Some Guidelines for Betting the Bases

I have written on these pages before that baseball, while often overlooked by many sports bettors, is one of my favorite sports. A combination of the drudgery of the daily action, the many statistics, and the somewhat hard-to-understand betting system based on odds instead of pointspreads tends to discourage many fans of the national pastime from wagering on a sport they like very much.

But I enjoy baseball wagering for one main reason: It has always been my contention that of all sports, baseball offers one of the best chances to win in the long run. Unfortunately, discipline and a little daily-grind homework are required for success. And in today's instant-download, give-it-to-me-now society, discipline and the patience for grind homework are in short supply.

Still, over the course of more than three decades of sports betting, I have accumulated a number of guidelines that daily help me to separate the high-percentage plays in baseball from the more risky ones. With the 2006 baseball season now about one-third complete, here's a brief list of some of those guidelines that might help you. Many of them are very basic, but I assure you, they consist of a useful combination of edges that can make for a very enjoyable summer, even for those who bet baseball only casually.

1. If you repeatedly lay high "prices" with favorites, you're going to be in trouble. The oddsmakers these days do a good job of "neutralizing" the obvious plays. If you repeatedly lay odds of more than 160-to-100 on games, it's going to be very difficult for you to win for the season.

2. Pitching is a big edge, but it is not always the definitive edge. That's especially true in these days of the "cheap" home run. Parks are smaller. More players are bulked up (for a variety of reasons). There are more push-button managers, who remove their well-grooved starting pitcher after seven or eight innings to use setup men and highly paid closers, frequently with negative results.

3. The simple pitching stats are useful. ERA is a good indicator, unless a pitcher's team is poor-fielding. Innings pitched is a good indicator; early knockouts are bad. Good control is an excellent indicator; strike one is still the best pitch in baseball. Pitching from behind is very risky and goes against the percentages.

4. Avoid going against the best teams and with the worst teams too often. You must choose your moments when bucking the best and trusting the worst. Again, that's going against the percentages. Have good reasons for doing so.

5. Have a mantra to add consistency to your daily handicapping. "Good pitcher, good team, good price" is a good basic one. I assure you, trusting weak pitchers, on inconsistent teams, at poor odds is not the way to go.

6. Try to have a rested closer. A brief check of the previous day's box score will indicate whether you're betting on a team whose clutch closer pitched the game before and therefore might be either ineffective or "cooked" (for example, unavailable due to the number of recent innings pitched). Winning games on the road can be especially difficult for a team if its closer isn't rested and ready to go.

7. For top pitchers, winning begets winning. In games in which a team's top one or two pitchers are starting, you usually get better efforts overall. Their teammates tend to be more on their toes and to give their best effort, because they know they have a very good chance to win that day. When struggling starters or unproven youngsters are given a shot, some players tend to let down, especially if the starter is wild. And managers often tend to rest some good players or experiment with their lineup.

8. Losing begets losing. Baseball is a long season, and each team plays nearly every day. It can be psychologically tough for players on weak teams to perform near their best when they know that by June, their team is hopelessly out of the playoff race. Home crowds shrink. And, worse yet, the home teams sometimes get booed and jeered by their own fans.

9. Look for ways to go against the worst of the worst. If the odds on the opponent of the worst team are less than 155-to-100, that might be the way to go. If the pitcher on the team opposing the worst is of high quality, consider the runs line (laying 1½ runs, but at better odds). If the worst team can hit but not field or pitch, look to the "over." If it can field but not hit, look to the "under." Very often, it's the worst teams that are the most predictable!

10. It is very difficult to get a series sweep against top contenders in their home park. Most series tend to be split - 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-1 - depending on the number of games in the series. Fewer series involve sweeps of 2-0, 3-0, or 4-0. The better the team, obviously, the fewer times it is swept. Research has shown that it's especially difficult to sweep a contending team in its own park. Home contenders do a pretty good job in series finales when they already trail 2-0 or 3-0 in a series. (Contenders usually suffer more sweeps on the road than at home.)

11. It usually takes both teams to score in order for a game to go "over" the total. Research has shown that if one of the teams in a game is held to two or fewer runs, the percentages of that game going "over" the total decline precipitously.

There are many other theories in baseball (take the dog in the first game of every series, go with a team that has won at least four straight, and so on), but I'm not sure they have held up as well over a substantial period of time as those above.

To enjoy success in baseball betting, as in poker, you need to have knowledge of the game, discipline, and proper money management. But you also need a basic strategy and a solid framework. The guidelines outlined above will give you plenty of high-percentage plays over the rest of the baseball season.

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the first word in sports handicapping for 49 years. The amazingly compact Gold Sheet features analysis of every football and basketball game, exclusive insider reports, widely followed Power Ratings, and a Special Ticker of key injuries and team chemistry. Look for the extraordinary 2006 Gold Sheet Football Annual on newsstands in June. Or, you can reserve your copy by calling The Gold Sheet at (800) 798-GOLD (4653), and be sure to mention you read about it in Card Player. You can check The Gold Sheet on the web at http://www.goldsheet.com/.