Baseball Pool Advice

Just for fun and to keep busy between now and the start of the NFL season, I am going to conduct another baseball experiment.

If you are a player in a non-profit baseball pool with points based on odds posted for those fools who bet on baseball, let's try the following approach for the rest of the season.

Always take the following teams:

Atlanta
Cleveland
Seattle
Toronto

Always pick against the following teams:

Florida
Los Angeles Angels
Minnesota
Texas

My system is based on the fact that Florida, LA Angels, Minnesota and Texas have better win-loss records than their talent level simply due to good luck so far this year in the way that their runs scored and runs allowed have been distributed in each game. Conversely, Atlanta, Cleveland, Seattle and Toronto have worse win-loss records than their talent level due to bad luck so far this year. I recommend picking against the "good luck" teams and favouring the "bad luck" teams on the grounds that luck is just luck and cannot be expected to continue. It may well be the case that oddsmakers and baseball bettors are fooled by won-loss records and overestimate Florida, LA Angels, Minnesota and Texas and underestimate Atlanta, Cleveland, Seattle and Toronto.

For the statistical basis of my argument that won-loss records are influenced by luck rather than talent, go to:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php

When two undervalued teams or two overvalued teams are playing against each other, I don't have any advice. For example, today Seattle is at Toronto and my system has nothing to say about which team to back.

But, undervalued Cleveland is hosting overvalued Minnesota. I recommend picking Cleveland even giving odds of -190 (or -1.9 on a 1 point scale). My guess is that oddsmakers are undervaluing Cleveland against Minnesota even with Cy Young contender Cliff Lee starting for Cleveland.

I will report back in the first week of September on the performance of my baseball pool-picking system.

In the meantime, I remain rapt to be still ranked in the top 10 at

http://www.crowdpicks.com