Baseball Handicapping Articles

Off-the-Radar Pitchers that Have Been Bankroll Boosters in 2019
by Trevor Whenham - 6/4/2019

There are some pitchers out there who are producing big profits without any surprise at all - that Clayton Kershaw is among the most profitable in the league is no shock, for example. But more often among the most profitable pitchers are several names that few could have seen coming. And it is those who did see the potential in these more off-the-radar arms that are probably showing nice profits on the season.

Expert MLB Handicapping: Can Minnesota Twins Sustain Torrid Pace?
by Trevor Whenham - 5/31/2019

There are many things that have been very surprising in this baseball season so far - both positive and negative. Of all of them, though, none are more gobsmacking than the fact that the Minnesota Twins have the best record in baseball.

Cincinnati Reds' Roster Overhaul Hasn't Provided Betting Profits… Yet
by Trevor Whenham - 5/31/2019

The Cincinnati Reds were a very interesting team heading into this season. At least as interesting as a team can be that really doesn't have a great chance of finishing above .500. They were pretty aggressive in overhauling their roster, and they had made some interesting moves. They won only 67 games last year, but their win total was set at 79.5 entering this season.

Expert MLB Handicapping: San Diego Padres Making Slow Ascent
by Trevor Whenham - 5/16/2019

The San Diego Padres made a big splash this offseason, spending more than the GDP of some countries to land Manny Machado as the centerpiece of the team for the next decade. Combine him with top prospect Fernando Tatis Jr., and a wave of other talent from the top-ranked farm system in baseball entering the season, and there is plenty of reason for optimism.

2019 Miami Marlins Historically Bad: Expert Analysis
by Trevor Whenham - 5/16/2019

Two-Six-Five. Those are the three big numbers for every baseball fan with a morbid fascination for history to keep an eye on. The Detroit Tigers have set the all-time record for futility in a 162-game season in 2003 when they won just 43 games. That is a .265 win percentage. And that matters right now because the Miami Marlins, easily the worst team I ever remember seeing, currently have a win percentage of .244.

Expert MLB Betting Advice: Home and Road Splits
by Trevor Whenham - 5/15/2019

In a perfect world, teams in baseball would be just as good on the road as they are at home. Location wouldn't matter. That very often isn't the case, though, of course. The ability to bat last at home has something to do with it, and when you factor in sleeping at home, enjoying crowd support, and the more comfortable facilities, it is no mystery why teams are better at home in most cases.

MLB Betting Advice: Studs and Duds for Moneyline Wagering
by Trevor Whenham - 5/15/2019

There are teams in Major League Baseball that are very respectful of bettors' money. They take it, protect it, and return it at the end of most games with a healthy return. They are a pleasure to bet on. But then there are the teams that would rather put the hard-earned cash in a pile, douse it in gasoline, strike a match, and dance around it wildly.

Handicapping MLB Teams Already Out of Contention
by Trevor Whenham - 5/10/2019

Baseball teams have played less than 40 games - a quarter of the season. There is still a whole lot of baseball left to play. But for several teams in the league, it's all over already. They are just going through the motions, and if they were being honest, I'm sure some of them would choose not to play the rest of the season if they didn't have to.

Expert MLB Handicapping: Boston Red Sox Surging After Slow Start
by Trevor Whenham - 5/10/2019

I surely am not the only person out there who has enjoyed watching the Boston Red Sox struggle out of the gate. I don't think it could happen to a more deserving team. Maybe the Yankees. Or the Dodgers. I guess I just don't like iconic baseball teams much - though I have no issues with the Cubs.

Expert MLB Handicapping: Hyped Teams That Have Struggled at Betting Window
by Trevor Whenham - 5/2/2019

Every year when the baseball season starts, we have a sense of what we expect from most teams. And because baseball is what it is, it is so consistent that it is no longer surprising that so many of those expectations won't be met. Some teams will be much better than we could have imagined - Minnesota sits atop that list right now.

MLB Betting Advice: Surprise Teams Raking at the Betting Window
by Trevor Whenham - 5/2/2019

We are a month into the baseball season, which is long enough to begin to judge what teams are and what they have to offer. There are teams that are what we expected them to be. There are teams that have been massively disappointing. And, most interestingly for bettors, there are the teams that are producing profits at a rate that would have been very tough to anticipate heading into the season. Here are five teams that fit into that group of pleasant surprises at this point in the season:

Using Bat/Home Run Ratio in MLB Handicapping and Betting
by Wes Clayton - 4/24/2019

Baseball sure has changed over the course of the past 20 years. It seems as if Billy Beane and his "Moneyball" philosophy has turned baseball (and other sports) into an analytic and sabermetric frenzy. With all the new statistics these days, it seems overwhelming and hard to follow for the average fan. Oddsmakers have capitalized, however, using these new categories to create sharper lines as it relates to MLB sides and totals.

Baseball Betting Advice: Easiest Early-Season Schedules
by Trevor Whenham - 4/5/2019

Not all schedules are created equal in the Major Leagues - at least not in the short term. Over the course of an entire season, there are so many games that schedules mostly even out. But in the short term - over a few weeks or a month - there can be a wide difference in the range between the toughest schedules and the easiest.

MLB Betting Advice: Handicapping the Umpires Can Lead to Betting Profits
by Trevor Whenham - 4/4/2019

Baseball is attractive to a lot of bettors and mystifying and intimidating to others. What makes it simultaneously so intriguing and so rewarding is that there are so many things going on and so many ways to handicap the same game. You can give starting pitchers all the credit or basically ignore them. You can prioritize hitters. Or ballparks. Or bullpens. Or countless other things. One aspect that doesn't get as much attention - especially from casual bettors - but which can have a big impact on the outcome of games, and makes it worth betting as a result, is the umpire.

MLB Expert Betting Advice: Outlook for Teams with High Futures Odds
by Trevor Whenham - 3/20/2019

Spring training is a time for hope. Everything is new and fresh and often young, and almost every team thinks that they could be better than people think they will be - that this could be, to some extent at least, the year. What we want to look at here are not the teams that might actually be right about that, but the ones that are fooling themselves.

Expert MLB Handicapping: Does Machado Make Padres a Contender?
by Trevor Whenham - 3/7/2019

The Padres are, theoretically at least, in the midst of a long rebuild. It has certainly been long - they haven't made the playoffs since 2006 and haven't even had a winning season since 2011. They have been taking the slow route, gradually building a farm system that ranks as the best in baseball right now. But this spring they started playing a whole new game, splashing out basically all the money in the world to land Manny Machado for what should be the rest of his career.

MLB Betting Trends: Handicapping the Best and Worst on Moneyline from Last Season
by Trevor Whenham - 3/1/2019

There are teams in baseball that are a pleasure to bet on all year because they consistently produce big profits. And there are those that are consistently a pleasure to bet against because they couldn't win an inter-squad scrimmage with any reliability. Both kinds are equally attractive to bettors. What we want to do here is look at the very best teams to bet on last year, and the best to bet against, to see what we might expect of them this year:

Baseball Betting Advice: MLB Teams that Could Surprise
by Trevor Whenham - 3/1/2019

By the time spring training rolls around, we have a pretty good sense of which teams are going to be contenders and which ones aren't. We have expectations in our mind for most teams. However, every year there are teams that don't meet up to expectations. And the better that we as handicappers get at figuring out which teams could outplay their expectations, the more we can profit. Here are four teams that people don't expect too much from.

MLB Teams that Could Disappoint Bettors in 2019
by Trevor Whenham - 2/28/2019

Now that spring training is underway, people are starting to think about how they feel about teams heading into the season. And as those opinions get established among the betting public, there are inevitably some teams that other people seem to like a lot more than you do.

MLB Betting Advice for 2019: Toughest Aces to Handicap
by Trevor Whenham - 2/28/2019

The biggest single key to success in baseball betting is being able to understand and evaluate starting pitchers. No guy has a bigger impact on the outcome of the game than the starting pitcher. Sometimes pitchers are easy to evaluate - we know that a strong starter in top form is easy to trust and that a bad pitcher with a rough matchup is very tough to appreciate.