Wednesday Gradings (5/31)

[blogguy]

I'm posting this between sessions so as not to take away any advantage people doing their own work may be garnering from this project...but to get things up in time in general so nobody thinks I"m past-posting or anything.

We talked Sunday night about the possibility that the "edges" that show up in some matchups are more indicative of winning two games in a series rather than DOMINATING and getting the full sweep. Baseball has enough parity that you're rarely going to get something "reasonable" that says "sweep" at the beginning. So...taking teams three days in a row just because they grade out each day may not be the best way to go about it.

It could turn out that seeing clear edges means you take teams until they get their second win and then you stop. We saw more of that line of thinking today as Philadelphia and Texas both graded out...but both were unable to finish off sweeps vs. Washington and Seattle respectively.

Anyway...here are the Tuesday gradings:

SYSTEM (179 or less)
Philadelphia -165 vs. Washington
St. Louis -165 vs. Houston (series tied 1-1)
Chicago -160 vs. Cincinnati (going for sweep tonight)
Texas -135 vs. Seattle
(after early action, both Philly and Texas lose, St. Louis wins)

SYSTEM (180 or more)
No qualifiers...Blanton of Oakland had pitched so badly that the A's didn't qualify today...then of course they win 7-0. I thought Kansas City had started hitting!

1.5 RUN LINES
Philadelphia -1.5 +something
Texas -1.5 +something
(both lost this way as well...though it's always cheaper to lose straight up on the 1.5 run line!)

COIN FLIP DOGS
Colorado +120 vs. San Diego
Los Angeles +145 vs. Atlanta
Pittsburgh +120 vs. Milwaukee
Florida +130 vs. San Francisco
Arizona +140 vs. NYM
Kansas City +210 vs. Oakland
no favorite CWS/Cleveland
Tampa Bay +127 vs. Baltiomre
Boston +128 vs. Toronto
Detroit +109 vs. NYY
no favorite Minn/LAA

Based on what I"ve seen on the last two days of series enders, I'm strongly inclined to leave favorites who are already 2-0 in a series off the gradings. I probably won't do a full flip flop and put the dogs on the coin flip list. It could turn out that this is what we're SUPPOSED to do. One thing at a time!