Notes: BAL starting pitcher Wells has been a relief pitcher making 0 starts last season. He has been stretched out to a max of 53 pitches in spring training. TEX Howard is only listed at some sites as the starter so this may change in the morning.
For some reason, the NYM is not getting sportsbook love against WSH. It seems every day they are not high enough favorites. These late-night eve odds are typically moving towards Webbie Odds when they reopen in the morning. I expect to see the FAV in most of these games come down.
Recap of 04/08; I went 1-1 for 0 units making me 3-2 +.64 units for the two days of MLB. Lost on the RL with TB as they won the game 2-1. They certainly had their chances to make this a bigger margin as they left the bases loaded and scored only 1 run with the bases loaded and 0 outs in the 8th inning. I won with F5 Under 4.5 MIA/SF. Sometimes playing these F5 innings games can be very smart (or at least make a person look that way) as the game was 3-0 through 5 innings. The bullpens got involved with a final score of 6-5! TB was +115 and the Under was -120 so the net ended up at 0 units.
Today’s board is NOT easy to navigate. We do NOT want to play big favorites often. Sometimes is ok but over time we want to avoid this as a normal practice. Today there are 8 games -150 or better, and 4 more at -140 or better. We end with 12 of the 15 games being difficult to make money. There is one of these games I haven’t wagered on but might. It is the NYM @ WSH game where Bassitt is -143. My line shows NYM should be -178. The margin there is enough to make a wager, but the line has moved down from the -170 that it was last night. If that stays true closer to game time, I will likely play NYM but it is better to see if it comes even more! If I play, I will post an update saying I did.
On to what I have wagered this morning. At 2:05 pm, I played SEA/MIN F5 Under 4.5 -115. This is a match-up of Sonny Gray and Logan Gilbert. Both are fine pitchers with Gray more experienced and probably a bit better. Gilbert has 2 plus pitches, one is the fastball, and the other is the curveball. Gray has 3 plus pitches which are the fastball/sinker, cutter, and changeup. What I like here is that neither pitcher has faced the opponent hitters very often. Gilbert has only 12 at-bats against the MIN players and Gray only has 17. In these cases, the pitcher has the edge. Hitters tend to need to see repetitions of pitches, so at least early on in the game, I don’t expect much scoring. This selection is rotation numbers 969/970 SEA@MIN First 5 innings Under 4.5 -115
My second selection today starts at 4:05 pm. Here I find that OAK Irvin faces the PHI potent offense. Irvin is a pitcher who relies on his defense, so PHI will have balls in play. He does not get groundballs either with a GB% of 38.5% and has a high hard-hit rate! These make for a good PHI opportunity to get some runs. The PHI pitcher is Gibson. He is a groundball guy facing a below-average offense. I like the idea that PHI can get ahead while facing Irvin here by hitting some damaging blows. I played rotation #980 PH F5 RL -.5 -125
The third selection for today is a late game. The start time is 8:10 pm. I like to ride good play and bad play so in this case, we have ARI who has only 5 total hits in their 1st two games of the season. I have seen this before specifically with this team, but it happens to every team at some point in the season. More importantly, we need to ride put the poor offense performance with either unders or playing opposite of them. Today my choice is to play on SD Musgrove. He can be every bit as good as Darvish and Manaea have been against ARI. My number on the game is SD -205 and the odds are -160. These are too high for me to play that way, so based on the ARI offense and riding with their poor performance, I am playing rotation #964 SD RL -1.5 +100. I also like the idea that ARI is starting Davies on the mound. He is not overwhelming and relies entirely on contact. This suits the SD offense just fine. Musgrove is a strikeout guy with power which should continue ARI struggles on offense.
Additionally, two strikeout props I played today. MIN Gray Over 4.5 -144 and PIT Keller Over 4.5 +132. I played these at half units sizings.
The early look sees several teams showing some value as a dog. The teams are SEA, BOS, and COL. Granted I think it is hard to want to wager on COL against LAD. There are many games with odds over -150. In fact, 10 of the games not including one at -149. Creativity will need to be in play when wagering on Saturday. How about the final game of the day with Verlander and Syndergaard?
Today is Friday or MLB Opening Day part 2! I did not play any of the noonish games. I find the White Sox at Detroit to be the most intriguing one. Giolito goes against Rodriguez in the DET home opener. Lost of buzz around DET. My number is CHW -141 and the number is climbing to almost there at -136 up from -120. CHW is deep in the pen, and the division champs so I expect them to win the game, but I don’t like the value.
My first play is at 3:10 with the Tampa Bay Rays. Last season the Rays beat the Orioles 18 out of 19 games! This game is a spot where I believe the runline is a good wager. I am on rotation #924 TB -1.5 +115. We have a pitching match-up of McClanahan and Means. First off, Means is inferior with sabermetric SIER and xFIP results so McClanahan is the better pitcher. The important part of this is digging in a bit further to understand that TB should have no issue getting balls in play and great contact as well. Means’ barrel rate is 10.1% which is 2nd highest on the board today. He does not get a league average of strikeouts nor does he get groundballs (the Flyball rate is 47.1%). This leads to balls in play and possibly damaging hits. His repertoire is a fastball and a change-up as his best pitches. TB’s offense is very good against both of those types of pitches with 52.9 runs above avg against the FB and a 7.2 avg against the change-up. BAL struggles to hit McClanahan’s best pitches which are the FB and SL (Slider). Means threw 5 times against the Rays in 2021 and these are the scores of those games in which TB won all of them: 43-, 10-2, 10-6, 9-3, and 9-7). His totals were this 26.2 INN allowing 34 hits ad 20runs! McClanahan threw 4 times and these were scores with TB winning them all: 6-3,7-2,12-3, and 9-3. I like the idea that BAL will not score very many off McClanahan and their bullpen will give many more. Take TB on the RL +115
My second and for now last play is MIA @ SF starting at 4:35. My wager is a first 5 innings Under the total of 4 -120. MIA has a hard time scoring and will be facing Logan Webb. His pitches match up very well to MIA deficiencies in offense but most pitchers will. MIA faced Webb once and it came last season where Webb completed 7 innings allowing only 3 hits with 0 runs. Alcantara is the pitcher for MIA and I think he is great! Both pitchers have dynamic sabermetrics results for xFIP and SIERA. Both pitchers limit balls in play and have great stuff via chase rates and swing and miss rates. The best part of both of these guys is their groundball rates. Alcantara has a 51.5% rate and Webb has a 62.2% rate. It won’t be easy to get damaging hits against these guys. I don’t want to play the full game under only because I am not certain how the new look MIA bullpen will fair. Another note is that Alcantara, in his first games started of the season over the last 4 seasons (not opening day starts), has pitched 25.2 INN allowing ONLY 12H and 3 runs with 22 strikeouts. He comes ready for game #1! Take rotation numbers #913/914 First 5 UNDER 4 -120.
May find some value as the day goes on and will put out if I play anything. I will be on the show at 4:30 today with Jeff. Stop by and say hello. Follow me on Twitter @Webbie20MLB to catch the shows even though they are on all the social media services.
Waiting on some odds for today still (first 5 etc) and am not playing anything until at least the 4 pm games. I do like games in that time frame and later so will finalize later…stay tuned.
Recap of 04/07. Started with a W +1 unit on STL TT Over 4.5. STL had 4 runs by the end of the 2nd inning! Made this one a no sweat game. Ended up with 9 runs in total. In the later games, HOU +110 Valdez came through like a champ. He pitched like an ace. It was a tight game for sure (3-1) but a W nonetheless. The only loser was a bad situational loss. SD Darvish left the game throwing a no-hitter. SD left many guys on base as they could have blown it open some as they only scored 2 runs. Still leading 2-0 in the bottom of the 9th, they brought Suarez (closer from Japan). He threw 100mph! Anyway, he couldn’t find the zone and walked 2 then hit the next guy to load the bases with 0 outs. They brought in Staman who promptly wild pitched in a run. His next pitch was a homerun! Nice for playing and SD loses only allowing a total of 3 hits in the game! 2-1 days and plus .64 units but not opposed to the handicap at all.
Here is the first look at Webbie Odds for 04/08 with CIRCA lines!
Webbie Odds 04/08 @8:05pm
A couple of notes. The first note is the majority of the odds moved in the direction of the Webbie Odds line from 04/07. It doesn’t always happen that way but often. For example, MIL was -150 at CIRCA and closed MIL at -171 whereas Webbie’s Odds were -204. The line moved in the direction of where Webbie Odds thought it should have been. In this case, we should either have bet MIL at -150, or we should have passed. The same can be said for STL, ATL, and CLE. The NYM and the SD have moved away from Webbie Odds, and LAA hasn’t moved at all.
For Friday 04/08, Webbie Odds are higher on the favorites in all the games except MIA/SF, HOU/LAA. Several games are very close like BOS/NYY, CHW/DET, SEA/MIN, MIA/SF, and HOU/LAA.
A good trend to watch is whether the favorites move down or up. The reason is the timing of your wager. If you place a wager too early, you might have been able to get a better number by waiting and vice versa. A great example of this would be SD. If we bet them early, we would have paid -163 or -154 when waiting would have been only -136. Something to keep an eye on.
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If you wanted to MIL Burnes, that should have been played last night when the line was -150. Now that it has moved, the value has slipped away. We are still trying to get the best number we can and we are trying not to wager on the worst of the number. WSH Corbin seems to be popular today. It doesn’t bother me as a play as long as you keep it to a first 5 innings wager. The WSH bullpen is not very good at all and is a disadvantage against NYM. All the pitchers today are most likely to only go 4-6 innings, so bullpens will play a role. Don’t bet on the WSH bullpen! CLE Bieber is special. He is a Cy Young kind of pitcher and he has a good line against Greinke today. He has only thrown 30 pitches as a MAX in spring games so he will not make it too far today. An increase of 25 pitches doesn’t guarantee he will go 5 innings. You take an average of 15 pitches per inning to get a gauge of how many innings a pitcher may go. Here again, a first 5 seems a better play, but the numbers do not make it a smart wager. I do not mind Bieber bets, but it is too high a price (F5). I like the STL team’s total of over 4.5. I got it at -120. STL will face PIT Brubaker. Brubaker has a propensity to walk batters and allows hard contact. Guys getting on base, hard contact, is right up the STL offense alley. STL has had major success off Brubaker going 29 hits in 83 at-bats for a .337 avg with 6 HRs and a total of 14 extra-base hits. He faced STL 4 times last year going 0-4 with 21.2 innings allowing 26 hits and 16 runs! I like HOU Valdez +110 against LAA Ohtani. Yes, I like LAA this season. But I do like this spot here for HOU. They are a well rounded offense that can score multiple ways. Ohtani has NOT had much success against HOU in the past, plus he has only maxed out at 33 pitches in the spring. This will become a bullpen battle in which HOU has the edge. Lastly, I SD Darvish -136 against ARI. My number on this game is -181, so my numbers suggest a BIG value on the favorite. ARI Bumgarner is a balls-in-play pitcher so SD should have the ability to create more offense than does ARI against Darvish.
My 3 suggested wagers are STL TT O4.5 -120, HOU Vadez +110, SD Darvish -136
NBC Sports Senior VP of betting, gaming, and strategic partnerships
I have been in these lanes for many years. My partner, Jeff Dawson @ECSportsInvest (Twitter), has also been with me. We have been saying this seems like forever. It wasn’t too long ago where betting was a conversation that was held in places where privacy was a concern. If I told anyone I was wagering on the games, it was like I was a criminal! We had to send money to overseas accounts via MoneyGram and use fake receiver names and cities just to fund accounts. Times have changed and more changes are coming rapidly. States are now legalizing sports betting and there are billions of dollars in this industry.
I am in these lanes to capitalize on this business and to share knowledge that helps it grow. The more informed bettors are, the more they play. The better the data, analysis, and content, then the more enjoyable the sports become. It goes hand in hand. We pull the drapes back allowing the mysteries of wagering to be disclosed. In many ways, there are no secrets just viewpoints and analysis. Looking at sports through this lens has been an eye-opening experience and one that breathes a new intensity to games that may never have been enjoyed before. When an executive at NBC declares there will be sports betting content will be synonymous with sports content, then we are going down the correct path.
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