World Series 2009 Recap

In toy boy Archibald's season-long baseball pool with points for each game based on posted odds, I finished with +18.45 points by picking the American League (AL) team in all 252 regular season inter-league contests as well as the all-star game plus 5 World Series games. I will provide detailed analysis of my approach when inter-league games start next year.

Evidence of AL superiority is overwhelming. The AL sports a 57% record against National League (NL) opponents in over 1,000 regular season inter-league contests from 2005 through 2009. The AL has won 8 of the past 12 World Series and 17 of the past 26. Leaving aside the 11-inning tie in 2002, the AL has won the last 12 all-star games to reach a decision and 18 of the last 21.

If Philadelphia played in the AL, they would finish around .500 over a full season. They are no better than the Detroit Tigers (who were lucky to finish above .500) or Toronto (unlucky to finish below .500). Sure, in a short series, Detroit, Toronto or even Philadelphia could defeat the mighty Yankees every now and then. But, not this year, Philly Phanatics. And, not often in future, NL backers, until management of NL teams catches up with the more scientific approach implemented by the more advanced and successful AL franchises.

It's not just a matter of money. The LA Dodgers or NY Mets could generate the same revenues as the Yankees, Red Sox and Angels. Too bad the scarecrow's song in the Wizard of Oz is the motto for most National League franchises: "If I Only Had a Brain".

San Diego took a step forward by appointing as general manager one of the bright sparks from the Boston Red Sox office. I expect to see the Padres challenging the Dodgers in a few years, despite a much smaller budget.

It Ain’t Braggin’ If You Can Back It Up

Good news and bad news for Lady G.

The good news is that I won the slogan contest at www.crowdpicks.com without even entering.
The bad news is that my latest baseball picking experiment has been a dismal failure so far after ten days. I identified four “undervalued” teams – Atlanta, Cleveland, Seattle and Toronto – with won/loss records significantly below levels predicted by their runs for and against records. I matched them with four “overvalued” teams – Florida, Los Angeles Angels, Minnesota and Texas -- with won/loss records significantly above levels predicted by their runs for and against records.

My hypotheses are:

• “Undervalued” and “overvalued” teams will finish the season with winning percentages closer to their underlying runs for and against records. In other words, Florida, LA Angels, Minnesota and Texas can be expected to sink back to the pack over the rest of the season. At the same time, Atlanta, Cleveland, Seattle and Toronto are likely to improve.

• The odds set by gaming houses to induce an optimal balance of bets on overdogs and underdogs in baseball games may not reflect the true values of “undervalued” and “overvalued” teams.

If you’ve entered a friendly non-profit office pool picking major-league baseball (MLB) winners over the course of the season, my advice was to back “undervalued” teams and to go against “overvalued” teams.

So far, this strategy has been truly dismal -- 20 wins outweighed by 43 losses for -27.45 points with:

1 point for a win backing an overdog;
-1 point for loss backing an underdog;
+1.x points for a win backing an underdog with 1.x based on the posted odds;
-1.x points for a loss backing an overdog with 1.x based on the posted odds.

I wasn’t expecting to win 50% of my picks with this system, but I did have grounds for hoping that I would finish on the plus side with the odds factored in. My awful record over 63 games may be due to random bad luck. I plan to keep monitoring this experiment this month at least until the National Football League (NFL) season provides more diverting entertainment. Perhaps this experiment will turn around. Or perhaps we are finding out that this particular approach to baseball pool picking is a pig that won’t fly.

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

Final Inter-League Baseball Pick

If you play in a non-profit office baseball pool with points based on posted odds, you must take

NY Yankees -1.5 (or -150) at Pittsburgh.

See my previous posts on the outstanding record of American League (AL) teams in inter-league play, particularly AL teams visiting National League (NL) parks this year. The posted odds this year did not correctly adjust for AL dominance, particularly when AL teams were on the road.

Check out

http://mikesrants.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1036914.html

for a good summary of inter-league history with the AL winning 57% of all inter-league contests from 2005 on. The AL’s 59% record this year is second only to 61% AL dominance in 2006.

All sporting streaks eventually regress to the average. But, as long as the AL is dominating and preliminary evidence indicates that the oddsmakers are not correctly allowing for this dominance, stick with the AL team in any inter-league game.

I certainly hope my own sporting streak does not revert to the mean anytime soon. I'm as chuffed as chuffed can be to be ranked 5th for season W/L and 9th for CrowdScore at

http://www.crowdpicks.com/

Inter-League Baseball Results

In my 13 June post, I reminded my loyal Godivan readership that American League (AL) baseball teams have dominated inter-league play over the past few years. And, this year was no different. With one rain date to be made up later this season, AL teams have won 149 out of 251 games so far or 59%.

AL superiority is no secret. What I wanted to investigate was whether the odds offered generally foolish baseball bettors correctly reflect AL dominance. Suppose you were a player in a non-profit office pool with points based on posted odds. Our expectation is that gaming houses set odds to line up an even proportion of betting on each team so that the house profit comes from the 5% commission implicitly built into the odds. If the odds are calibrated correctly, we would expect an all-AL strategy picking inter-league winners (or any other baseball pool picking strategy) to generate net point losses of 5% over a long period of time.

In fact, with an all-AL strategy you would be +34.6 so far this year with one point awarded to an AL overdog winner, the odds awarded as points to an AL underdog winner (e.g., 1.25 for a +125 underdog), -1 deducted from an AL underdog loser and the odds deducted from an AL overdog loser (e.g., -1.25 for a -125 overdog). It’s interesting to note that this breaks down to +25.8 from AL teams’ 57% record when visiting National League (NL) opponents and +8.8 from the AL’s 62% record playing host. In other words, odds favouring AL teams hosting inter-league games turned out more accurate than odds set for AL teams on the road in NL parks.

So, we have preliminary evidence that the fools who bet on baseball may not be correctly valuing AL dominance. Of course, one season of 251 inter-league games is not a large enough sample to draw a firm conclusion. But, I will be interested to follow this trend in future years to see whether the pattern recurs.

Thanks largely to my simple approach of picking all AL teams in inter-league match-ups, I am ranked 6th at

http://www.crowdpicks.com/

NBA Final Game 6 Pick + Baseball/Soccer

Green Lady G is sticking with Boston -4.5 over LA in game 6.

I’m very nervous. I would dread facing that dastardly Kobe in a game 7.

My results so far against the spread:

All my picks 46 wins 37 losses 2 ties (55%)
My overdog picks 42-32-2
My underdog picks 4-5
Spread a factor: 3-9-2

A plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy still leads the way at 48-35-2 (58%) followed closely by all-overdogs at 47-36-2 (56%).

Through Sunday, 15 June, we now have two series of inter-league baseball games in the books. American League (AL) teams have won 57% of all games or 47 or against only 36 victories for National League (NL) teams.

I hear knowledgable Godivans asking: ``What else is new?`` AL teams have dominated inter-league play for the past several years.

What is interesting is how well you would be doing with a strategy of backing all AL teams in a non-profit office pool with points based on odds posted for fools who bet on baseball. You would be +6.3 after 83 games. If the fools who bet on baseball were correctly valuing AL dominance, we should see our net point balance gravitate to 0 over the course of an entire season. If we can maintain a positive point balance, we will have circumstantial evidence that fools who bet on baseball are not correctly valuing AL dominance.

Groups A and B are over in Euro Cup 2008 soccer football. Toy boy Archibald correctly picked three of the four qualifiers for the ¼ finals – Portugal, Turkey and Germany. He underestimated Croatia and overrated Poland. Archibald’s not perfect (far from it), but so far, so pretty good (in both his Euro Cup 2008 pool and as Lady Godiva’s consort).

Inter-league Baseball Results Series 1

I'm pleased to report success so far with my strategy of picking all American League (AL) teams in inter-league games for players in friendly non-profit office pool picking major-league baseball (MLB) winners over the course of the season.

In weekend 1 of 2008 inter-league play, AL teams continued their recent dominance taking 22 of 41 games or 54% despite the fact that National League (NL) teams hosted 8 of 14 series. If your pool points are based on odds posted for those fools who bet on baseball, you would have finished +2.2 for the weekend with an all-AL strategy. If the odds correctly value winning probabilities in each match-up and factor in commissions to cover gaming house costs, we would expect any strategy to generate negative returns over a long period.

Stay tuned for the rest of the 2008 season as we see whether the odds correctly factor almost everyone's expectation of continued AL dominance.

With just over 1/4 of the season under our belts, we have enough data to predict the playoff teams. Boston, Tampa Bay, Oakland and Cleveland will square off in the AL with Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston doing battle in the NL.

NBA Playoff and Inter-league MLB Picks

Lady G fancies:

UTAH -4 over LA
CLEVELAND -2.5 over Boston
NO over SA with whatever the USA Today point spread is.

My results so far against the spread:

All my picks 36 wins 28 losses 1 tie
My overdog picks 35-23-1
My underdog picks 1-5
Spread a factor: 1-7-1

A plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy leads the way at 41-23-1 followed closely by all-overdogs at 40-24-1.

In this post, I also look ahead to the dog days of summer after the conclusion of the NBA finals and the start of the NFL regular season -- the 2nd dullest period for North American sports fans, 2nd in tedium only to the weeks in February and March after the Super Bowl and before the NCAA basketball tourney.

Yes, there’s major-league baseball (MLB) during July and August. But, be honest. Is there anyone out there who can really enjoy an entire mid-season baseball game?

To my English eyes, the only good thing about baseball is that it doesn’t last as long as cricket.
But, during the summer MLB is the only game going for participants in friendly, non-profit office pools. If you are in a pool based on picking the winners of each game with points awarded based on odds posted for those fools who wager on sports, I propose conducting the following experiment.

Continue following your own head-or-heart approach for picking intra-league games. But, for inter-league games between American League (AL) and National League (NL) teams, use your head and always pick the AL team. Over the past 3 seasons, AL teams have won a significant majority of all inter-league games.

What I am interested in knowing is whether oddsmakers and their customers correctly value AL dominance. For the rest of the baseball season, I will report my simulated running total for a strategy placing $1 on an AL team to win more than $1 on those rare occasions when an AL underdog is facing a NL overdog and placing more than $1 to win $1 in the more common case when an AL overdog meets a NL underdog. Logic says the commission built into odds should result in a small net loss for any strategy. But, let’s see whether this is really true for a full season of inter-league play.

I will report my results next week.

In the meantime, keep taking the overdogs in the NBA playoffs.