As we get the first weekend of MLB moved into the first full week and we transition teams playing one another, we see Webbie Odds differ on a couple of games. The odds are very consistent until we reach rotation numbers 953/954 NYM @ PHI. CIRCA odds are showing PHI -150 whereas Webbie Odds are at -105. That is a HUGE variance. Webbie Odds says coin flip and CIRCA odds say 60% win probability for PHI. I would expect that number to move down, but if can wager it now, there is a major value in NYM +135! This one is to NOT wait if can play it. The other game is rotation numbers 957/958 SD @ SF. CIRCA odds are SF -133 whereas Webbie Odds are SD -116. Webbie Odds ay the wrong team is favored! It is too early to read the market to know if SF will take in more money and move further away from Webbie Odds, but this is another one to wager now if you can. As I give out picks, so I have to be transparent in that I cannot release plays until the day of the game, but I assure you if these odds are still this far valued, they will be in the write-up. I will also tell you, I DID play these two already!
Recap from SAT: I went 3-0 as SEA/MIN stayed Under in the F5, PHI covered 0.5 F5, and SD wins with late scoring to cover the RL in ARI. The prop bets went 0-2 but were close. Both pitchers needed 4.5 Ks and ended with 4 each. Just needed them to pitch one more inning each! 0-2 for the props. 3 units won and props lost 1 unit (half a unit on them) for a 2 unit winning day in total.
For the season to date: I am 6-2 and +3.64 Units. The props are 0-2 -1 unit so the total is +2.64 units.
On to SUNDAY 04/10 selections. Again there is a very difficult schedule to navigate. Once the teams move on to their next cities this trend may not continue but for now, we still need to be creative to get some action on these games.
My first selection is rotation #906 St. Louis First 5 RL -0.5 -135. St.Louis is off to go start regarding their potent offense. They are currently 3rd in runs scored with 15 and 2nd in sabermetrics stat OFF with 7.2. The wind in St. Louis today is blowing down the line out to the left-field at 18-20mph. This will aid the offense. PIT Bryse Wilson gets the start and he sets up well for the STL offense. His xFIP 4.96 and SIERA 5.29 are 2nd highest total for pitchers today. He has a low strikeout rate, low groundball rate, and low swing and miss rate. It means balls will be in play. He has a high hard-hit rate. He has not faced STL much but when he did last season, it did not go well. He threw 4 innings allowing 8 hits and 5 runs. The STL lineup has batted 29 times getting11 hits against him. Steven Matz will face the Pirates. He was an American League pitcher last season but played in the National League prior to that so he at least had some experience against them. The PIT lineup has batted 26 times against him getting only 6 hits with only 1 extra base hit. I like STL to continue their strong offensive start today against PIT.
My second selection is rotation #913 San Diego RL -1.5 -108. My partner Jeff always says “If I wasn’t riding the trend at the beginning, I am not jumping on in the middle”. We are on the trend in the beginning and riding it until it ends. In this case, the trend is the poor offense of ARI. ARI is the 29th out of 30 teams to start and has scored only 6 runs. All be it that the SD offense has not exploded either. Today though ARI will have another mismatched pitching disadvantage as SD Blake Snell is much better than ARI Smith. SD should get some help on offense too as Smith has command issues with a BB rate of 9.19 in 9 innings! I like SD to have a bigger offensive game and this one could the one. Caleb Smith threw twice vs SD last season. He threw 4.1 innings allowing 9 hits and 8 runs! He also gave SD 9 BBs in those games! ARI batters have 60at-bats vs SNell with only 6 hits for an average of .095. I do again like the full game here as the ARI bullpen is not special and it has been used up over the last couple of games.
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.
This is a busy fast business space to be in. The growth opportunity is just unbelievable especially if we hit the timing right. Being on the cusp of many things and big deals, ECSI is looking for people to help with the workload.
We need people who want to manage marketing, sign accounts, get sponsors, and move our viewership and followers totals up. We also are wanting people that can edit shows. This person can make clips and do Instagram Reels, Twitter posts, TikToks, and such.
The best part of this is that these jobs will share in the profits of the business! This is an opportunity for someone who is willing to jump in and make things happen, take the bull by the horns, and get rewarded! I look forward to hearing from you and meeting with you!
If this is you, send us an email at: eastcoastsportsinvestors@gmail.com
