EARLY SEASON BASEBALL BETTING

With Opening Day approaching, baseball bettors are getting impatient. It will be great to hear "Play Ball!" again, and to see those daily odds on meaningful games once more, but we all need to remember some truths about early season betting.

There is a strong temptation to bet too early and too often. Remember that we have to be in it for the long haul - there are about 200 days in a baseball season, and with 30 teams there are over 2400 games to be played, with 2400 possible totals plays also. So there are nearly 4900 possible plays ahead of us when we begin in April! We can take our time, and pick our best spots!

The author tries and tries, but usually cannot overcome the temptation to play Opening Day games - like most baseball bettors. But often these are the worst games to play. Consider:

• there is no current season history at all, except a possibly misleading exhibition game record;
• the players have just traveled from warmer climates to the North or East and must adjust;
• many players, especially rookies, have just survived final cuts and may be distracted while looking for temporary homes in the new city;
• the local press (and national TV) is giving Opening Day a bigger buildup than most games get.

But the uncertainties do not stop us - we end up playing those unpredictable openers anyway! In recent years we look for one or two teams whose good pitching combined with poor hitting makes them good 'under' plays early in the season (or the reverse, making their games 'over' possibilities). This can help in the first 10 days or so, especially to blunt the urge to bet a lot of games.

The early-season is full of great possibilities and profits, and also big pitfalls for the unwary or uninformed bettor. The worst problem, as mentioned above, is making too many bets too early, before the season has any shape or form. Last year's and other historical records can be very helpful, but we all need a little dose of this year to put firm ground under our feet. Histories and last year's stats are a big help, but not the total answer. Too often a bettor jumps in hard and finds that an early bad streak spoils his whole season. We get a lot of calls in May from people who sound desperate. Everybody betting baseball should have enough of a bankroll and be cautious enough to be still in the game on Memorial Day, for sure. Everybody should be shooting for a profit all the time of course, but if you have had some fun and are breaking even and it is September, you have had a successful season by reasonable standards. Don't take that away from yourself in April.

Other pitfalls are associated with the great opportunities of springtime betting. When a new season begins, opinions about the relative abilities of the teams often seem to be set in stone. The so-called experts (including me) have had months to say over and over again who improved in the off season and who fell back. Publicized free agents and other obvious changes in team makeup may cause a distorted view of the teams. This year teams like the Mets, Blue Jays, and White Sox among others  made big acquisitions of new players. It is easy to dwell on those facts to the exclusion of all else, and automatically assume these teams will be better than they were last year. But those teams may not actually be any better and bettors can get badly burned by them. Many baseball gamblers were very disappointed by a couple of teams' poor records last season, after experts had built them up all winter. And teams full of hungry young players can be motivated to over-achieve by the high-profile high-salary opponents they face.

Even when the experts are right, there is no guarantee that a good team will not start the season in a slump and still win a pennant. Sooner or later all good teams will slump, and all bad teams will win a few in a row. Not only can this happen at the beginning of the season, it seems to happen more often in April - actually the newness of the season magnifies the streak in our minds.

FLEXIBILITY IS THE KEY TO A SUPERIOR APRIL!

A few bad teams will start out winning (and those underdogs will profit you if they are merely breaking even in the W-L), and a few good clubs will start out losing. Some will revert to their expected level, and some will not. Despite what any of the experts say, the bettor who is flexible and not opinionated, open and not closed to the idea of expectations being wrong, will prosper almost every April. A few years ago a friend made his whole season in the early going, by being unafraid to bet on a pair of 'down' teams when expert opinion said they were losers. At one point that season Pittsburgh had a winning W-L record as road underdogs and the national TV media was still doing stories about how they could not win with such a low payroll. Last year the Tigers and Marlins performed unexpectedly well  all year, and later in the season the Blue Jays improved considerably.

We are told too often that money-payroll-bucks win games. Those who swallow that new cliché unquestioningly will suffer at times, because it is runs that win games, and they cannot be bought. The line takes these attitudes about payroll into account. Because of the public & media emphasis on salaries, we plan to look closely at the chances of all the poor-paid teams, those underdog possibilities.

SPRINGTIME TIPS:

• Overall spring training records are not to be trusted, but pay attention to the last week or ten days before season-opening for teams ready to start the season winning and pitchers who are throwing quality games. We will publish data on this right before the season begins.

• Be wary of rookie starting pitchers who make the team in spring training. Often they have impressed by getting out minor league hitters and veterans not in shape, in warm weather. Wait until they have three starts under their belts. All things considered, the rookie who comes up in May after a month of minor league success is more apt to win for you than the spring training starter.

• A starter's previous success or failure in April games can be a good (but not perfect) guide to his April this year.

• In the first ten days of the year, make sure a team you bet on won its prior game - this small rule has prevented many bettors from jumping on a team as it started a losing streak. Not a bad rule (flexible variety) at any time of the year.

• Look for weak links in starting rotations. Especially in recent years, some starters get their jobs by default. The worst of them will lose and lose until the manager sends them to the bullpen or the minors. We love to bet against them. Cash a few bets by going against obvious incompetents and starters who are 1.00 or more worse in ERA for last season than the other starters on their team. If they throw a winning quality start or a 4 or 5 Game Rating game, take them off the "bet against" list.

• Cold weather seems to benefit hard-throwing pitchers. Cold, wet night games are the worst for hitters. Look for under opportunities in those. The opposite can be true when warmer weather sets in, around mid-May. Seasons often seem to change at the Ides of May - players get into better shape or recover from injuries, cold weather pitchers start having trouble, managers finally dump the incompetents, some managers may get dumped themselves, etc. Angles and trends that led to betting wins in April & early-May might abruptly reverse themselves.

• Avoid betting against a top pitcher on an early winning streak. Never try to pick when a team's losing streak will end.

• Flexibility and good information are important to betting success all season!

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