Miracle Covers

Vagaries and Variance

As I write this, the White Sox and Royals are in extra innings because KC closer Joakim Soria allowed four runs to Chicago after recording the first two outs easily in the top of the 9th.

The following discussion took place between the befuddled Royals announcers:

Announcer 1: What are the odds in Vegas that this game would still be going?
Announcer 2: There were 2 outs in the inning. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.

By just taking a quick glance at the Win Probability Graph, I’d argue it was probably off the board. No one would even bother betting on something like this. But with 2,500 games a season, at least a team or two will convert on a 1000/1 chance throughout the season. We shouldn’t be surprised by this because weird and unlikely things happen in baseball all the time, but we are and can’t process such unlikely outcomes.

As anyone who has gambled for a non-trivial length of time can attest, these streaks can last for days or weeks at a time. Here’s a lengthy Royals example from 2000

The Royals began the 2000 season with a respectable 4-3 record, and then things got crazy. In the last game of a four-game set with the Twins, the Royals held a 5-3 lead going into the ninth. This was back in the days when the Royals thought that closers were born, not made, and so they had paid real U.S. legal tender to Ricky Bottalico to be their closer. On this day, naturally, Bottalico blew the two-run lead in the ninth. (The Royals learned their lesson so well that after the season, they made Roberto Hernandez the focal point of the trade return they got for Johnny Damon.)

But then something funny happened. Damon led off the bottom of the ninth with a home run, and the Royals won, 6-5. The next night, the Orioles came to town; the Royals erased a 5-2 lead with three runs in the eighth, and after both teams struggled to score a putaway run, the Royals finally broke through in the bottom of the 12th, when with one out and Joe Randa on first base, backup catcher Brian Johnson went deep.

And then the next night, the Orioles held a 6-0 lead going into the bottom of the seventh, when the Royals broke through for four runs. The score remained 6-4 until the bottom of the ninth, when Gregg Zaun walked, Mark Quinn doubled to put two runners in scoring position…and Rey Sanchez lofted a flyball that snuck inside the fair pole in left field, prompting Denny Mathews to semi-famously exclaim “What is going on?” The Royals had won three straight games on a walk-off homer. In fact, these three games – I’m not making this up – are what brought the phrase “walk-off” into the national baseball lexicon. The term had been around for years – Dennis Eckersley originated it, I believe, calling it “a walk-off piece” when Kirk Gibson hit a particular home run off of him – but after these three games, ESPN.com started using the term to describe what the Royals had done, and the term has been with us ever since.

The next night, after Bottalico blew another save in the ninth, the Royals didn’t end it with a homer. No, with two out and one on in the bottom of the inning, Carlos Beltran ended the game with a lousy single. Four straight walk-off wins, three on a homer, and the Royals were 8-3 and tied for first place. They were the talk of baseball as they headed out on a nine-game road trip.

They lost all nine games.

In Monday’s Championship game, Butler had their worst scoring game since 2004 and the worst 2 point shooting percentage of any team in all of D1 for a game this season (via Ken Pomeroy). It’s unlucky for Butler that this happened with millions of people watching as opposed to away to Cleveland St., and it’s unlucky for it to happen to any one team in particular. With enough games, these vagaries balance themselves out to a degree which is what led Billy Beane to utter his semi-famous quip about the baseball playoffs being a crapshoot. Unlikely things will happen in any given game, and outside of a player or team’s baseline skill level, we’re powerless to do much about it.

This is what’s led me into futures becoming far and away the highest proportion of my gambling action. Assuming you don’t have any inside information, you’re usually looking at extremely small edges also assuming you’re on the right side of the game to begin with. With futures, the odds can be extremely favorable, moreso than any other gambling opportunity available.

The only reason the Red Sox losing four in a row is particularly notable is that it’s happened in the first four games of the season. Just like Butler, with lots of eyes and no where to hide, everything looks worse than it probably is in reality. Even if that reality involves scoring seven runs in five games. Over the next couple of days or weeks, I’ll be looking for opportunities to gamble on players or teams that are under/overperforming to start the season. It’s still a little too early to see any lines move very much, and it’s way too early to start grading our futures bets.

That said, Go Astros?

Worst Team in MLB

In his most recent post, Lou writes, “I’d…like to take the Astros for fewest wins in MLB this season if that’s available someplace.”  I made a half-assed attempt at seeing if any line like this exists, if it does I cannot find it.  So, let’s try to figure out what the line would be.

The Astros over/under this year for wins was 71.5.  We are only going to focus on teams with a projected win total of below 76, Baltimore and everyone above are excluded.  I know normally there would be a “Field” option, but I am going to ignore that for this.

1. Arizona 72.5
2. Houston 71.5
3. Washington 71
4. Cleveland 71
5. Seattle 70
6. Kansas City 69.5
7. Pittsburgh 68

Seven teams in this group.  So if I were to look at this, my first thought would be, “Well there are 7 teams, so Houston has to be around 7:1.  Plus, they are better than most of the teams on the list, so to account for that, I’ll pump them up to 9:1.”  And that would probably be my offer to Lou.  But that aint’ the issue.  What we are trying to figure out is what would be the Vegas Line on this thing.  And now that I think about it, it seems borderline naive to think that Vegas would offer 9:1 odds on this when Houston is only projected to have 3.5 more wins than the worst team.  So we gotta come up with something better.  I think a good way to figure some odds on this are to compare these numbers with something we do have, odds to win divisions, combined with projected win totals.  The NL West…

1. San Francisco – 88 – 1.4:1
2. Colorado – 86 – 1.9:1
3. Los Angeles – 84 – 3.4:1
4. San Diego – 76 – 14:1
5. Arizona – 72.5 – 23:1

As a starter this is OK.  San Fran is a little better than even money to win a division where they are 2 full games clear of Colorado.  But there are all kinds of problems doing things this way.  The most obvious is that this division doesn’t breakdown anywhere close to our fake division.  The NL West isn’t made up of half a dozen teams that are projected to finish within 5 games of each other, and that’s going to make things weird and skewed.  But let’s keep going and throw another division up for some more comparison and info.  AL West.

1. Texas – 86 .5 – 1.2:1
2. Oakland – 83.5 – 2.1:1
3. Los Angeles – 83 – 2.5:1
4. Seattle – 70 – 24:1

This example gives a pretty good demo of how Vegas works when the odds are tight like our worst team question.  Again, Texas slightly better than even money, a full 3 games clear of Oakland.  But this division kind of sucks because there are so few teams.  Some might suggest here that we go to the odds to win the pennants in both leagues since it involves more teams.  In doing so we see that…

1. Boston – 95 – 2:1
2. New York – 91.5 – 3:1
3. Chicago – 85.5 – 7:1
4. Texas – 86 – 7:1

This leads to some serious dead ends too since these odds are largely based on the divisional odds we’re struggling through, and that only adds more layers of headaches.  For example Tampa is listed with a higher win projection than Oakland, but Oakland is listed with better odds of winning the pennant.  But what this case does do is show that a 3.5 game projected win difference is only a difference btw 2:1 and 3:1 when there are a lot more than 2 or 3 competitive teams involved in figuring a winner of something.  Obviously, if these four teams were a division, these odds would not be the same in picking a winner, our AL West example tells us that.  So somewhere in between is what we are looking for.

The following then is where all this leads us in my opinion.  With some fudge math, taking everything into account that we’ve been doing…

1. Arizona 6.25:1
2. Houston 5:1
3. Washington 5:1
4. Cleveland 5:1
5. Seattle 3.5:1
6. Kansas City 3.5:1
7. Pittsburgh 2.75:1

This would definitely be different if I had included “The Field,” and I have no idea how wrong or right this is.  But, I went from offering Lou 9:1 on Houston with the worst record to 5:1, so if nothing else, it’s right for me.

For schlitz and giggles I am going to write down here the number of wins for the worst team in the last few years, not sure why I am doing this, or if this will be enlightening…57, 59, 59, 66, 61, 56, 51, 43, 55.  So since the 2002 season the average wins by the worst team in baseball is about 56.  Doesn’t really tell me anything other than Vegas is going to be substantially wrong on at least one of these teams if this year follows suit, and if Vegas doesn’t know, it’s anybody’s ballgame!

Lou’s MLB Over/Unders Part 2

5) Cincinnati Reds (Over 84.5)
What’s most striking about the Reds is the sheer depth of their team, extending to the high minors as well. Unlike teams such as the Cardinals, this depth means the floor is fairly low, so much so that I’d be somewhat shocked to see this team finish below .500. There’s not a lot of upside in terms of the key hitters so it would be just as surprising for Votto & Friends to surpass what they did last season. That said, they won 91 last season so there’s 6 games of slack here.

4) San Francisco Giants (Over 88)

A full season from Brandon Belt and Buster Posey should help this offense be the best the Giants have had since Barry Bonds retired.  There’s some risk here with the starting pitching as the Giants have little depth beyond their initial five and would be best served by limiting Madison Bumgarner’s innings as he’s probably the highest risk of the bunch.   92 wins + a championship and their total is only 88?  Not sure what I’m missing as unlike past editions, there’s no gaping hole/ overly washed up veteran anywhere in the lineup.  Maybe Miguel Tejada.

3) Arizona Diamondbacks (Over 72.5)

Arizona’s bullpen was historically bad in 2010.

In 439 innings, they allowed 307 runs to score, 280 of which were earned. That comes out to a 5.74 ERA, over a full run more than the next worst team (the Cubs, 4.72). On top of that, the Diamondbacks also allowed 78 of 189 inherited runners to score, a 41% mark which ties the Dodgers for the worst in the Majors.

Assuming the bullpen improves (and by definition it has to), the only risk for under 73 here is health.  Justin Upton, Kennedy and Hudson all need to stay on the field.  The lineup should score enough runs to keep them competitive, if not all the way back flirting with .500.

2) Boston Red Sox (Over 95)

See what Pat wrote.  A full season of Pedroia, Gonzalez and Crawford will really help the offense.  While it might not appear so at the end of the year because they play in the East, Boston may have the best pitching staff in the league this year.

1) Seattle Mariners (Over 70)

Their offense was as bad as Arizona’s bullpen last year.  While it won’t be good, it should rebound to below-average and combined with Felix + some other pitchers that will hopefully get them back into the 70s.  I don’t really want to forecast a 10-win improvement. but that’s why it’s a one point play.

Lou’s MLB Over/Unders Part 1

Before we start, I’d like to point out my perfect record in NFL picks this past season.  This doesn’t change in any way that I’m setting money on fire with these plays and I do have an actual play on the first three on this list.  Unfortunately for me, I had to make up the other seven.

10)  Philadelphia Phillies (under 97)

Thank you Ruben Amaro!  You not only splashed out on a kickass free agent but also managed to build the oldest team in the majors, ensuring any gains will likely be washed away by steady decline throughout the lineup and the loss of Jason Werth.  Dom Brown is the only projected starter under 29 and I wonder if he’ll have anyone to hang out with on the team.  He also broke his hand.  The Phillies won 97 last year with Rollins the only significant regular to underperform.  They’ve already lost arguably MLB’s Most Irreplaceable Player for half the season and some books have adjusted their lines down as low as 95.

9)  Tampa Bay Rays (Over 84.5)

Last season Tampa won 96 games.  Pena, Bartlett, Crawford, Garza and the bullpen are all gone.  In for them are Dan Johnson, Brignac, Manny/Damon/Jennings,  Hellickson and a new bullpen.  I’ll posit that Johnson can adequately replace Pena and his .196 average but close to league average play, Brignac can come close to Bartlett’s production and that Hellickson can provide 3/4 of Garza’s league average innings.  This leaves a roughly a 10 win dropoff from Crawford and the bullpen and I just can’t see it.  Both were beyond excellent in 2010, but the either the replacements and/or the returnees would have to really stink it up to drop that many games.

8) Houston Astros (Under 71.5)

This team is terrible and it won’t even be worth the effort to play their veterans over the younger players in September in hopes of eeking out a few extra meaningless wins and miracle covering the over like they’ve done the past few years.  It’s irrelevant anyway as Hunter Pence is the only solidly above average player on the team and they have approximately zero advanced prospects.  I’d also like to take the Astros for fewest wins in MLB this season if that’s available someplace.  Carlos Zambrano is a better career hitter than both of Houston’s catchers.  Interleague:  Texas (6), Boston, Toronto, Tampa (3).

7) Anaheim L.A. Angels (Under 83)

Why does Mike Scioscia hate all catchers who hit better than he did???  The Angels did nothing productive this offseason, missing out on Carl Crawford, who was born to play for this team, and Adrian Beltre who signed with Texas.  They also traded away sometimes catcher Mike Napoli for another center fielder, despite not having anyone at catcher who can actually hit.  Napoli somehow ended up in Texas as well, so the AL west will have one team with an actual functioning offense.  Despite my snarkiness, the offense is not terrible (though not helped by Kendry with an ‘S’ starting on the DL) and should the starting pitching go without too many injuries and the bullpen turn in an effective season, this over will ship.  That’s a lot to ask of a team with little pitching depth to call upon IMHO.

6) Milwaukee Brewers (Under 85.5)

For a team that’s purportedly contending, even in the NL Central, they have a long way to go.  The Brewers only won 76 games last season and while they added Zach Greinke and Shaun Marcum, both of whom are very good, they also had to take Yuniesky Betancourt to play shortstop, who is not.  Greinke is starting the season on the DL and should things not go well, Prince Fielder is a free agent to be who is not re-signing in Milwaukee and could be traded.  2b Rickie Weeks played 160 games last year in a contract season, after playing in 95, 118, 127 and 39 the last four seasons making JD Drew look durable in comparison.  I’ll take under 130 games played please.  Lastly, the interleague schedule is brutal: Twins (6) Yankees, Red Sox, Tampa (3).

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)

One Non-Soccer Pick

SF Giants @ Houston Astros (+126) – Two Units

Oswalt has been much better recently, not that he has really been bad at any point.  And the Giants have been struggling.