Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting
07/23/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Philadelphia Phillies seemed confident with Roy Halladay on the mound earlier this season. Lately they've been fortunate to get a win when the former American League Cy Young Award honoree starts.
Halladay will get the nod again Friday in the opener of a four-game series versus the visiting Colorado Rockies at Citizens Bank Park and is just 2-5 with a 2.95 earned run average in his last eight starts. The Phillies are 3-5 in that stretch and Halladay is coming off Sunday's 11-6 loss against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
The right-hander surrendered six runs -- five earned -- and seven hits in six innings after lasting at least nine innings in each of his previous two outings. Halladay fell to 10-8 in 20 starts and raised his ERA from 2.19 to 2.40 following his Windy City appearance. He will pitch against Colorado for the second time this season and did not figure into the decision of a 4-3 loss to the Rockies on May 12 at Coors Field.
Halladay allowed three runs, two of which were earned, and 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings. He is 1-0 with a 1.17 ERA in two career starts against the Rockies.
The Phillies have been brutal lately and were able to salvage the finale of a four-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals with Thursday's 2-0 win in 11 innings at Busch Stadium. Placido Polanco homered to lead off the 11th inning and Jayson Werth later added an RBI double for a 2-0 score. Brad Lidge then posted his eighth save in the bottom half and Chad Durbin posted the win by getting the last two outs in the 10th inning.
Cole Hamels started for the Phillies and allowed just one hit over eight innings with seven strikeouts for the no-decision.
"We were getting single after single and to finally get a round-tripper, that's huge for us," Hamels said of Polanco's homer in the 11th. "Hopefully we can take this sort of game and momentum into tomorrow."
Philadelphia, which ended a four-game slide and is seven games behind the Atlanta Braves for the National League East lead, improved to 2-6 in eight games since the All-Star break and made a coaching move yesterday by relieving hitting coach Milt Thompson of his duties. Thompson had been the team's hitting coach since 2005 and will be replaced by another former Phillie in Greg Gross. Gross had been a coach with the Triple-A Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs for the past three seasons.
The Phillies finished second in the Senior Circuit in scoring in 2005, first in 2006 and 2007, second in 2008 and first again in 2009. They are 12th in the NL this season in batting (.254) and on-base percentage (.322).
Colorado will begin the final stretch of its 11-game road trip and lost three of four games in south Florida. In Thursday afternoon's 3-2 loss from Sun Life Stadium, Ronny Paulino singled home the game-winning run off of Rockies reliever and losing pitcher Jhoulys Chacin.
Jorge De La Rosa held the Marlins to a pair of run and three hits over six innings in his third start since coming back from a left middle finger injury.
"I never lost my confidence," De La Rosa said on the team's site. "I'm going to try to be the same pitcher I was last year, and like I pitched today."
Ian Stewart homered and Jason Giambi finished 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Rockies who have lost six of eight games and are 2-5 on its road trip. Colorado is also 4 1/2 games behind San Diego for the NL West lead.
Taking the mound for the Rox tonight will be Aaron Cook, who is 2-0 in his last three starts and is coming off a solid performance in Sunday's 1-0 win at Cincinnati. Cook tossed seven shutout innings and struck out five batters to improve to 4-5 in 18 starts to go along with a 4.56 ERA.
Cook is just 1-5 in 10 road start this season and will take on the Phils for a second time in 2010. The righty allowed three runs in six innings of a 4-3 win at Coors Field back on May 12 and did not factor in the outcome. In 10 career games (9 starts) against Philadelphia, Cook is just 1-5 with a 5.70 ERA.
Colorado and Philadelphia split that weather-beaten series at 1-1 back in May, while the Phillies have won 11 of the last 14 matchups between the two clubs.
<< Posey and the Giants play second of four with Diamondbacks
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Trading catcher Bengie Molina to the Texas Rangers could be
the best move the San Francisco Giants make all season. Buster Posey is
certainly on board with the decision and has been proving it ever since.
Posey and the Gia
<< Cabrera-led Tigers continue series with Blue Jays
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Miguel Cabrera's primary goal is to help the Detroit Tigers
capture an American League Central title. Still, one would think the
possibility of becoming baseball's first Triple Crown winner in 43 years has
got to cross the Al
<< Nationals seek third straight win in opener with Brewers
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Washington Nationals hope to build off a very
encouraging showing in their most recent series when the club travels to
Miller Park tonight to start up a three-game set with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Washington enters this
<< Santana hopes for a little run support in LA
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Scoring runs is vital to winning baseball games. The New
York Mets must have missed that memo.
The suddenly-dismal club will try to cross the plate a few times tonight in
the second portion of a four-game series against th
Mets designate Nieve for assignment; recall Acosta >>
Flushing, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Mets have designated pitcher
Fernando Nieve for assignment and recalled pitcher Manny Acosta from Triple-A
Buffalo to fill the roster spot.
Nieve was 2-4 with a 6.00 earned run average in 40 games
Stars, Brunnstrom avoid arbitration >>
Frisco, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Dallas Stars and Fabian Brunnstrom have
agreed to terms on a one-year contract that will pay the left wing $675,000
for the upcoming 2010-11 season.
The deal was struck Friday morning before a schedu
Rangers seeking to stretch lead over Angels in AL West >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Runs were hard to come by for the Los Angeles Angels of
Anaheim in Thursday's opener of a four-game series versus the hosting Texas
Rangers. They'll need a quick fix tonight, given Joe Saunders' career-long
struggles against
Wood hopes for some support in Reds' clash with Astros >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In a perfect world, Cincinnati Reds starter Travis Wood
would be trying for his third straight winning start. However, no offensive
support in a pair of 1-0 setbacks has the 23-year-old still in search of his
first major leag
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
To visit this sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your Sportsbook accepts Visa needs.
Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting