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LT’s SportsBeat
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By the LT Profits Sports Group
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Wednesday, August 17, 2005
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Top MLB Teams And Unders
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It has long been assumed that most successful
Major League teams have good pitching, as good
pitching will generally stop good hitting. Well,
if this were true, would not the best MLB teams
be more apt to go UNDER in their games, assuming
that it is the pitching that controls the outcome?
Well, we put this theory to the test for 2005, and
the results through games of Sunday, August 14 are
EXTREMELY encouraging! Here is a list of the top
10 MLB teams on the Money Standings based on units
won, as well as the Over/Under record for each team:
| Rank |
Team |
Record |
Money |
O-U |
Under% |
| 1 |
CHW |
74-41 |
2280 |
44-62 |
58.5% |
| 2 |
OAK |
67-50 |
1632 |
44-63 |
58.9% |
| 3 |
ATL |
68-50 |
1167 |
55-54 |
49.5% |
| 4 |
TOR |
61-56 |
1112 |
45-65 |
59.1% |
| 5 |
WAS |
62-55 |
989 |
45-65 |
59.1% |
| 6 |
BOS |
68-47 |
873 |
52-49 |
48.5% |
| 7 |
STL |
74-44 |
853 |
53-60 |
53.1% |
| 8 |
LAA |
68-49 |
831 |
54-60 |
52.6% |
| 9 |
HOU |
63-54 |
494 |
47-65 |
58.0% |
| 10 |
CLE |
63-55 |
297 |
50-59 |
54.1% |
As you can see, 8 of the Top 10 teams have had more games
go UNDER than OVER, and half of these top tier clubs
have UNDER percentages of 58% or greater! The cumulative
record for the UNDER is 602-489, 55.2 percent, and if
we toss out the two teams with losing UNDER records
(Atlanta and Boston), the other 8 squads have a
cumulative UNDER mark of 499-382, 56.6%.
Obviously simply playing the UNDER in every game
involving these squads would have been quite profitable,
but we were curious as to how we would have fared had
we PARLAYED these Sides with the UNDER in every game.
The following list shows two vital statistics in
determining whether this endeavor would have been
worthwhile, the percentage of games where the Side/Under
parlay was a winner and the percentage of the teams
wins that went UNDER the total:
| Rank |
Team |
Side/Under Parlay |
Parlay % |
Under % of Wins |
| 1 |
CHW |
43-72 |
37.4% |
58.1% |
| 2 |
OAK |
33-84 |
28.2% |
49.3% |
| 3 |
ATL |
35-83 |
29.7% |
51.5% |
| 4 |
TOR |
33-84 |
28.2% |
54.1% |
| 5 |
WAS |
38-79 |
32.5% |
61.3% |
| 6 |
BOS |
30-85 |
26.1% |
44.1% |
| 7 |
STL |
41-77 |
34.7% |
55.4% |
| 8 |
LAA |
38-79 |
32.5% |
55.9% |
| 9 |
HOU |
36-82 |
30.5% |
57.1% |
| 10 |
CLE |
31-87 |
26.3% |
49.2% |
The biggest anomaly on this list appears to be Oakland.
After all, this is a team that is 67-50 overall with a
59 percent UNDER mark, yet the Side/Under parlay has
only hit 28.2 percent of the time. What does this tell
us? It means that they were losing games early in the
year when their offense was struggling, and they did
not turn things around until they started hitting the
cover off of the ball. Therefore, they have been more
inclined to go OVER when they when, a fact supported by
their 49.3 percent Under % in their wins. Therefore,
they are actually a bad team to use for the purpose of
this exercise. The same appears to be true for Cleveland
to a lesser extent. If we also toss them along with the
two OVER teams on the list (Atlanta, Boston), we are left
with 6 teams that we can maximize our profits with by
playing Side/Under parlays.
Generally speaking, if a team goes UNDER in more than
50 percent of its wins, it is usually more profitable to
parlay the team and the UNDER than to play the team on the
straight Money Line. All 6 of our remaining teams have a
MINUMUM Under % of Wins of 54 percent. Finally, looking
at the Parlay Percentages, we see that four of the six
teams have a success rate of 32.5 percent or more. If we
assume a line of –110 on all totals, at a 32.5 percent
parlay success rate, we would turn a profit as long as
the Side is at –160 or less. As for the other two teams,
Houston would have turned a profit up to –135 on the
Side, while Toronto would top out at –115.
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