team, and Johnson wins 65% of his starts on an INFERIOR team, we can expect that he'll do better than that on the Yankees. Plus, the Yanks were at home. And playing an inferior team, with inferior pitching. We're probably talking about a 70%+ team against a 40%- team here. Using the formula, we get:

WinPct. = .777. In other words, +350 would have been the break even point.

Last night's game is about as big a spread as you can get between two teams. Well, I suppose Detroit of 2003 vs. NY of 1998 would be much worse. For an early season game though, that was pretty bad. I don't think +300 was a good bet for TB - but I was seeing +350 or better at some books which I do think was good.
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Do you really think that blindly betting lines of -330/+300 are beatable? I am not saying they are not beatable, I am saying that they aren't beatable by betting them blindly.


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At the very least, history shows that you'd do alot better blindly betting the huge dogs than you would blindly betting the huge favorites.
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I think the value in these huge dogs is by finding rogue lines. But, you have to find them at sites that don't charge a lot of juice. For example, lets say the closing market line for yesterday's games was -350/+320. But, if bowmans was offering -390/+350, this might not be a horrible bet (as long as the +350 was higher than the true line). But, if the line at Bowmans was -400/+330, this is not as good.

And that is what happens a lot. The public bets on the favs, but the line doesn't move at the same rate on the dog as it does the fav.

craig

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Shopping around for the best line is always important, but you do probably find the biggest discrepancies when one team is a big favorite.

[mrbaseball]

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There's a formula for calculating win percentage for Team A against Team B based on A's and B's win percentage

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This formula is the most oft used weapon in my handicapping arsenal.

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If the Yankees are a 60% team, and Johnson wins 65% of his starts on an INFERIOR team

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Actually it's the Yankees that are looking inferior this season [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Most of his career has been spent on playoff caliber teams. Even those Seattle teams had monster lineups, just no other starters besides him and the crappiest bullpen in history which he didn't need so much.

Obviously you have to look at the matchup. At the end of last season there were some totally ridiculous lines. I remember one game where Pedro was about -450 (he lost) and the Cubs down the stretch losing game after game in the -350 range.

The reason last night was a good bet is because if you have watched Johnson pitch at all this year he just doesn't have it (yet?). He's getting his K's but he's getting jacked too with way more HRs than usual.