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MLB Betting Advice and Help: Best and Worst Road Teams

by - 6/12/2017

Gerardo Parra Colorado Rockies

As a bettor my favorite thing in baseball is a team that produces moneyline profits on the road. It's generally a tough thing to do, and that is especially the case this year. Last year there were 13 teams that produced at least a small road profit. This year to date there are just six. Road success is so valuable for bettors because reliable underdog plays are such a powerful tool. As we sit, about 40 percent of the way through the season, it's a good time to check in with some MLB betting advice on which teams are profitable on the road, and which ones really, really aren't.

Baseball Betting Tips: Best Road Performers

Colorado Rockies: The Rockies unquestionably qualify as the biggest positive surprise in the league right now, so it is no surprise that they are the most-profitable team in the league and the best on the road. The team has a best-in-baseball 24-11 record on the road, and it took a long time for them to get the attention of casual bettors because they aren't exactly a public team, so the profits don't come as any surprise - though you would have been hard pressed to predict them before the season started. They have won five of their last six on the road, including three of four as solid underdogs at Wrigley Field, so the good times are still rolling. Who knows how long the Rockies can keep this up, but in the short term they are very important to keep an eye on.

Houston Astros: Unlike the Rockies, the Astros haven't snuck up on anyone. They were expected to be very good, and they have been all that and more. They have been a road underdog only three times in their last 19 games They have gone 16-3 over that time, though, so it doesn't really matter what the prices are like with that kind of record. Overall they are 23-8 on the road, which is second only to Colorado, so the profits make sense. The problem here, though, is that because they are so heavily bet, the margin for error is small - if they were to hit a rough patch they could give back a lot of these profits in a hurry.

Minnesota Twins: They aren't as surprising as the Rockies, but they are in the conversation. Oddly, this team is a dismal 12-18 at home but a stellar 20-9 on the road. No one ever said that baseball had to make sense. As a result, they are far from attractive to bet on at home, but they are the third-most-profitable team in baseball on the road. They just finished a 10-game road trip on Sunday. They won six games and were an underdog in five of them, so it was a very profitable affair.

Others of note: The other three teams that have produced profits, in order of the size of that profit, are Milwaukee, Washington and the Yankees. Milwaukee and the Yankees are surprising teams using the same formula as the Rockies and Twins to produce profits - with the public aspect of the Yankees leading to their smaller profits. The Nationals, meanwhile, are just a really good team playing really well.

MLB Betting Help: Worst Road Performers

Philadelphia Phillies: The Phillies are really, really bad, so it can't be seen as any surprise at all that they are the worst team in the league on the road in moneyline performance. Their nine road wins are tied with Oakland (spoiler alert - we'll see them soon) for the worst in baseball. There is no way to overcome performance that bad and not lose a pile of money. They just lost their last five on the road to prove that this isn't a trend that is reversing in any hurry. But then why would you expect a minor league roster to win many major league games at all - especially on the road.

Oakland A's: The A's also have just nine road wins, but they have three fewer losses at this point than Philadelphia, which is what gives the Phillies the slight edge in this race to the bottom. The team is a dismal 2-8 in their last 10 on the road, so they are in awful form right now. Strikingly, though, the prices aren't as bad as you would think - they were road favorites three times and went off at even money twice more.

Chicago Cubs: This is not how things were supposed to go for the defending champs. I guess you can give them a break in one way, though - it's not like anyone with the franchise has any memory of how to defend a title. Last year this team was nicely profitable overall and particularly solid for bettors on the road. This year only Philadelphia has lost bettors more money overall, and the Cubs are the third-worst team to bet on the road. You keep waiting for the squad to shake off their funk and play like the team that just won 103 games, but the wait is getting longer and longer.

Others of note: Two other squads are down at least 10 units so far on the season on the road on the moneyline - the Giants and the Orioles. Baltimore is particularly interesting. They are a horrible 10-20 on the road, but they are 21-10 at home. So, they not only sit slightly above .500, but they have actually delivered bettors a slight profit overall. Apparently the team really likes crabcakes. San Francisco is less challenging to explain - they are a hugely-disappointing team playing awful ball in general and especially on the road.

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