Baseball Betting Strategy- Critique My Method

First off let me say I don't believe this is a perfect strategy. I believe overall if I were to turn this into a system it would likely profit 15-30 units but i'm hopeful of more. I'm posting because I think there are elements or possibilities that I might be missing that could maximize it's potential. That's where you- the Covers forum users come in. I have theories and some data but overall I lack the experience and know-how of many more experienced gamblers here. I'd like your thoughts and ideas on my strategy.


Last year I did a lot of reading betting forums and even paid $50 for a system regarding blind baseball betting theories. Most of it was pretty random and always seemed like 50/50 propositions at best however some of it made sense and a few of the systems looked pretty special.


So I made my own 'system' made up of other systems. It started pretty well and then the bottom dropped out, then it rebounded. Again i'm sharing it here and a few of my ideas in order the fully grasp the possibilities ...if there are any tweaks or adjustments you can think of to be made let me know... I appreciate all comments and advice.

The Systems- I'm sure many of you have heard of these and probably have the stats on some of them. I can't take credit for any of them but think all are unique and make sense.


1. Blindly fade teams on their 3rd & 4th Road series. Overall last year I believe this strategyended at about 53% which was would have netted you negative profits because basically you're betting home teams every time out which requires a lot of juice. However one article I read had this theory consistently registering in the upper 50 percentile which would likely mean positive profitibility. Is it possible last year may have been an off-year? Is it possible this could be a great year for this as the WBC extended spring training? The simple idea of this is that teams on long roadtrips might become tired or disinterested and not perform to potential.

The Systems- I'm sure many of you have heard of these and probably have the stats on some of them. I can't take credit for any of them but think all are unique and make sense.


1. Blindly fade teams on their 3rd & 4th Road series. Overall last year I believe this strategy ended at about 53% which was would have netted you negative profits because basically you're betting home teams every time out which requires a lot of juice. However one article I read had this theory consistently registering in the upper 50 percentile which would likely mean positive profitability. Is it possible last year may have been an off-year? Is it possible this could be a great year for this as the WBC extended spring training? The simple idea of this is that teams on long road trips might become tired or disinterested and not perform to potential.

2. Blindly betting home favorites in game 3 of a series versus non-divisional opponents. I'm not sure who or how they came up with this, but this system hit at a whopping 59% last year! I'm hoping for similar results in 2009.

3. Blindly bet on teams that scored double-digits (10+) in their previous games. This strategy started really well last year but crumbled to only a 52% winning percentage in the end netting in the negative. I like this strategy a lot however don't know the history on it but hoping it rebounds to a higher percentage in 2009. Maybe there's some way to tweak it? Maybe only betting teams with a higher winning percentage?

4. I have to credit Covers user Cisco for this one. I just used a modified version of his home favorite system and bet games 1 and 2. For those unfamiliar you basically wait for a team winning at .470 to lose three home games as a favorite above -110 and chase. My chase ends after two games. Cisco's a genius! I believe this modification led to a winning percentage of around 65%!

5. Doubleheaders. Blindly bet the winner of game #1 in game #2. Not much strategy to this, it just seems to me there are far more doubleheader sweeps then there are splits.

6. Interleague system. Bet on the American league team in game 1 of an interleague series. I don't know why this wins but it has for about 10 straight years!

THESE STRATEGIES INTO A SYSTEM:


I did this last year and was somewhat happy with the results. I don't have the numbers handy but overall it hit at a 55% clip. In April, combining the strategies only won about 10 games more than lost netting only a slight profit. In May, the system exploded and won about 25 more games than lost netting about 18 units if I remember correctly. In June, it again won about 10 more games than lost however because of  juice there was a slight profit loss. July is when the system took a dump and had an awful month and lost an incredible 28 games more than won. In August, it rebounded and won about 31 more games than it lost. In September it only won a few more games than lost however was in positive units.


Overall it was a successful investment but only netted about 20 units. I really thought it would be more and as of everything I read by all rights it should have done better. I wish I had the exact numbers but I don't anymore.

MY STRATEGIES FOR 2009:


I plan on following the system again in April and May. I'll likely take June off aside from the Interleague system. I'll avoid July hoping for similar results as last year. If that should come to fruition i'll double my bets in August. We'll see where i'm at in September...


Secondary strategy: If there are any terrible losing months in the system i'll absolutely hammer the next one as i'm positive it will net positive units.


I plan on posting all system picks and keeping track in the baseball betting forum this year. If there are any questions or comments let me know. Especially bettors with experience in any of the above strategies...


                                                      Thanks.

Typos:

Secondary strategy: If there are any terrible losing months in the system i'll absolutely hammer the next MONTH as i'm certain it will net positive units.



*While using the system occasionally picks would overlap. Like say the Angels were on the first game of their 3rd road series however scored 10+ runs the night before... To solve this dilemma I put the strategies in this order:


1. Fade road teams on their 3rd/4th road series
2. Home favorites in game 3 of a series coming off a loss in game 2 v. a non-divisional opponent.
3. Tailing Teams scoring 10+
4. Cisco's modified system
5. Doubleheader strategy
6. Interleague Strategy


So in this order/case your play would be to fade the Angels

Coolfront, not trying to attack you here my man as i am somewhat inexperienced betting baseball, but do you have a stat for doubleheader sweeps? I have abolutely no stats to back this up right now, but i would definitely say that i feel there are far more splits than sweeps. I believe that after a team wins the first game they are sometimes satisfied with the day and can let up in game2. Just my opinion tho, i wish you the BOL this season!

The winning % would actually be higher if you only used top ranked teams. Seattle for instance last year was terrible in this situation. What do you think CoolFront?

And any baseball system that bets favorites consistently is going to have win more than 59% to be worth it - you will killed on the juice on losing home favorites.   As Stever1 said, you might think about applying some type of winning % filter on this to knock out bad teams.

Thanks for the tips guys... I think i'll run my system as normal posting on Covers but maybe knockout the lower 15 teams percentage wise from May 6th on... I think by then we should have a good idea who the bad teams are. I'll keep track on a separate spreadsheet, see how different the results become.


Blue'n'orange- I don't really have any stats to back up my doubleheader theory either however I KNOW there were more sweeps than splits in 2008. I'll try to come up with the data later if I have the time which I should. Thanks for the well wishes though. BOL to you as well!

Coldfront, i took one of your systems into consideration and tweaked it, my system now is playing top ranked teams after they have lost 2 straight at home.

My teams are TB, BOS, NYY, CLE, MIN, LAA, PHI, NYM, CHI, LAD, ARZ.

the record doing this last year with these teams was 52-18. and the average chalk per each game averaged out to -135.

so betting 100 dollars a game, you would have made 5200-2025 for a profit of 3175.

Stever1,

          Is that not  5200  -  2430      for a 2770.00  gain

    18 losses x -135 average = 2430  not  2025

Also you would have layed on ave -135 x 70 games =    9450.00

                                                    52 wins x 100  =  + 5200.00

                                                   18 losses x 135=  -  2430.00

                                                            GAIN      =     2770.00

                  Still very good about a 30% return in 5 months or so!

Does that sound right to you guys?