Baseball, like most sports, is a game of scoring runs and preventing runs. The most important part of predicting these outcomes is the worth of the starting pitcher. That is where everyone begins and ends! However, most people with this as their focus will be a 50% bettor. A pitcher like Zack Wheeler of the Phillies is graded as the best pitcher in the game today. This year he has made six starts. The Phillies are 2-4 in those starts. If you wagered all of his games, you would be down $316 on $100 wagers. Thus, there is more to it than this. I can get into handicapping the bullpens at another time as this is another area where teams are differentiated. The number one missing or overlooked analysis for predicting MLB games is the differentiation of each team’s ability to score runs. It’s the offense. If you are not putting a significant amount of analytical work there, you are missing the 2nd largest determining factor in these games.
This season we have teams that have scored 140+ runs, with ARI at 149. We also have teams that have scored >85 runs with the White Sox at only 56! The chart below shows OFF WAR rankings. OFF WAR = Offensive WAR. OFF WAR is the offensive part of WAR that you are used to seeing, but WAR also includes and is heavily weighted for defense. We can take the defense out.
The offense is very tricky. Players and teams go hot and cold in a matter of days. A perfect example of this is to show the last 7 days’ results just like above. Look at a team like the Minnesota Twins. Over the season they are ranked 21st, yet over the last 7 days, they are ranked 3rd! The Twins are not the same team they were several weeks ago. They are better and not all sportsbook odds will give them credit for this turnaround. We can capture value this way. Another example but opposite is the New York Yankees. They are the 8th-best offense for the season, but only the 24th-ranked offense right now. Hence they split 4 games with OAK.
Scoring runs is about getting the opportunities to score them. To get opportunities, you must get on base. When looking at pitchers, we need to focus on how they limit or allow those baserunner opportunities. We must look at the offense to see if they can take advantage of the opportunities provided. So far this season. there have been 3,316 runs scored and there have been 6,146 hits. For simplicity, it takes two hits to score a run. It is more complicated and walks need to be added, yet you get the idea. We can now look at pitchers in terms of hits and walks they allow and the offense’s ability to do something with those opportunities. When you are just looking at the pitcher and his ERA, you are missing a huge chunk of how to analyze a game.
The offense is just not that simple either, but that is a good start. Another aspect is called clusters. A batting order consists of nine players. If there are batters that are hitting in that order back to back or at least with three of each other, they will have a cluster effect. Let’s say we are talking about the Dodgers. Their order is Betts, Ohtani, Freeman, Smith, Hernandez, and Muncy. We can take a look at the OFF WAR individually as well as for a team. Again, it doesn’t matter what they did several weeks ago only what they are doing now. The chart below is for the Dodger’s performance for the last 7 days.
Here we see a perfect illustration of a cluster. Betts, Ohtani, and Freeman are their 3 best hitters! They all bat in their order together so they should have more opportunities to be baserunners than fewer. We can take advantage of this when considering the run line. A team like the Dodgers will be difficult to wager on the money line and still have value due to their prices. However, there are spots where based on how the clusters are working, they should be expected to cover run lines.
So, don’t be short-sided in your analysis of baseball predictions. The starting is the main focus, but the offense is critical to turning a 50% winning bettor into one closer to 60%. There many ways analyze the sport, but hopefully these simple steps will help you along the way.