The Importance of Baseball Betting Underdogs

Added on May 29, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Baseball betting involves a handicapping process unlike any other major US sport. This is due in large part to the use of moneylines instead of a pointspread and, furthermore, due to the unique nature of the game itself. A common mistake of neophyte baseball bettors is to assume that the absence of a pointspread means that they can more comfortably wager on high priced favorites. The logic is that unlike football or basketball, a big favorite just needs to win the game and doesn’t have to cover a margin. Unfortunately, that is in diametric opposition to the way that most experienced and successful baseball bettors approach the game. Most successful baseball bettors eschew favorites and instead look to ‘invest’ in underdogs.

DO THE MATH:

At the theoretical level, this is pretty easy to explain. Most bettors know that to realize a profit on straight bets in most sports (where you’re laying 11/10) that you need to hit right around 53% winners (52.7% to be exact). If you’re playing at a ‘reduced juice’ sportsbook and just laying -105 on straight bets the breakeven figure drops to 51.22%. And obviously breakeven at +100–even money–is 50%. Despite these well known facts, however, many beginning baseball bettors don’t consider the theoretical breakeven level on the plays they make. When you play favorites, your break even percentage increases with the moneyline price. At -200, for example, you’ll need to win 66.7% of your plays just to break even. At -250, the ‘Mendoza line’ is 71.4%. Even by selectively betting on top teams in favorable situations, hitting 72% isn’t easy.

Now consider what happens when you bet moneyline underdogs–you experience the opposite phenomenon. The bigger the underdog, the lower your breakeven percentage–and with moneyline dogs of any price you’re putting yourself in a position where you can win less than half of your games and still turn a profit. At +150, your theoretical breakeven percentage is 40%. At +200, its 33.3% and the higher you go the lower your breakeven percentage. Most people understand this in general terms, but the reality is that even betting small underdogs significantly turns the tables in your favor.

In most situations, however, its pretty obvious that a team priced at -200 is objectively superior to one priced at +200. Baseball isn’t quite so cut and dried, and there are a few specific components of the sport that make underdogs even more attractive.

THE LACK OF DOMINANT STARTING PITCHERS:

The most significant variable in determining baseball betting odds is the starting pitcher for each team. A pitcher perceived to be superior will be priced higher to a less successful one. Despite the influence of the starting pitcher on how games are priced, this is just part of the equation. Furthermore, there are very few pitchers in baseball at this time who are sufficiently dominant to back at a high price. Ubaldo Jimenez, for example, is by all accounts a dominant pitcher. He’s got great statistical numbers (0.88 ERA, 0.93 WHIP) and the Rockies have won 9 of his 10 starts. But consider some of the other pitchers near the top of the ERA rankings–in the National League, St. Louis pitcher has an impressive 1.14 ERA but the Cardinals have lost 5 of his 9 starts. Seattle’s Doug Fister leads the American League in ERA, but the Mariners have lost 5 of his 9 starts as well.

THE LACK OF DOMINANT RELIEF PITCHERS:

It’s common knowledge that today’s starting pitchers don’t put in as many innings per game as their counterparts from earlier generations. In particular, it has become extremely rare for pitchers to go 9 innings for a complete game. In 2009, Roy Halladay led the Major Leagues with 9 complete games. Overall, complete games accounted for only 3.1% of all starts. In 1985, by comparison, Bert Blyleven led all pitchers with 24 complete games. In 1975, Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter pitched 30 complete games, and even that is a fraction of the workload of pitchers in the early days of baseball. In 1879 Will White pitched a ridiculous 75 complete games. There are no active MLB players in the top 100 all time of complete games–Roy Halladay leads active players with 53, which is fewer than the all time leader Cy Young (749) would throw in two seasons.

What this means is that even if you back a starting pitcher and he turns in a solid performance, you’re still at the mercy of the bullpen. As with every facet of the game, some teams have better bullpens than others so obviously that needs to be part of your handicapping equation. Even so, there simply aren’t many dominant closers currently in MLB. Modern relief pitchers on balance get more saves than their earlier counterpart, but that’s more of a function of the changes in the game and the role of the starting pitcher than anything else. A reliever on a good team will get into more games with the lead, giving him more save opportunities. The bottom line, however, is that even if you lay a big price with a top starting pitcher he’ll likely only pitch 6 or 7 innings.

THE LENGTH OF THE SEASON:

Baseball has the longest season of any major sport, and as a result each game is of less ‘big picture’ importance. Last season, for example, the New York Yankees finished with the best record in baseball yet they lost 59 games –over 36%. The Washington Nationals had the worst record in baseball, yet they won 59 games. The difference between the good and bad teams in baseball isn’t so much in their individual game dominance, but their consistent good play throughout the year. Assuming that a team is getting decent pitching, hitting well and playing good defense no one is going to get too worked up when they lose a game here and there. Furthermore, there’s little stigma in a good team losing to a bad team in an individual game. In 2009, the LA Dodgers finished with the best record in the National League but lost two of three to the MLB worst Washington Nationals.

THE NATURE OF THE GAME:

The reality of Major League Baseball is that on any given night the league’s worst team can win an individual game against the best team. While good teams demonstrate their superiority over the long haul, each individual game is much more of a ‘coin flip’ than many inexperienced baseball bettors think. For that reason, there’s little logical or statistical justification for betting big favorites in baseball. Over the long run, you’ll realize more profits by not laying big prices and looking to back underdogs whenever possible.