Twins keeping pace in AL Central
Baseball Betting Lines
06/02/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Minnesota Twins can't be displeased with where they stand entering the month of June.
At 29-27, they are just a game out of first place, which isn't bad at all considering how inconsistent the team has been through the season's first two months.
After going on the road last week and winning five of six from division foes Detroit and Kansas City, the Twins are hoping to salvage a split of their four- game home series with the Yankees tonight.
The Orioles are in town next, before the Twins embark on a lengthy 10-game road trip. For obvious reasons, they are hoping to take care of business at home this week before packing their bags.
One of the more promising performances of the most recent road trip was delivered by starter Kevin Slowey, who recorded his first complete game to wrap up a sweep of the Royals on Thursday.
Slowey, who last year earned International League Pitcher of the Year honors, allowed just one run on six hits, while striking out six. He did not issue a single walk, and has now won two straight outings.
"We'd seen that he was very efficient with his pitches like he was (Thursday)," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said on the team's Web site. "It was boom, boom. I looked up at one point in the fifth inning, he had 50 pitches.
"He's learning. He stayed on top of a lot of pitches. His sinker was really biting down. He was adding, subtracting with his pitches. He mixed it up, and it was a heck of a performance by him."
Glen Perkins, who had been steady all throughout May, could not follow up Slowey's performance on Friday against the Yankees, as he allowed five runs on 10 hits. After the Twins jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first inning, their bats cooled off and New York capitalized with a 6-5 victory.
Minnesota battled hard for 12 innings on Saturday, but ultimately Bobby Abreu drove in the game-winning run off Twins reliever Juan Rincon in the 12th. Starter Boof Bonser lasted five innings and was charged with five runs, two earned. In all, the Twins used eight pitchers in the game.
After seeing their four-game win streak stopped by consecutive one-run losses, the Twins got back on the winning end by notching a 5-1 victory yesterday. Michael Cuddyer, who tied Saturday's game with a seventh-inning home run, went 3-for-4 with three RBI. However, the victory did not come without a scary moment.
Starter Nick Blackburn, who had allowed just one run through 4 1/3 innings, had to leave the game after being pelted in the face by a line drive off the bat of Abreu. An already fatigued bullpen strung together 4 2/3 shutout innings to keep the win in tact.
"I don't know if that was just shock and I wasn't able to sit up or anything," Blackburn said. "It didn't knock me out. I think it probably caught me a little goofy, and it was just hard for me to control my body at that point. Once I hit the ground, I don't know why, but I felt like I needed to get back up. It's never good to see someone laying there. I wanted to get up basically, I guess, for myself, so I knew I was OK."
Blackburn was able to walk off the field. X-rays were negative, so it appears he essentially suffered a bloody nose. He said he expects to make his next start on Friday.
HAS CASILLA FINALLY ARRIVED?
In 13 starts since being called up from the minors, second baseman Alexei Casilla has hit .333. He was hitting just .219 in the minors.
"He has a lot of confidence going on right now -- looks like ice water in his veins, as they say," Gardenhire said. "It doesn't look like he is too panicky or anything. Even when he gets to two strikes, he stays with his plan."
Only time will tell if Casilla truly has turned a corner, or whether he is merely going through a hot streak. Last year, he hit just .222, and he did not turn any heads during Spring Training.
WHO'S HOT
Cuddyer continues to come up with big hits in the Yankees series; definitely a good sign for a player who has dealt with injury and inconsistency for much of the season.
Matt Guerrier (2-1, 3.16 ERA) continues to be one of the most reliable arms in the bullpen.
WHO'S NOT
Jason Kubel is hitting just 4-for-27 (.148) over a six-game span.
A LOOK AHEAD
Closing out the Yankees series for the Twins tonight will be Livan Hernandez (6-2, 4.60), who will oppose Andy Pettitte (5-5, 4.11). Kevin Slowey (2-4, 3.38) will open up the Orioles series. Perkins (2-2, 3.90) is the only other announced starter for the series. On Friday, the Twins kick off their road trip in Chicago.
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How to bet pro football
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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El Duque expected to throw Tuesday
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- New York Mets pitcher Orlando Hernandez, sidelined at spring training because of arthritis in his neck, is expected to resume throwing on Tuesday.
Hernandez received a cortisone shot Thursday after leaving camp and returning to New York to have his neck examined. The 41-year-old right-hander is penciled in as the team's No. 2 starter behind Tom Glavine.
El Duque's health is a major issue for the Mets, who won the NL East in 2007 and came within one victory of the World Series. Their aging and unsettled rotation is a big question mark this year.
MySportsbook.com has the Mets as -110 favorites to repeat as NL East champions odds.
Hernandez went 11-11 with a 4.66 ERA last season, including 9-7 with a 4.09 ERA in 20 starts after the Mets acquired him from Arizona in late May. But he missed the playoffs because of a torn calf muscle.
New York already is without Pedro Martinez, out until at least midseason following rotator cuff surgery. Among those competing for starting jobs are prospects Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber and Jason Vargas, plus veterans Chan Ho Park, Jorge Sosa and Aaron Sele.
Notes: Mets manager Willie Randolph is excited about two new utility players he could have on his bench: Damion Easley and David Newhan. ''Their value is really all over the place,'' Randolph said. Easley can play anywhere in the infield and could be used as an emergency outfielder, though Randolph said he would prefer to keep the veteran in the infield. Newhan, meanwhile, can play second base, third or any outfield position for the Mets. ''I love versatility,'' Randolph said. ''I love guys that can give me options when I need them to step in.''
Additional baseball lines and World Series odds can be found at: www.MySportsbook.com
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