The Beauty of Betting Underdogs in Baseball
By Loot, MLB Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
In a sport like Major League Baseball, the idea of a “favorite” and “underdog” is a bit different than in other sports. The range is closer in baseball. In other team sports, a powerful team at home against a bad team can fetch as high as a 10-1 quote at the book. It’s not that uncommon for the best teams in the NFL to win 14 or 15 out of 16 games or for the best NBA teams to win close to 70 of 82 games.
Even in one-on-one sports like tennis, boxing (Yep! We cover it!), and MMA, you will see gigantic favorites surpassing double-digits. In baseball, even finding 3-1 is not easy. That’s about as steep as you will find with any kind of regularity. Even when all the stars seem lined up, it won’t commonly go that much past -300. You can have the best team with the top pitcher in the league facing a last-place team that has lost 9 straight with a lineup full of guys up from the minors and a pitcher with an ERA of 9.00--it’s gonna be about 3-1.
In baseball, the levels of optimism can only be so high. In the NBA, If the Miami Heat lose at home to the Cavaliers, it might evoke a raised eyebrow. In the NFL, if the New England Patriots lose to the Cleveland Browns, you might say “wow.” Baseball is devoid of any such reactions. No one bats an eyelash when the Yankees lose to the Royals or when the Cardinals lose to the Astros. Barring the case of some freakish final score, no result in the regular season in baseball inspires much reaction at all. It’s all pretty much par for the course.
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We’ve all heard a guy leaving the book saying something like “I can’t believe the Giants lost to the Rockies” or something along those lines. First of all, using a game in May as an example, no team or player will approach every game like a life-or-death situation over a 162-game season. In addition, you figure even a good Giants team is gonna lose 65 times a year and that’s in a good season. That’s right out the gate. Put two pieces of red paper and one piece of blue paper in a hat. How bemused can you really be if you draw the blue piece? Even with that, you’re getting better odds than with even the best major league team. The red pieces of paper represent 66.7% of the paper you’re drawing. A team that wins at that high of a percentage would have to win 108 games--something that has happened 6 times since 1900.
Betting on underdogs in baseball is a key part of any successful betting man’s portfolio. Some shy away from it. After all, knowing you will lose more than you win is not a comforting feeling. But when we are taking underdogs with superior value, we can lose over 50% and still come out smelling like roses. We need to find the underdogs whose chances of winning are not quite as bleak as the odds indicate. Not by a ton, because the oddsmakers are not off by that much typically. Just a little.
Underdogs are underdogs for a reason and some of those reasons are less in evidence at certain times than others. Sure, the underdog is probably the worse of the two teams playing and their starting pitcher is the inferior talent of the two starters. But maybe this team has been playing better and the pitcher has been getting more wind in his sails lately. Paying attention can allow you to hone in on some underdogs receiving surprisingly good value.
A bad team is just more likely to be undervalued than a good team. Being that the line between a good and bad team is so fine to begin with, there can be some gaps in reality. In life, something that is bad is seldom as bad as it’s made out to be, while something good will always be at least slightly overrated. That can be true in baseball betting, where a lot of times--the favorites are bigger faves than they ought to be. Psychologically, people feel better betting on favorites, which means underdogs can be had at a bargain. Not always. But often.
