Baseball Prosectus...is it worth while? +ev?

[bigfishead]

Well since I had a terrible year last year in Baseball, I'm thinking I need to rethink wtf I'm doing. Is BP worth the $39 yearly subscription? Has it made YOU money? Any thoughts on how best to use it? Thanks in advance. And if you PM me some helpfull thoughts on the subject that make me money in the first month of baseball reg season I will toke you 10% of the profits via neteller or your poker acct on stars or PP!!

WHAT A DEAL!!

[mrbaseball]

[ QUOTE ]
helpfull thoughts on the subject that make me money in the first month of baseball reg season

[/ QUOTE ]

First month can be tough as you are still seeing who is and isn't playing yet. That said first month is usually pretty easy if you fade all the hype and stick to well paying dogs as the favs are more overfaved and the dogs are more underated for the first little while.

But to make money at baseball try to learn how to figure the probabilities of the line being correct or not. Don't fall into the trap of trying to predict winners. instead try to find undervalued teams (in terms of the probabilities the line offers) and bet on those undervalued situations. Since the favs, names and hype teams typically always get way overbet they aren't all that hard to find.

[mrbaseball]

Oh and by the way. I just subscribed to Baseball Prospectus. Haven't looked at it at all yet. I feel the info will be useful. But the real key will be keeping in perspective with a value approach to evaluating lines. Winners are impossible to predict in a sport where the very best only win about 60-65% of the time while the bottom end is typically 35-40% of the time.

Being able to put a reasonable probability of outcome on a game and then comparing it to the line is what tells you if you have a play or not. Not trying to guess which team will win that day.

[ZeroGravitas]

I don't know whether it will help your betting, but it's a great read either way. The Transaction Analysis alone is worth the price of admission.

[SumZero]

I've been a long time BP reader. Depending on how you set your baseball lines and on how you figure which lines are good it could be of minimal value to you or quite a lot of value to you.

Two caveats with BP from the perspective of a sports betting:

1. They are closed source on a number of their statistics and methods. This means if you want to do the leg work yourself to verify their work (like PECOTA) with back testing or are interested in defensive metrics details you are largely stuck with whatever facts they give you. I.e., they are more in the business of giving you fish than teaching you to fish.

2. They are very much focused on things from a perspective more similar to a GM of a baseball team or a fan at the start of the season and much less focused on things from a game-to-game who is going to win the next game. In many sense this makes sense, as larger sample sizes for players and teams over a season means their is more accuracy and precision in studying season and career data than in studying and predicting single game data. Obviously this is less geared to helping you price the NYY-BAL game or what not.

That said, as a thinking baseball fan it is a good deal and $39 isn't really a lot of money for anyone who bets on sports.

[DougOzzzz]

Good post. One of my complaints about BP is that they have become less about the stats and more about the writing lately. That makes it more entertaining, but less useful if you want to handicap baseball.

I think the info at BP can be very useful for betting futures. For betting individual games, it is less useful. Once you know the basic ideas (i.e., BABIP is mostly luck), there is not much info that BP can provide that will help you to handicap an individual game. One could use the PECOTA projections to develop a sim that could probably win the first month of the season - but after that the projections are essentially useless.

In other words - BP is a good site and I recommend suscribing to anyone that loves baseball. However, I wouldn't suggest suscribing if you only want to use it to help handicapping baseball. There are free sites out there (www.hardballtimes.com, www.baseballthinkfactory.org (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org), www.tangotiger.net (http://www.tangotiger.net)) that give enough info on sabermetrics to help the baseball handicapper.

[King Yao]

I think Baseball Prospectus is a great site. They produce a ton of interesting and useful articles every year. As for gamblers, it all depends on how you put it to use. I can't say for sure that it will help you win more (or lose less), but I have found many useful tidbits of information on it. But aside from that, it is interesting reading that is tough to find in mainstream media.

[bigfishead]

Well I've decided that I really suck at sports betting. And baseball is the one I want to beat. last year I felt the NYY lines were way outta line the first 1/2 when they were playing like shiit. But I wouldnt fire at them because I was "afraid", knowing they were far better than they were playing.

Other than those games last year which I felt were way outta line. I have no idea how to "find" or put a handicap # on what a line should be. So, basically I'm a newb to this and yet believe there are profits to be made and I know I'm missing them and how to gain that edge.

[SunOfBeach]

im way late on seeing this thread for some reason...

but that being said, i dont know how anyone could fathom trying to win betting on baseball without having FAR MORE THAN a subscription to bp. bp would be an absolute essential.