Good Hitting Beats Good Pitching
One of the biggest mistakes that baseball bettors, especially new baseball bettors, make is to base their handicapping entirely on the game's starting pitchers. There's a tendency to compare the two starters against each other, instead of comparing the two starters against the respective teams they are facing.
While there's no doubt that bettors have to give credence to the starting pitchers, the majority of bettors don't give enough weight to the teams those starting pitchers will face.
All one has to do is to look at the records of the top 10 teams in terms of scoring runs the past two years and look at the records of the bottom 10 teams in terms of scoring.
In 2008, the top 10 scoring teams were 873-748, while the bottom 10 teams were 735-882. In 2007, the bottom scoring teams were 755-865, while the top 10 run producers were 882-735.
So the bottom scoring teams are going to win about 45.5-percent of the time, while the top scoring teams will come out on top 54.2-percent of the time.
Naturally, some consideration has to be given to those times when a high-scoring team sends out its worst starter or when the low-scoring team has its ace on the mound. But it is a good start when it comes time to look over the day's schedule.
The key point here, and the one baseball bettors should remember, is not to compare the two starters against each other as much as comparing each starting pitcher against the batting line-up they will face.
