Baseball's Better Dogs
As most readers know, when it comes to handicappers, I consider Jim Barnes one of the sharpest minds ever. Barnes has long been a believer that most baseball bettors concentrate too much on the starting pitchers. Instead of analyzing how a starting pitcher is going to fare against the team he is facing, they tend to compare the starting pitchers against each other and wager on the better of the two.The old adages that baseball is 90-percent pitching and that good pitching beats good hitting aren't necessarily true, but they make good conversation pieces for play-by-play broadcasters to mention during a telecast.
This week's baseball system follows the rationale that too much weight is given to the starting pitcher and not enough to the team aspect. Like the other weekly systems, plays can be determined pretty quickly with not much effort.
What we're looking for are home underdogs of +110 or greater that have a better record than their opponent. That's all there is to it.
Going back to the start of the 2009 season, we find a yearly record of:
2009: 38-34 +$1,305
2010: 27-26 +$895
2011: 7-4 +$550
Now there two reasons why a team with a worse record will be at least -120 road favorite. The most obvious reason is that they have their ace pitcher going. The second-most likely reason is that the home team has its worst pitcher going.
But this appears to be another case of the starting pitchers getting too much credit in the betting line and not enough weight is being given to the better team.
These situations don't occur all that often, but they proven to be worth keeping an eye out for.
