A week ago the New York Yankees began their 2019 season in the Bronx against the Baltimore Orioles. Now it’s time to return the favor, as the Yanks are at Camden Yards for Baltimore’s home opener.
So much has changed in a week!
The Yankees were dealing with a few key injuries even before the season began. Now it’s become a scramble for manager Aaron Boone to put together a lineup of able bodies each night. This also presents quite a challenge to oddsmakers and gamblers. How do you properly price a team dealing with such personnel flux?
Many sharps (professional bettors) have calculated the impact on win percentage (for good or for bad) for major league players and top prospects. They can just take the injured guy out of their model…plug in his replacement…and get at least a loose estimate of new expectations. Bettors who focus more on teams stats and trends are flying blind.
Squares already learned a couple of painful lessons regarding these two teams last weekend when the world was less complicated…
*To start the season, many inexperienced bettors were thinking: “There’s no way the horrible Orioles can beat the powerhouse Yankees.”
The Yankees are on the short list of true championship hopefuls. The Orioles were horrible last year, and weren’t expected to improve in 2019.
Saturday, the Yankees (-380) lost to the Orioles (+330) 5-3 at the Stadium. If you backed the Yankees, that’s almost like losing four bets!
There are no sure things in sports betting, particularly in baseball where anything can happen within a nine-inning sprint. Offenses go through their lineups about 4-5 times in a typical baseball game. Consider those as parallel to “possessions” in football or basketball. Upsets would be more common in those sports if each team only had the ball 4-5 times. Upsets would be much less common in baseball if games lasted 18 or 27 innings.
Bad teams can beat good teams…particularly bad teams who might be better than anticipated facing good teams not enjoying 100% health.
*Worse, casual bettors then decided: “There’s no way the horrible Orioles can win TWO IN A ROW against the Yankees.”
Sunday, the Yankees (-300) lost again to the Orioles (+270), this time 7-5. While the price was only slightly less daunting, too many squares bet bigger than they should have to try to get back some of Saturday’s lost funds.
And, there were many others who passed Saturday but figured they’d “outsmarted the system” by jumping on a Bronx Bombers “bounce back” Sunday. They took the equivalent of three losses in one game because of that overconfidence.
That leaves out others who avoided betting the Yankees individually at high prices, but “lowered the juice” by combining New York with other big favorites in money line parlays. Oops.
As you consider your baseball bets this weekend, remember that it’s okay to be patient and conservative in the early stages of a long season. Try to bet on the “realities” of 2019 personnel, not square narratives.
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