The first thing to realize about handicapping totals is that
you, personally, must change your mind set regarding how you pick your winner.
Your winner will be under or over a set number of runs, not one team or the
other. Therefore; your teams now are not team A vs. team B., but pitcher A +
pitcher B versus offense A + offense B. It does you no good to have 1 (high
probability) good starting pitcher versus 1 (low probability) weak starter or 1
good offense versus a much weaker offense, and it does not matter which is
which, the situation itself is bad. You cannot count on one team or the other
to succeed or fail regarding the total. That is the game situation, not the
total. You must always have the probability of both teams scoring well (over)
or both teams scoring low (under). That is why your mindset changes, starters A
and B versus offenses A and B.
You may want to start with 5 inning totals so that you do
not have to incorporate bullpens, then include full game totals after you have
the basics down pat, but we all know how weird the last 3 or 4 innings can get;
0 to 9 runs or frozen at 6, thanks to bullpen performance. You must to learn to
walk before you can run. You may be tempted to go to full game totals because
you are getting so many pushes, or half run losses. Don’t do it; those are
signs you are on the right track and just need to adjust your methodology a
little. By the time you make that leap you will be much further into the season
and have a better read on the bullpens anyway.
Factor 2; the home plate umpire. Critical, but don’t use the
wrong criteria to judge him! Too many guys will look at his over/under record,
but that may be deceptive. If he is say 7-4 to the over it may just be that his
turn in the rotation has most often come up with bad pitching versus good
offense, or 4-7 may mean he has seen mostly good pitching versus bad offenses.
What really does matter is 1) his
ball/strike ratio, which gives you a hint as to the size of his normal strike
zone (high ratio = big zone) and 2)
his K/BB ratio, which tells you whether or not he is likely to punch out a
hitter on a close 3rd strike call, or give him a break and another
pitch to look at. Through May I suggest you use 2016 stats (available on
Covers) so you have a longer history to look at and know where his average
numbers are likely to land. A guy could even track 2016 + 2017 to see if he is
trending one way or the other. Remember, these guys are reviewed and schooled
during the off season to refine their techniques and improve their reliability.
Factor 3; The weather. Wind is most important, especially if
you have fly ball pitchers with low K/BB rates involved. Covers provides a
weather section in the game matchups and is mostly reliable, but I prefer to go
weather..com and enter the zip code of the park to get an hour by hour weather
projection. To do so you must also know the park playing field layout.
Traditional parks are laid out with home plate in the southwest corner, so if
the wind will be blowing out of the south it will be blowing out to left field,
capice? But all parks are not laid out that way anymore and a good example is
Chicago, where Wrigley Field has the traditional layout, but Comiskey Park has
home plate in the NORTH west corner,
so a wind from the south is blowing IN
at home plate. Do not ignore this factor as totals can be dependent on just one
fly ball making the fence or dropping a foot inside it.
The first thing to realize about handicapping totals is that
you, personally, must change your mind set regarding how you pick your winner.
Your winner will be under or over a set number of runs, not one team or the
other. Therefore; your teams now are not team A vs. team B., but pitcher A +
pitcher B versus offense A + offense B. It does you no good to have 1 (high
probability) good starting pitcher versus 1 (low probability) weak starter or 1
good offense versus a much weaker offense, and it does not matter which is
which, the situation itself is bad. You cannot count on one team or the other
to succeed or fail regarding the total. That is the game situation, not the
total. You must always have the probability of both teams scoring well (over)
or both teams scoring low (under). That is why your mindset changes, starters A
and B versus offenses A and B.
You may want to start with 5 inning totals so that you do
not have to incorporate bullpens, then include full game totals after you have
the basics down pat, but we all know how weird the last 3 or 4 innings can get;
0 to 9 runs or frozen at 6, thanks to bullpen performance. You must to learn to
walk before you can run. You may be tempted to go to full game totals because
you are getting so many pushes, or half run losses. Don’t do it; those are
signs you are on the right track and just need to adjust your methodology a
little. By the time you make that leap you will be much further into the season
and have a better read on the bullpens anyway.
Factor 2; the home plate umpire. Critical, but don’t use the
wrong criteria to judge him! Too many guys will look at his over/under record,
but that may be deceptive. If he is say 7-4 to the over it may just be that his
turn in the rotation has most often come up with bad pitching versus good
offense, or 4-7 may mean he has seen mostly good pitching versus bad offenses.
What really does matter is 1) his
ball/strike ratio, which gives you a hint as to the size of his normal strike
zone (high ratio = big zone) and 2)
his K/BB ratio, which tells you whether or not he is likely to punch out a
hitter on a close 3rd strike call, or give him a break and another
pitch to look at. Through May I suggest you use 2016 stats (available on
Covers) so you have a longer history to look at and know where his average
numbers are likely to land. A guy could even track 2016 + 2017 to see if he is
trending one way or the other. Remember, these guys are reviewed and schooled
during the off season to refine their techniques and improve their reliability.
Factor 3; The weather. Wind is most important, especially if
you have fly ball pitchers with low K/BB rates involved. Covers provides a
weather section in the game matchups and is mostly reliable, but I prefer to go
weather..com and enter the zip code of the park to get an hour by hour weather
projection. To do so you must also know the park playing field layout.
Traditional parks are laid out with home plate in the southwest corner, so if
the wind will be blowing out of the south it will be blowing out to left field,
capice? But all parks are not laid out that way anymore and a good example is
Chicago, where Wrigley Field has the traditional layout, but Comiskey Park has
home plate in the NORTH west corner,
so a wind from the south is blowing IN
at home plate. Do not ignore this factor as totals can be dependent on just one
fly ball making the fence or dropping a foot inside it.
Factor 4; the park itself. Thanks to geography, the Jet
Stream, and prevailing conditions, some parks are just naturally pitcher’s
parks (low scoring) or hitters parks (high scoring). Generally speaking, the
Western Divisions in both leagues have a majority of low scoring parks,
especially those that actually border the Pacific Ocean, Seattle, Oakland, San
Francisco, LA Dodgers, LA Angels (the worst) and San Diego. Both Eastern
Divisions host the highest scoring parks, especially the AL East with 4 of 5
being hitter’s parks. The Red Sox and Angels could meet up in Boston with the
scores going 6-5, either team winning, and play at Anaheim with the scores
going 3-2, either team winning.
Whether or not one team, or both, are hot or not, has
practically nothing to do with it. They may have faced weak pitching lately or
good pitchers that simply had a bad day. It is even possible some of the hits
that made them hot were darn close to being easy outs, but made the fence or
just barely dropped in there at the opportune moment. Luck cannot be factored
in or out of any game. If a team averaged 5 runs per game the last week and
versus the last 4 lefties they faced, does that mean they are likely to do that
versus Kershaw in Dodger Stadium? I think not.
Like handicapping anything else (or being a success in any
field of endeavor) baseball totals are a matter of education, experience, valuable
information, judgment and discipline.
Now, get to work. Unlike what you read in the Covers forums
there is no such thing as a “Lock” or an “E-Z” pick. Occasionally someone may
post one that comes in and looks easy, but does that handicapper actually make
money over the course of a season, 5 years, or 10 years?
Good luck, and I sincerely mean that.
Factor 4; the park itself. Thanks to geography, the Jet
Stream, and prevailing conditions, some parks are just naturally pitcher’s
parks (low scoring) or hitters parks (high scoring). Generally speaking, the
Western Divisions in both leagues have a majority of low scoring parks,
especially those that actually border the Pacific Ocean, Seattle, Oakland, San
Francisco, LA Dodgers, LA Angels (the worst) and San Diego. Both Eastern
Divisions host the highest scoring parks, especially the AL East with 4 of 5
being hitter’s parks. The Red Sox and Angels could meet up in Boston with the
scores going 6-5, either team winning, and play at Anaheim with the scores
going 3-2, either team winning.
Whether or not one team, or both, are hot or not, has
practically nothing to do with it. They may have faced weak pitching lately or
good pitchers that simply had a bad day. It is even possible some of the hits
that made them hot were darn close to being easy outs, but made the fence or
just barely dropped in there at the opportune moment. Luck cannot be factored
in or out of any game. If a team averaged 5 runs per game the last week and
versus the last 4 lefties they faced, does that mean they are likely to do that
versus Kershaw in Dodger Stadium? I think not.
Like handicapping anything else (or being a success in any
field of endeavor) baseball totals are a matter of education, experience, valuable
information, judgment and discipline.
Now, get to work. Unlike what you read in the Covers forums
there is no such thing as a “Lock” or an “E-Z” pick. Occasionally someone may
post one that comes in and looks easy, but does that handicapper actually make
money over the course of a season, 5 years, or 10 years?
Good luck, and I sincerely mean that.
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