Useful Intangibles in Baseball Handicapping

Sharp oddsmakers combined with global wagering (due to the Internet and offshore sportsbooks) have made it more difficult in recent years to find "bettable" baseball games ("bettable" being defined as games in which the edges are substantial when compared with the odds on the game).

If a pitcher is "hot," or if he turned up with a sore elbow or sore shoulder after his last start, it is the rare occasion these days when the oddsmakers don't either hear about the situation before posting the line in the first place or quickly adjust the line soon after it is posted.

In fact, as far as I'm concerned, oddsmakers in baseball never had a better year than 2001 in three key areas – first, posting very high "prices" on very strong, attractive favorites; second, keeping the "prices" of the toughest games near pick 'em; and, third, making the betting public lay more runs and pay heavy prices for the games with a good chance to go "over," and giving the public fewer runs to work with and raising the odds on games with the best chance to go "under."

What should you do when the oddsmakers are taking most or all of the value out of games? Well, one strategy is to look for edges in the intangibles of a game.

Before continuing, you should first be duly warned that relying too often, or too heavily, on intangibles can be a dangerous practice. As always, the shrewd handicapper is selective – and he always emphasizes fundamentals first. But he is also constantly on the lookout for edges that can be helpful against the oddsmaker. Here are some intangible edges in baseball that have been useful in the past:

Pitchers facing a team that "dumped" them or traded them. This works especially well the first time the dissed pitcher faces his old team. It's just natural that an athlete will try to prove that his previous management made a mistake by trading him or letting him go. It's a guarantee that a disrespected pitcher will be extra focused the first time he faces his old team, particularly if he labored for his old organization for a substantial number of years without getting a "fair chance" (from his perspective, that is). But there is one proviso to this guideline in these days of free agency and millionaire players. The concept doesn't work so well for a pitcher facing a former team that he left in order to move to another for a big-bucks free-agent contract. It's often the case that the big contract results in extra pressure that not all players are equipped to handle.

Pitchers pitching in their hometown. Aside from the challenge of facing a team that disrespected him, few things fire up a pitcher more than pitching before friends and family back in his hometown. I'm not referring to the city of the home team, but to a city one of the modern-day sports mercenaries calls "home." And, because of the mobile population of the 20th century, that city is often not the city in which the player was born. The key is to know where that player grew up, went to high school/college, and became a "star" who was drafted by a major league team. You know that a pitcher will be giving an extra effort if he asked his teammates for their complimentary tickets, or even purchased extra tickets for the game with (shudder) his own money so that his family and a contingent of his buddies can attend the game on his dime. Once again, the "hometown" intangible advantage tends to wear off with each subsequent appearance. The "hometown" concept is not so definable for hitters, but it's usually not a negative. (Keeping a little notebook listing players' hometowns doesn't hurt.)

Revenge. As I always like to say, revenge works best "when you have the guns." The revenge motivation as an intangible edge doesn't work so well if you don't have the ability to exact it. That being said, there are more "revenge" games these days in the majors now that the leagues have gone back to unbalanced schedules with teams playing more games vs. teams in their own division. Here are some revenge tendencies from previous years:

• If a good pitcher loses on the road, he will tend to bounce back in a quick-turnaround revenge game at home.

• If a good pitcher wins on the road, he will also tend to win a quick-turnaround rematch at home.

• If a weak pitcher wins at home, he will tend to lose a quick-turnaround rematch on the road. It's tough for young/mediocre pitchers to win both at home and on the road of close-together series.

Good pitchers after a loss. The better the pitcher, the more likely he is to bounce back after a defeat (as long as he is healthy). The best pitchers hate to lose, and they will stew about the loss until their next start. Roger Clemens, in his prime, was infamous for bouncing back with a strong effort after a poor performance. As far as this intangible is concerned, the earlier the pitcher was "knocked out" in his previous loss, the better, especially if he threw only a few pitches or expressed personal embarrassment.

Pitchers on short rest. Many longtime baseball handicappers view pitchers much as they do thoroughbred horses. Both are pampered, trained, and prepared, then go all out for an extended period, then are cooled down, rested, and pampered, and then trained for their next race. It is the exceptional horse that can beat a good field without its usual rest and preparation. Similarly, it is the rare pitcher who can break up his routine of at least four days off, then beat a good team on short rest. There are exceptions if a pitcher threw only a limited number of pitches in his previous start, or if the pitcher relies heavily on a "gimmick" pitch, such as a knuckleball that does not tax his arm as much as fastballs, sliders, and split-finger pitches do.

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the first word in handicapping for 46 years. The Gold Sheet's NBA playoff issue is now on the newsstands. It offers key statistics, analysis, insider reports, and its widely followed power ratings. If you haven't seen The Gold Sheet and would like to receive a complimentary sample copy with no obligation, call (800) 798-GOLD (4653) and say that you read about it in Card Player. You can look The Gold Sheet up on the web at www.goldsheet.com.