When it comes to wagering on MLB games the moneyline is by far the most popular bet. The sportsbooks set the odds for a particular baseball matchup by raising the amount of money you have to risk to win $100 on the favorite verse the amount of money you can win on a $100 bet by wagering on the underdog. The following is a couple of betting tips to keep in mind when looking for value in the moneyline numbers for any MLB game.
Recent Betting Trends
If you are the type of bettor that believes that the recent past is a good indication of what might happen in the future, then wagering on MLB moneylines is right up your ally. Every sport relies on past trends to help paint a picture for future outcomes, but baseball takes this concept to a whole higher level as compared to football, basketball and hockey.
To help you breakdown a particular MLB game, you can study a team’s betting trends against almost anything. Along with traditional betting trends for home and road games, past records against a certain team and for games played on certain day, there are a number of betting trends that are completely unique to the sport of baseball.
A few examples include win/loss records in the first or last game of a new series, a team’s past performance against a right-handed or left-handed pitcher and a team’s record at home or on the road when a particular starter in on the mound. There are even trends for a team’s performance when a certain home plate umpire is calling the game. The combination of all these trends often times paint a very clear picture as to what the outcome of that matchup may be.
Betting on Home Underdogs Angle
Since you have to risk additional money to wager on a favorite, the best return on a MLB moneyline bet is when you correctly pick an underdog in an upset. Since each team’s starting pitcher has the heaviest influence on every moneyline set for baseball, sometimes it pays to focus your attention on a home team that has been listed as an underdog. While you would probably want to avoid betting against a team’s ace starter even when they are pitching on the road, there are usually a few opportunities to bet a home underdog when starting pitching is not a huge factor.
There is an inherent value built in to playing at home in the MLB. Batters know all the little nuances at their home park such as wind patterns and outfield wall distances that can sometimes be deceiving. Many times a team will have one or two pitchers in its starting rotation that perform much better in the friendly confines of their own ball park as opposed to how they pitch on the road. All of these little things tend to add up and often times they are not reflected in the actual moneyline because of the weight that is put on the starters.
The Fatigue Factor
A single game of baseball itself is not a physically taxing affair unless you are a starting pitcher. However, when you start to add up all the wear and tear that comes from playing a 162-game schedule with half the contests on the road, the cumulative effect will sometimes take its toll.
This factor really starts to kick-in once the stretch run towards the postseason begins after the annual MLB All-Star break in mid-July. To take advantage of this fatigue factor when betting on the games, the kind of matchups you want to look for is a team that is in the midst of an extended road trip playing a team that has been playing at home for an extended amount of games.
The biggest opportunity for fatigue to be an important factor is in the first game between the two teams in a new series. The road team may have had to travel on the same day it opens a new series if it played the night before. The home could have had a day off before starting this new series. These are the kind of things that often times will provide additional value for the home team’s moneyline for that individual matchup.
