Baseball Over/Under Trends
One of the worst things any sports bettor can do is listen to the talking heads on television and the radio. They will tell you the public perception of a particular player or team and it's actually the public that you're trying to beat, as oddsmakers set numbers to balance the action.A particular case would be this year's New York Yankees. Everybody heard how their pitching staff was horrible and how they would have to win a lot of 8-6 games to be competitive. As a result, the oddsmakers have made the totals on the Yankee games relatively high and through May 12 the Yankees were 14-17-3 in over/unders, which means roughly 45 percent of their games have gone over the total.
Of the three teams averaging more than five runs per game, the Yankees are the only ones who have seen more games go under the total than over it.
Through the first six-plus weeks of the season, just five teams have seen 57-percent or more of their games go over the total.
They are:
Detroit 22-13-3 62.9%
St. Louis 22-14-1 61.1%
New York Mets 20-14-2 58.8%
Texas 21-15-1 58.3%
Washington 20-15-1 57.1
Washington and the Mets are both a bit of a surprise, while Seattle (19-15-3) is another, as the Mariners remain one of the lowest scoring teams in baseball.
On the other side of the equation, there are three teams who have seen at least 60 percent of their games go under the total, with Tampa leading the way at 13-22-1 or 62.9 percent to the under. Pittsburgh (14-21-2) and Minnesota (14-21-0) are both at 60-percent under.
While there's no guarantee these trends will continue they do bear watching for a bit, especially those that seem to go against common sense.
