[metaldome]

I am looking foward to the baseball season and trying to come up with a more profitable way of looking at games and would appreciate any help. I was wondering if anyone had, or knew where I could get the MLB overall win percentage over lets say the last five seasons for the following types of stats...

1) home teams
2) teams with the better starting pitcher (season)
3) teams with the better starting pitcher (last three games)
4) teams with the better bullpen
5) teams that have won their last game vs teams that have lost their last game
(or teams on winning streaks, hot teams vs cold teams, etc.)
6) teams with the better offense
7) teams on a long road trip
(record after X amount of games on the road, or playing X amount of days in a row)

Also, What would you say is a better evaluation of a pitcher - ERA or WHIP? What would you say is a better evaluation of an offense - on base percentage, batting average, or runs per game? My though was that if you knew these records you might be able to get some idea of which stats have more impact on winning games and use this info accordingly.

If you dont know that, I am interested to see what you personally value more when capping, so put these in order of importance to your capping process...

team home/away records
pitcher home/away records
starting pitching ERA/WHIP (season)
starting pitching ERA/WHIP (last 3 games)
bullpen ERA/WHIP
streaks/recent play (last 10 games, hot teams)
team record vs pitcher
team record vs left/right handed pitching
team offense

Anything missing?

[MrX]

Originally Posted by metaldome

I was wondering if anyone had, or knew where I could get the MLB overall win percentage over lets say the last five seasons for the following types of stats...

1) home teams
2) teams with the better starting pitcher (season)
3) teams with the better starting pitcher (last three games)
4) teams with the better bullpen
5) teams that have won their last game vs teams that have lost their last game
(or teams on winning streaks, hot teams vs cold teams, etc.)
6) teams with the better offense
7) teams on a long road trip

#1 would be easy to find. The rest will require significant legwork on your part, but so do most things worthwhile.

Originally Posted by metaldome

Also, What would you say is a better evaluation of a pitcher - ERA or WHIP?

WHIP would be more predictive of future performance. Personally, I wouldn't use either.

Originally Posted by metaldome

What would you say is a better evaluation of an offense - on base percentage, batting average, or runs per game?

Again, I wouldn't chose any of these three. OBP and BA by themselves are not good measures of run-scoring ability. If forced, I would suspect that runs/game would be most predictive of future offensive performance, but you can do better.

[B1GER1C828]

if u go 2 cbssportsline.com it'll show the top 5 players vs the pitchers and such. cbs is surprisingly good for baseball for pitching stats. id also try covers.com but i dnt no how good they are for baseball 2 b honest with u

[Quebb Diesel]

never capped baseball but i would guess good offensive statistics would be BA with rsp and runs/game

[donjuan]

Batting average is about as useful as títs on a bull for handicapping.

Mr. X has it right.

[buztah]

For me, in my experience playing baseball games, the key is the bullpen. 9 times out of 10 if you fade the team with a questionable pen you will win the game. The game doesn't start until the reliever/closer takes the mound.

[Mr Nuts]

Originally Posted by donjuan

Batting average is about as useful as títs on a bull for handicapping.

Mr. X has it right.

LOL

[TPowell]

when you say your bulpen are you talking about like certain relievers not being able to pitch? (fatigue) I've never bet baseball either

[LT Profits]

Originally Posted by TPowell

when you say your bulpen are you talking about like certain relievers not being able to pitch? (fatigue)

That is certainly a valid point an important factor. Speaking in more general terms, I never bet on a team with a bad bullpen as a favorite and I never bet against a team with a good bullpen unless I am getting at least +175 or so. As to the specifics of what constitutes a "good" or "bad" bullpens, well its differemt stats for different folks!

I've got to admit that I started tracking bullpen ERA about 10 years ago, and I now realize that is not the best stat to use. BUT, I have found profitable angles using strictly ERA, so I see no reason to stop using them. However, I probably would have found more profitable angles using WHIP or dERA. I will start tracking those this year, but it would take at least three years of data before I am confident using the results for betting purposes.

[moses millsap]

Team Salaries.

[Willie Bee]

I love baseball stats but I think you have to allow them to be dynamic or fluid as far as which ones mean the most for an individual game, don't just look at one column when thinking about who to bet on in a single game. LT's note about bullpens is a good one, especially since we're seeing bullpens start to average 3-4 innings per game now as opposed to the 1-2 they were toiling not all that long ago.

Two 'stats' I look at are umpires and weather, especially since I tend to play more totals than moneylines (never play run lines, too big of a weenie to try them).

And like a lot of people, I never try to out-guess a streak plus try and keep up with how one team is doing against another over a 2-3 year span or how one pitcher dominates one team and gets eaten alive by another team, which I guess goes back to the streak thing.

[beetman]

OBP and SLG correlate to runs scored on a team level with a correlation coefficient of around 0.95.

[raiders72002]

umpires and weather,

ALWAYS look at this first although most of the time you can just throw it out.

[MJFtheGenius]

Just play the better bullpen and dogs as much as possible.

[LT Profits]

Originally Posted by MJFtheGenius

Just play the better bullpen and dogs as much as possible.

Combine those two.

i.e., play dogs that have the better pen.

[curious]

This is what I do, and I phucking killed em in baseball last year:

I rank the teams by runs scored per plate appearance last 10 games.

Then I rank the teams by total runs allowed per inning last 10 games.

Then I rank the teams by total runs allowed per inning by relief pitchers last 10 games.

Then I try to find matchups where:
A good hitting team is facing a lousy pitching team.
A good pitching team is facing a lousy hitting team.
One team has a very leaky bullpen.
Other team has a very good bullpen.

You can usually find 2 or 3 games every day that qualify.

I also play totals, I assign 1 point to each of the following characteristics in a game for the OVER, and bet any game that has a total of 4 points:
Lousy pitching team
Good run production team
So, if both teams have lousy pitching and good run production the game gets 4 points and is a definite OVER bet.

For the UNDER bet I assign 1 point to the following characteristics and bet any game that has a total of 4 points:
Good pitching team.
Bad run production team.
So, if both teams have great pitching and bad run production the game gets 4 points and is a definite UNDER bet.

I sometimes bet on the total in games where the total points are 3, if there is something I like about the game, for example the total is way too high/low (in my opinion).

[greek]

Originally Posted by curious

This is what I do, and I phucking killed em in baseball last year:

I rank the teams by runs scored per plate appearance last 10 games.

Then I rank the teams by total runs allowed per inning last 10 games.

Then I rank the teams by total runs allowed per inning by relief pitchers last 10 games.

Then I try to find matchups where:
A good hitting team is facing a lousy pitching team.
A good pitching team is facing a lousy hitting team.
One team has a very leaky bullpen.
Other team has a very good bullpen.

You can usually find 2 or 3 games every day that qualify.

I also play totals, I assign 1 point to each of the following characteristics in a game for the OVER, and bet any game that has a total of 4 points:
Lousy pitching team
Good run production team
So, if both teams have lousy pitching and good run production the game gets 4 points and is a definite OVER bet.

For the UNDER bet I assign 1 point to the following characteristics and bet any game that has a total of 4 points:
Good pitching team.
Bad run production team.
So, if both teams have great pitching and bad run production the game gets 4 points and is a definite UNDER bet.

I sometimes bet on the total in games where the total points are 3, if there is something I like about the game, for example the total is way too high/low (in my opinion).

[curious]

Originally Posted by beetman

OBP and SLG correlate to runs scored on a team level with a correlation coefficient of around 0.95.

I like runs scored per plate appearance for offense. This stat ends up getting rid of a lot of noise.

[curious]

Something I learned about last year was the importance of certain characteristics for a given # slot in the lineup. Some teams look good on paper overall but the way the manager makes the batting order puts the wrong type of hitters in the wrong slots and the team is not as effective as it could be. So, I found i useful to handicap the batter order.

Some of the characteristics that are important for a given # slot in the batting order are counter intuitive. For example, the # 2 slot. You would think that the most important stat for this hitter is OBP. You would be wrong. The number 2 hitter has to have a high Batting Average with a high percentage of extra base hits, while leaving out walks/HBP. This is not quite slugging percentage because we don't care about walks/HBP. Here is why. The most important stat for scoring runs is runners on which bases with how many outs. Obviously if you have a runner on 3rd with no outs the probability of scoring a run is very high. So, you want a number 2 hitter that moves the leadoff hitter over so that the probability of scoring is increased by one or more bases. Some would argue that a walk moves the leadoff hitter over. But, the best leadoff hitter is a hitter who gets to 2nd, 3rd, or home using his own efforts. This means a hitter who steals a lot of bases, and hits a lot of doubles, triples, and home runs. Since the best leadoff hitter won't usually be on first base anyway a # 2 hitter who gets a lot of walks is not as helpful as it appears. With a leadoff hitter who is on 2nd or 3rd (or scored with a home run) a high percentage of the time, the odds of the leadoff hitter scoring IF the number 2 hitter has a high percentage of total bases per plate appearance (throwing out walks/HBP). Interestingly, for the national league, the #3 hitter should NOT be the best RBI hitter on the team because in the national league the pitcher comes up before the #3 hitter too often. The best RBI hitter on the team should be in the #4 or #5 slot.

I find that handicapping the batting order will tell you a lot about how the team's run production will perform.

[diogee]

Great stuff in this thread...thanks for sharing that information Curious. What sites are the best to use when handicapping baseball?

[dannyt76]

Curious, that was some awesome information. Very informative stuff there. Thank you for some great posts.

[matskralc]

Originally Posted by curious

I like runs scored per plate appearance for offense. This stat ends up getting rid of a lot of noise.

Runs scored are generally less predictive of future runs scored than runs created (i.e. formulas that rely on OBP and SLG, among other statistics) are.

[Hicksey]

Hi curious,

Was hoping you could point me to a good place to get stats for the last 10 games such as runs scored per plate appearnce, total runs scored per inning, etc?

I've also been looking for a NBA database that provides scores by quarter but have not been successful. Lots of sites if I wanted to cut and paste single games.

Thanks for your time.

[mofome]

i like following streaks.

[Rufus]

I derive a model using the past 8 years for my senior essay on fundamentals vs. noise in the betting market. In the three years out of sample, this returns 3.5% a game for 7,000 games.

All I have to say is that none of the strategies listed above are going to be consistent winners. There are definite inefficiencies in the market but there are no simple hard and fast rules that are going to pay off. I've been working on this stuff for over 4 months practically full time. Not easy, but worth it. Do need a math/stat background and some programming know-how though.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Hicksey

Hi curious,

Was hoping you could point me to a good place to get stats for the last 10 games such as runs scored per plate appearnce, total runs scored per inning, etc?

I've also been looking for a NBA database that provides scores by quarter but have not been successful. Lots of sites if I wanted to cut and paste single games.

Thanks for your time.

Retrosheet has all the data you want, but it does take a good deal of processing. In general, the stats you want are never going to be perfectly set up for you. My best advise is learn a little programming--it goes a long way.

[MrX]

Originally Posted by modelman

Retrosheet has all the data you want, but it does take a good deal of processing. In general, the stats you want are never going to be perfectly set up for you. My best advise is learn a little programming--it goes a long way.

Retrosheet is perfect for developing a model. But retrosheet data isn't available until after the season is over.

So, to implement a model, you need to write something to parse the MLB.com pages or, God forbid, enter stats manually as the season progresses.

[Rufus]

Baseball-reference.com
Fangraphs

These both have good data, and if you're trying to keep up as the season progresses, it shouldn't be that difficult to copy and paste into excel. (If you are trying to put multiple seasons in, though, it would be a bit more of a task)

[brewers7]

Originally Posted by Hicksey

I've also been looking for a NBA database that provides scores by quarter but have not been successful. Lots of sites if I wanted to cut and paste single games.

Thanks for your time.

http://www.triplethreatsports777.com/products.shtml

One sample:

http://www.triplethreatsports777.com...son_Sample.xls

[rake922]

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