Baseball Handicapping Articles

MLB Picks: Cardinals at Reds Odds and Betting Predictions
by Aaron Smith - 7/15/2011

It’s no secret that the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds don’t like each other. There was a bit of a rivalry brewing between the two last season, but then the Aug. 10 brawl took the hatred to a whole different level. The Cardinals have been the top dog in the NL Central for several years, but it was the Reds who won the division in 2010. Fast forward to 2011, and the Cardinals are back on top of the division, and it is the Reds who are struggling with inconsistency.

MLB Odds: How Many More Managers Will Be Fired?
by Alan Matthews - 7/14/2011

It has been a relatively quiet Major League Baseball season in terms of managers being fired. Only the Oakland A’s have dumped their manager, Bob Geren. A managerial firing worked out very well for Oakland last time the A’s did it: The Geren firing was the first time Oakland let go of a skipper during the season since the team fired Jackie Moore after 73 games in 1986. Jeff Newman took over for 10 games on an interim basis before Tony La Russa was brought in to start a mini-dynasty that included four division titles and the 1989 World Series championship.

MLB Picks: Yankees at Blue Jays Odds and Predictions
by Aaron Smith - 7/14/2011

The Yankees and Blue Jays will square off tonight as both teams start the second half of the season. Derek Jeter made all the headlines by joining the 3,000-hit club in style with a home run last weekend just before the all-star break. The Yankees trail the Red Sox by one game in the AL East. It may be a little early to talk about the Wild Card, but the Yankees do lead by five games in the Wild Card standings.

MLB Predictions: AL and NL MVP Award Props Odds
by Alan Matthews - 7/13/2011

Back in late March on the eve of the 2011 Major League Baseball season, I wrote a story previewing the American League and National League MVP odds. Back then, the Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera was the 11/2 favorite on Bodog in the AL and the St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols was the overwhelming 3/1 favorite to win his fourth NL MVP award.

Robert Ferringo MLB Mid-Season Awards
by Robert Ferringo - 7/12/2011

The all-star break is a collective breather for the baseball betting world and a rare respite for the gambling world. Let’s take a quick look at the first half of the Major League Baseball season and dish out some mid-season awards:

MLB All-Star Game Odds and Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 7/12/2011

Much of the news about the 2011 Major League All-Star game has involved the musical chairs of who is playing and who is not. In all, 16 players selected for the All-Star Game won’t suit up, and over the past four days there has been a dizzy number of players who have been voted in, scratched, replaced, and named late.

MLB All-Star Game Props Betting and Free Picks
by T.O. Whenham - 7/12/2011

MVP - This one is a totally wide-open race — there is no player in the field at less than 14/1 at Bodog. I would have been tempted by Robinson Cano at 16/1, but I can’t imagine he has much left in the tank after that incredible Home Run Derby performance last night. The same goes for Adrian Gonzalez at 14/1. Justin Upton could be interesting because he is playing at home, but his price is far too low at 15/1. David Ortiz and Matt Holliday are both big-time players with power that could be flashy in this game, and both are at 20/1.

MLB Totals Betting After the All-Star Break
by David Schwab - 7/12/2011

The all-star break traditionally signals the halfway point of the MLB regular season as most teams have played about 90 of the 162 games on the MLB schedule. It also marks a good time to take a look at which teams have paid their way so far this year in terms of the ‘over/under’ on the totals line. The oddsmakers traditionally do a pretty good job of keeping the total line true to the center, but there is always opportunity in some of the lines if you know where to look.

MLB Home Run Derby Odds and Betting Predictions
by Alan Matthews - 7/11/2011

Frankly, today might be the worst sports day of the year. There is not one true live event going on in major North American sports. Not even the CFL. But you do have one watching/betting option, albeit an exhibition event: the annual Home Run Derby. This year the all-star festivities are in Phoenix, so expect more than a few dingers to land in the swimming pool in right field. We will offer some Home Run Derby predictions for betting on the event.

MLB Handicapping: Teams to Watch After All-Star Break
by T.O. Whenham - 7/9/2011

There are some teams that really round into form after the All-Star break, and others that really, really don’t. Every year there seems to be a few surprising teams that get hot down the stretch. If you look at it over a longer time frame, though, the good teams shine and the bad teams sink. Here’s a look at the best and worst teams after the all-star break, looking at their combined record over the last four years:

MLB Picks: Braves at Phillies Odds and Predictions
by Alan Matthews - 7/8/2011

Thanks to the Minnesota Twins winning their eighth straight game against the AL Central rival Chicago White Sox, we hit on our free pick Thursday with the Twins at +139 (pushed on the total). It’s rare I like to take a big favorite in Major League Baseball, so let’s stick with the underdog theme today and look toward Philadelphia. The streaking Atlanta Braves are in town for the biggest series of the weekend. In fact, a sweep would give the young Braves the lead in the NL East heading into the break.

MLB Picks: Twins at White Sox Odds and Predictions
by Alan Matthews - 7/7/2011

Sometimes one team just seems to have a hex over another, regardless of where both teams are in the standings in a given year. And one of those situations presents itself in the opener of a four-game series tonight at U.S. Cellular Field when the Minnesota Twins visit the Chicago White Sox.

MLB Odds: Handicapping Overrated Pitchers
by T.O. Whenham - 7/5/2011

Starting pitchers are the most important part of a baseball game, so they are what bettors must focus the most attention on when they are making betting decisions. Pitchers also get a whole lot of attention from the media, so each year we get to hear about the pitchers that are very good. When those pitchers with the strong reputations and a lot of hype surrounding them aren’t performing well for bettors, however, you can have a real problem.

MLB Picks: Phillies at Blue Jays Odds and Betting Predictions
by Alan Matthews - 7/1/2011

There certainly are more glamorous series on this the final weekend of Interleague Play in Major League Baseball than the Philadelphia Phillies at Toronto Blue Jays. There are the three intracity matchups in the Big Apple, Windy City and L.A. And the Tigers host the Giants in a matchup of first-place teams in what could be a World Series preview. No, the Phillies-Jays matchup is all about Roy Halladay’s return to Toronto and the utter dominance of Philadelphia’s Cliff Lee.

Baseball Handicapping: Strange MLB Betting Trends
by T.O. Whenham - 6/28/2011

Statistics are such an integral part of baseball handicapping. If you can’t manipulate and interpret stats then you are going to struggle to pick winners. Part of what makes that so tough is how deceptive stats can be. They can tell one story on the surface level, but an entirely different story when you look at them closer. One place you can really see that is in the standings. Teams that look very good overall can have some clear issues when you look at different splits. Here are five interesting, surprising, and potentially profitable splits that have emerged so far this year.

The Week in Baseball Betting By the Numbers
by Robert Ferringo - 6/27/2011

The game of baseball is an allegory of pre-industrial America and is the elemental sport in our national consciousness. However, it is also a very sophisticated mathematical construct, a symphony of statistics and a physical interpretation of integers that create the foundation of the sport. Baseball is a perfect dichotomy and every action within its natural framework - from pitch selections to hitting matchups to player positioning – is dictated by the digits.

MLB Picks: Indians at Diamondbacks Odds and Predictions
by Darin Zank - 6/27/2011

Cleveland was picked to finish near the bottom of the American League Central this season, but instead has led its division for most of the way. The Tribe has, however, come upon some tough times recently, and after getting swept three games in San Francisco over the weekend they've lost 21 of their last 31. So Cleveland enters this week in second place in the AL Central, one game back of division-leading Detroit.

MLB Handicapping: the Minnesota Twins
by T.O. Whenham - 6/24/2011

The Minnesota Twins are exactly the type of team that gives me a massive headache. For the first couple of months of the season they seemed firmly entrenched as the worst team in baseball. They started out a dismal 12-18. That seem bad enough, but it looked great compared to their next 24 games when they recorded only five wins. That dropped them to a brutal 17-37 on June 1, and they looked like they were going nowhere fast. Betting against them was an easy and profitable decision.

MLB Handicapping: the Albert Pujols Injury
by T.O. Whenham - 6/23/2011

The last thing the already struggling Cardinals needed was an injury to their best player, but that is the hand that fate has dealt them. Albert Pujols broke his arm in a collision against the Royals and could miss four to six weeks — or potentially even more according to some accounts if the problems caused by the fracture are compounded by soft tissue damage. Pujols is the elite of the elite, so it only makes sense that his injury is going to have a major betting impact — both real and perceived. Here are five factors to consider when trying to get a sense of what that MLB handicapping impact could look like:

MLB Handicapping: Decoding a Pitcher’s True Record
by Nicholas Tolomeo - 6/22/2011

Pitchers get no decisions all the time, but regardless if the pitcher gets a no decision, earns a win or gets saddled with a loss, the bettor is concerned about the final outcome of the game, so why are more people not aware of the real record of the pitcher, the win-loss total of his team when he starts?