Sunday Gradings...

[blogguy]

Was out of pocket most of Sunday afternoon. Figured those of you who were into this already had your own gradings...day three of a set is usually going to get you the same teams you had been on anyway. A few newbies popped up because of the starting pitching.

First....picking up where we left off:

Records after Saturday:
System (179 or less): 15-8...+3.77 units
System (180 or more) 9-1...+5.00 units
Totals: 6-5...+1.00 unit
1.5 Run Favorites: 11-6...+6.24 units
Coin Flip Dogs: 18-24...minus 3.27 units

Based on the numbers I'm using, here are the games that graded out:

SYSTEM (179 or loser)
Cincinnati -170 (winner)
Philadelphia -140 (winner)
Detroit -160 (loser)
Texas -150 (night game)

SYSTEM (180 or more)
NY Yankees -350 (winner)
Boston -220 (winner)
Minnesota -240 (winner)

TOTALS
I know for sure that the Under in St. Louis/San Diego graded out with Mulder and Peavy. That's without considering the great pitcher's park. Of course, the game ended 15-10 or whatever...so, that's a loser. I was much more comfortable looking for totals based on pitchers, offenses, ballpark, and weather than I am with any methodology here. Since we're at 6-6 and that's with indifference in some Royals games...I'm just going to take totals out of the mix for now. I'll try to come up with something that uses our flyball/groundball stuff along with ballparks and weather when I get a chance. Though...that still probably would have given us St. L/SD Under today, lol.

COIN FLIP DOGS
Washington +120 (winner)
Florida +130 (loser)
Houston +105 (winner, but a miracle...I had Pitt in Airbets, lol)
Cubs +200 (loser...but impressive to be so close with huge dog)
St. Louis +110 (loser)
Colorado +130 (winner)
Toronto +115 (loser)
Baltimore +145 (winner)

That's 4-4....with an equivalent record of 5-4 with the dog payoffs. I've been thinking about how the role of "avoiding a sweep" plays into the possibilities. Earlier in the week I talked about maybe not pushing for a third straight win with a pricey favorite if you'd already gotten two wins with them. Here in the coin flip dogs we see winners on Houston, Colorado, and Baltimore in that role....and the Cubs almost did it. Coin flip underdogs who weren't trying to avoid a sweep were 1-3.

In the favorites...Detroit failed to get the sweep even with a good grading...but Boston and Minnesota finished theirs off. Favorites who didn't win the first two games of their series went 3-0 with Texas still out (winning with Cincinnati, Philly, and the NYY).

For now I'm going to leave everything the way it is. But I want us to be thinking about the possiblity that strong gradings on favorites are more likely pointing us to winning 2 of every 3 percentage wise rather than 3 of 3....and that coin flip dogs may have a little extra value if they've dropped the first two games of a series. All other things are roughly equal...so that extra motivation provides a value boost against the moneyline.

It's all a percentage game. We may find that doing that helps out the percentages in day three of the matchups. Really, nothing should grade to a clean sweep in baseball except for the very, very best against the very worst. And something that puts underdogs in a 53-55% win scenario would be cool to uncover.

1.5 RUN FAVORITES (gradings in hitter's parks)
Cincinnati -1.5 +115 (loser)
Philadelphia -.15 +135 (winner)
Boston -1.5 -110 (loser, blows 5-0 lead in 9th!)
Borderline park Minnesota falls to 2-2 with a loss, which is still showing a good profit though thanks to a +190 in one of the wins.


The records now through Sunday with the night game out:

System (179 or less): 17-9...+4.17units (Texas out)
System (180 or more) 12-1...+8.00 units
1.5 Run Favorites: 12-8...+5.14 units
Coin Flip Dogs: 22-26...minus 2.27 units

On the whole...I'm not that happy with the "squarishness" of the gradings. We are getting a lot of obvious favorites at high prices. Part of that is the way I'm ordering them. If we called this the "Finding Coin Flip Dogs Methodology" that just played favorites with findings that teams weren't "comparable," it wouldn't seem so square. I'd be listing the 10 dogs first ever day...and the five favorites second. Showing Boston and the Yankees at the bottom of the list wouldn't set all any alarms. Nobody thinks KC and TB are "comparable," to those powers...so of course a reasonable study would show the favorites as being very superior.

Note that the basic system is only up 4 units even with a great 17-9 record. Again...that's getting a lot of favorites. You don't get rich betting favorites, but you can post a nice percentage. I think this system has done a good job of yanking "non-comparable" teams out of the coin flip dog mix if you look at it from that direction. The "yanked" dogs would have gone 9-17. We wouldn't have wanted them in the coin flip mix to begin with...so the system is helping us define "comparable" and "non-comparable".

Regarding the big favorites...we may just have to accept that there's a much bigger difference this year between the have's and have not's than is generally understood. Betting 250-350 favorites seems insane...but the record is 12-1 when the math showed a subtantial grading. We got a win with Florida +200 over Pedro and a near win with the Cubs +200 over Smoltz when the gradings said "comparable" (within 2 points on my math). So...the methodology seems to be separating things correctly.

If you've got a team that's already bad...and they're throwing one of their worst starters...it could turn out that the opposing favorite should be about 400 every time. The back of the rotation guys on KC, and Pittsburgh, and Florida, and Tampa Bay, and the Cubs since the Lee injury, and maybe even Baltimore, and on the road with Seattle and Houston are much worse than everyone realizes. That 12-1 could be a short term fluke...or it could be telling us that our old perceptions about where lines should be in mismatches are out of touch with the current reality. Something that has to be considered.

I definitely don't want to hear stuff like "Hey...blogguy's method is telling is to take 350 favorites every day...pure genius!" I'd be sarcastic about that too. But if 220 favorites should really be 400 favorites...you're supposed to lay the 220!

The thing I'm most excited about is the success of the 1.5 run line thing in hitter's parks. That's showing definite value...which would be even bigger if not for a pair of odd choke jobs (Boston vs. TB today, Arizona vs. Pittsburgh earlier in the week). In both cases highly ranked bullpens blew big leads vs. teams with bad offenses. Guess that's part of the price you have to pay for laying the 1.5 runs. The dog payoffs you're getting back when cheaper teams are winning big has more than made up for that so far.

Why aren't I excited about favorite gradings that go 29-10 when combined? Well...that at least telling us that the math is pinpointing clear superiority when it's present. It's just...we've all seen knuckleads go 29-10 playing nothing but big favorites before it all crashes and burns. I wasn't hoping the method would help me find big favorites to take...I was hoping to find value favorites for one pile, and coin flip dogs for another. As Spraguer has mentioned...recent baseball has been chalky. That means only one pile has something to brag about...and it's the pile that tends to crumble and bury squares over time.

We'll see what happens, and we'll keep monitoring things. For now...look for that 1.5 run value in hitter's parks...and suck it up and deal with the possibility that this year's big favorites are actually underpriced!

blg