Author: pat
Pat’s MLB Over/Unders
Let’s get into it. The contest is to pick 10 teams against the Vegas over/under totals. The #10 is your top confidence pick, with #1 your shakiest. Without further ado…
10) Chicago White Sox (over 85.5) – This pick is more an indication of my disregard for the competition in the AL Central than with the White Sox, though they themselves certainly seem to have a good thing going this year. Adam Dunn obviously is a big acquisition. John Danks is their listed 3rd, but at an age where another year will only help him, he could turn into a legit #2 during the course of the season. And that depth enables them to have Edwin Jackson towards the back end of the rotation where he probably belongs at this point until he consistently proves himself. Similar thoughts on Mark Teahen, great extra OF, IF guy coming off the bench, or more accurately, just not starting.
9) Boston (over 95) – Red Sox won 89 games last year while suffering an avalanche of injuries. They add Adrian and Crawford, which will more than compensate for the loss of Beltre. Patently explosive offense, and the pitching should be good-borderline-spectacular in stretches throughout the year. This is the team the Yankees used to be when they were dominating baseball in the late 90s, early 2000s.
8) Baltimore (over 76) – The O’s are a team a lot of people are hot on after years of meteoric mediocrity. They remind me of the Cincy Reds going into last year. Lots of subdued but persistent talk and expectations in the background. If Adam Jones has a real break-out season, and Derek Lee and Justin Duchscherer (The Duchsch) stay healthy, they should clear this number. Definitely helped by weaker Yanks and Rays teams.
7) Kansas City (under 69.5) – I don’t love this pick, any time you are picking a professional team to win less than 70 games you are on suspect ground IMO. But Kansas City failed to clear this number last year when they had Zack. Instead they go into the season with #1 pitcher Jeff Francis, or as espn describes him, “a sleeper starter in AL-only (fantasy) leagues.” Yikes. As a side note, at this exact moment in time, espn has Melky Cabrera listed as Kansas City’s Opening Day center and right fielder, which cannot be good for business.
6) San Diego (under 76.5) – Wow. That lineup…goodness. Their centerpiece is Ryan Ludwick. Soon to be 33, career 104 HRs, Ryan Ludwick. This team had the 28th rated slugging percentage in the league with Adrian Gonzalez. Obviously not a hitter’s park, but did they play all their games there last year?
5) NY Yankees (under 91.5) – Don’t like that this means I’m betting on the Yanks to essentially finish with a win total in the 80s. Ehhhh. But Pettite is gone, and if you don’t think that makes a difference you are nuts. I was just about to write how the back end of their rotation is a disaster with Burnett and Garcia only to click on their depth chart to see that Burnett is the listed #2. Burnett cannot be as bad this year as last, but that is far from a rave endorsement. In addition, the Yankees do not have their typical 1-7 lineup of ridiculousness. They have three hitters that scare you and a whole lot of OK after that. And the AL East is stronger at the bottom this year.
4) Houston (over 71.5) – I actually started this thinking of taking the under. But this number is just a little too low. Some people might say, ‘well, they sucked last year, and now they don’t have Oswalt.’ But it is the Astros horrifying offense that is the issue, not the pitching. And this is what the argument boils down to. No matter how disastrous (just learned how to spell that) the hitting can and will be at times for Houston this year, this rotation just isn’t the type that leads a team to 60 something wins, as a unit they are too good for that. And it should be noted that no matter how anemic the Astros offense has been over the last few years, they never dropped below 73 wins. Let’s go over.
3) Arizona (under 72.5) – As in essentially every bet, it would be great if this number was a little different. Aaron Heilman excluded, Joe Saunders is the wily veteran among the starting pitchers and he isn’t 30 yet, which means this group is dominated by potential. Their numbers 1, 3, and 4 starters do not have a combined 50 decisions in the majors (49) by my count. At 3B, Melvin Mora is 39, assuming Venezuela doesn’t have those birth certificate problems baseball seems to like, and he somehow managed to hit only 7 HRs last year playing 113 games for Colorado. Still, as noted, they are young and potentially talented in a lot of places, would love this at 76.
2) Cincinnati (over 84.5) – Last year, got lucky with these guys taking the over simply because of the enormous amount of chatter that was surrounding them. So what the hey, let’s take them again. And this pick is based almost entirely on the Reds offensive potential. They have five players with easy 20+ HR pop and that is not including Scott Rolen, who hit 20 himself last year. Their division is certainly not the strongest thing going. The Cards number is 84.5 also, this is essentially a vote for a St Louis under.
1) Oakland (over 83.5) – Where the Cincy pick comes down to offense, this comes down to the idea that, when healthy, the A’s probably have the best pitching in the AL West. They certainly do not have the best hitting, but they did add Matsui, and I think a huge X factor this year is 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff (pretty sure it is a contract year, 29 years old). If the Angels pitching was even fractionally better I’d have them here, but it isn’t.
MLB Over/Unders
These are the win totals according to pinnacle. For spreads where one side is -120 or higher I will note so accordingly. We will get into analysis, predictions, and occasional reminders of how badly I kicked Lou’s ass in this contest last year in upcoming entries.
- Atlanta 88
- Arizona 72.5
- Baltimore 76
- Boston 95 (over -128)
- Chicago Cubs 81.5 (over -131)
- Chicago White Sox 85.5
- Cincinnati 84.5 (over -146)
- Cleveland 71 (over -132)
- Colorado 86 (over -136)
- Detroit 83.5 (over -131)
- Florida 82
- Houston 71.5
- Kansas City 69.5 (under -131)
- LA Angels 83
- LA Dodgers 84 (under -120)
- Milwaukee 85.5
- Minnesota 86 (under -129)
- NY Mets 77.5 (under -136)
- NY Yankees 91.5 (under -130)
- Oakland 83.5
- Philadelphia 97 (under -137)
- Pittsburgh 68 (under -129)
- San Diego 76 (under -148)
- San Francisco 88
- Seattle 70
- St Louis 84.5 (under -141)
- Tampa Bay 84.5 (under -127)
- Texas 86.5 (over -120)
- Toronto 76.5
- Washington 71 (over -144)
Program vs. Year (Start of “Units tracking”)
Ohio St – much better team this year. Kentucky – much better program historically. Kentucky getting 6 points. These types of games happen all the time. The question is, does the line get skewed in these instances at all since Kentucky is such a storied program or do things pretty much hold to form. If all the players and coaches stayed the same but the team names switched to Vanderbilt and Wash St, would the line be the same? Going to try to track these as the months go by whenever I spot them. My gut reaction at the moment is to really like Ohio St at -6.
10 Units – Ohio St -6
Bears/Packers
Let’s talk about the Bears/Packers game. The line of Packers -3.5 is pretty damn interesting. There are several factors that Vegas had to deal with in making the line, the most important probably being that essentially every one and their mother seems to bet the Packers. I’ve brought this example up a few times on this site but the classic case was last year when their road playoff game against the Cardinals went from Cards -3 to Pack -2.5.
When I got over the shock of seeing a road #6 seed as a favorite in a conference championship, my thought was Vegas simply said, “You know what, we know you’re going to bet Green Bay anyway, here. Deal with this. Minus three, Bitches.” And bitches did deal, the original line I saw had GB -3 and the next thing it’s -3.5 and even -4 at some places. This in spite of the fact that the teams split the season series, and the Packers only won the final game in Green Bay, a game they had to win, and a game that meant nothing to Chicago, 10-3.
There is one crucial stat that GB supporters can look to and that’s point differential. Did you know that the Packers were second in the NFL in point differential at +148? This with Aaron Rodgers missing time and/or half woozy at points during the season. And now he’s healthy. This is where people seriously betting GB make their case. The Packers, when healthy this year, play so well, that you have to ignore the ridiculousness of betting against a home underdog, that this Packer team is one of those special teams where guidelines like home field advantage don’t really apply. Hence why they walk into Chicago a favorite, as they walked into Atlanta as a pick ‘ em against a well rested team that had beaten them two months earlier.
For my money (and I mean that, I have 50 dollars on this with JaPan) I am going with Chicago. I actually grabbed them at +3 thinking the line would only move in the direction of a pick em, oops. I could see Cutler throwing 4 INTs, one or more for a pick 6, and GB winning 38-14. But at the end of the day I think of this game as being pretty even from a match-up perspective, with the key differences being the game is in Chicago and I am getting 3 points right from the kickoff. We’ll see what happens. The team Green Bay finished second to in point differential? The Patriots, oops.
As for Jets/Pitt, my gut is to like the Jets at +3.5.
For those of you paying attention…
And you know who you are…sean is lighting it up. If you look at Sean’s picks it is amazing how common sense his approach is. Talking about jets/bears over, “too much talent on the field here to not score.” Discussing the Packers, “Green Bay, IMO, is just TOO good to NOT make the playoffs.” So what does he do, he bets accordingly. He saw the same line we all did, Ravens -3.5 at Cleveland and while we were all rationalizing how the Browns would cover, Sean bet the Ravens. Well done, Sean.
College B’ball
For those of you interested the Matrix site was wrong with its Wash St pick. I opted not to bet with the site before the game. The runners of the site note that they tend to struggle more during the early parts of the year because the formula they use relies heavily on current year game results, and K St had been blown out by Duke previously, which seemed to me would skew things a bit too much. I just stayed away entirely from the game, which K St won by 5. My original plan was to tell VT about the computer’s pick but when I saw the pick, I didn’t. That pick is one that does not sync with VT’s betting style. VT will definitely bet some underdogs but his trademark is to bet favorites who he feels are not getting enough respect. When a top tier is favored by only a few points. Betting Wash St in that game, especially when they are only +2.5, is a complete 180. Portland 58 Montana 54, Marist 80 Niagara 72, Idaho 63 North Dakota 42, Georgia 66 UAB 64, Iona 94 Canisus 85, Villanova 71 St Joseph’s 60 This means that ATS…
- Home teams were 3-3
- Ranked or higher ranked teams were 0-1
- Favorites and underdogs were 3-3
Home, away, favorite, underdog, all end up being at .500 ATS throughout this project, which means Vegas is batting 1.000.
NCAA B’Ball continued
First things first on a few issues. The random Matrix web site hit the money with the Samford pick. Well done! So I won 15 bucks betting against a team that up until yesterday I didn’t know had a Division I program. People might call that a little nutty to be betting money on something like that. And to that I say, please meet my gambling insane roommate who did a three team round-robin bet with the top 3 teams that the web site he never had heard of recommended. And he hit all three.
For those who are interested in riding the hot streak the link is this.
I am slightly confused at the layout, they offer two sets of picks, one using “Decision Tree” model and one using “Similar Games” model and I haven’t looked into things enough to figure exactly what the hell they are talking about but me and V used the Decision Tree model last night, and if you go with that you’ll be taking Wash St tonight. Take that for what it’s worth.
Second, there a chance this site has subscribers. Recently there was a comment from “Paul.” Paul notes…
“I’ve been reading this website for a little while now and I think that (Pat’s) cockiness is getting the better of (him). Maybe (Pat) should take it down a notch.”
That’s right, it’s ffffffffffffFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAANNNNN MAIL!
How do you even find this site? This is exciting! Paul’s problem with me is based on his idea that through this Project I am trying to show I have more savvy than Vegas. But the real main issue with the College Basketball thing is just trying to keep myself current. If it wasn’t for this thing I wouldn’t know that Marist is just as horrible this year as they were last year, 0 wins in real life and ATS. Let’s see how Vegas did last night…Murray St 74 E Kentucky 72, Arizona St 54 Baylor 68, Rider 88 Manhattan 59, Mercer 67 Belmont 89, UCLA 76 Kansas 77, Oral Roberts 71 Western Illinois 58. Looking back I think I messed up and there wasn’t a spread on the Mercer Belmont game. I’ll update the stats and such if I was wrong. With what we got, ATS…
- Home teams were 2-3
- Ranked or ranked higher teams were 1-1
- Favorites were 3-2
Moving forward…
- Portland (+3.5) @ Montana
- Niagra (-6.5) @ Marist
- North Dakota (+10) @ Idaho
- UAB (+3) @ Georgia
- Canisus (+8.5) @ Iona
- St Joseph’s (+19) @ Villanova
NCAA Lines
Continuing project from a few days ago. Going back to the results of the first set of games we picked…Illinois 73 Yale 47, UTEP 73 New Mexico St 56, Santa Clara 87 N Colorado 84, Kentucky 74 Washington 67, Texas Tech 103 Georgia Southern 79, UC Davis 61 Sacramento St 54. Home team is in italics, bold team covered. ATS Notes
- Home teams were 3-2
- Ranked or ranked higher teams were 2-0
- Favorites and underdogs were 3-3
So Vegas was pretty spot on, no surprise there. Let’s keep the train rolling.
- Murray St (-4) @ E Kentucky
- Arizona St (+9.5) @ Baylor
- Rider (-5.5) @ Manhattan
- Mercer @ Belmont
- UCLA (17.5) @ Kansas
- Oral Roberts (-6.5) @ Western Illinois
And as a special note I stumbled across a web site that gives out free picks on college basketball games that they throw into something I like to picture as being essentially equivalent to the Matrix and what got spit out as their number one confidence pick for tonight is…Samford as a home pick em against W Carolina. Sure you might be only slightly certain that the W in W Carolina stands for Western, but that doesn’t matter. Let’s see what this Matrix machine is capable of, I got 15 bucks on it.
How Far Off is Vegas on College Basketball (Probably Not Very)
New project. I am going to take half a dozen games chosen at random from college b-ball, note the line, and note how far off Vegas was. I am just curious enough to do this, let’s get this started and hope I don’t puss out on this after a day or two. I’ll include games that are at neutral sites, but not ones that are confusing. It took me about ten minutes to figure out (and I’m still not positive about this) that Duke is somehow the listed home team against Kansas St in Kansas City, MO
- Yale (+24.5) @ Illinois
- New Mexico St (+10) @ UTEP
- No. Colorado (+6.5) @ Santa Clara
- Washington (-3.5) N Kentucky
- Georgia Southern (+22) @ Texas Tech
- UC Davis (+1) @ Sacramento St
Current Bets
I went to the site today because I thought Allen had said that he had posted about a big 4 or 5 team teaser he had and hit last week, and I was going to rank on him for backposting on kooky bets he places that actually hit. How often do you see someone making a backpost about a 6 teamer where they went 3-3? But 6-0! I am a genius, where is my keyboard! The world must know! But Allen didn’t make that post, so to make up for it, I’m going to do some backposting myself. Here are some current bets I have going right now…
Heat – No best reg record or no win championship (300)
The only people that actually read this site know this story already but I originally had a 100 dollar bet on this with JaPan. Straight up, he wins if the Heat finish with best overall and win the Championship. After Game 1 where the Heat got smoked by the Celtics I offered him to settle for 75 on the spot and yada, yada, yada, we now have 300 dollars on the line. I would probably be posting this even if the Heat weren’t struggling, but the fact they lost to Indiana last night at home is the ultimate typing catalyst. Don’t want to jinx this but this looks promising to say the least.
Jets (or Bills) to win AFC East vs Patriots (40)
Another Japan bet. The bet was made either directly after the first Jets/Pats or after the Jets/Broncos, I’m pretty sure it was the former. Needless to say booze has made the issue murky. At this point you have to give the Patriots the odds on this due to the schedule and that the Jets go to Foxboro two Monday nights from now. I like JaPan’s chances. As a side not I insisted that I get the Bills also in the bet.
Over/Under Season Win Total Bets – Pub Crawl
In case you were wondering about the baseball O/U pub crawl bet this year I smoked Lou Lou. This one looks promising for Louis but it’s close. I’ll edit this section when I have the numbers in front of me.
Chicago Bears to Win One Game for Remainder of Season
This is not an actual bet at the moment but one Lou Lou proposed Sunday night. He posed the question, what are the chances that the Bears do not win another game the rest of the season? Looking at the schedule, the Bears from here in will be an underdog in most games with a couple of essential coin-flips thrown in. Louis originally wanted 10-1 odds, which I accepted. Weary that I accepted so quickly he then graciously and generously offered himself something like 18-1. Currently we are in a stalemate, I’ll lay 12-1 but Lou Lou is holding out for 15-1. I think this one is going to die on the table. The only hope of action is that this is a bet that has to be made in a non-internet setting since the line doesn’t exist in real life. We’ll see.
