Breaking Down The Wagerline Numbers: June

I did this for April/May, and thought it was worth doing again. This time the discrepancies we'll see are based more on actual results, rather than preseason perceptions.

I'm skipping right past the average percentages, and straight to the adjusted ones. The line on the game explains about 63% of the variation of which team the public is going to bet on, so any unadjusted list is just going to include lots of bad pitchers on one end, and studs on the other.

First, June's most undervalued starters; the guys who have gotten significantly less public backing than we'd expect from their game lines (min. 5 June starts):

Bedard's reputation has taken an extremely sharp downturn; I guess that's what happens when you get traded to Seattle. A year ago he struck out 15 Rangers in one game, and was on his way to putting together 5/6 of a Cy Young campaign before getting injured. At the beginning of last month, he was 4-4 with a 4.47 ERA. That drop in the perception of him caused the above gap, and he's actually been quite good in his last five starts (1.82 ERA). Of course, with that offense behind him, the Mariners are only 3-2 in those games.

Some of these are pretty standard; Harang and Jimenez are pitchers who have been significantly better than their record would indicate. Billingsley is 8-7 now, but that's because he's won his las four starts. It's unlikely there will be value in betting on him, and his 9.3 K/9, for long, so enjoy it while it last, until people catch on.

Joba is a surprise here. It's possible that he is so overhyped that pretty much everybody realizes it, and they forget that he's actually pretty damn good. He needs to get the walks down, but in 35 innings as a starter, he's struck out 37 and allowed just one home run.

It's not entirely clear why Hamels was undervalued, as the ace of a team with one of the best records in baseball. I suppose he was only 5-4 with a 3.73 ERA through the first two months, but that's not exactly awful. I guess that's kind of the point, though.

Here are the most overvalued, based on the opposite criteria:

Despite allowing 12 homers and striking out just 24 in his first 59.1 innings, Byrd had a 4.10 ERA through the first two months. People saw right through that, and they've been rewarded, as he has a 7.85 ERA and a stellar 15:11 K:HR ratio since. I would advise any GMs considering trading for him to ignore the previous two sentences, and instead recall this dominance.

Saunders is a good candidate to be high on this list again in July; he's 12-4 with a 3.04 ERA, yet his FIP is 4.50, barely better than the 4.92 PECOTA had him at coming into the year. The two other Angels are in the same boat, if to a lesser extent, as their records aren't nearly as gaudy, and their ERAs aren't as unsustainably low.

There's not much more to be said about Floyd; 6.0 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 40% GB%. His ERA is one of the more impressive flukes of the first half.

Now, the most underappreciated teams:

On June 1, these five teams were a combined 116-171, good for an impressive .404 W%. Obviously, not many people were all that interested in betting on them at that point. They've slightly improved since, winning at a .428 clip, but not by much.

Finally, the most overrated teams:

Again, no surprises here. The Angels are way ahead of the pack; that'll happen when you're 10 games over .500 despite outscoring your opponents by only five runs in the first two months.

The Cubs and Red Sox are no strangers to 'overrated' lists, and the hot starts of the White Sox and Cardinals caused them to be overvalued by the general public. Notable in their absence are the Yankees. That's partially because they're in third place, but they also don't seem to have any particular pitchers that the public gets extremely excited about.

A team to watch for in the coming months is everybody's current darlings, Milwaukee. Part of it is the addition of Sabathia, who people are obviously very excited about, but, as MoneyLine pointed out today, there also seems to be a residual effect. Sabathia is good, yes, but it's unclear why 74% of people jumped on the Seth McClung bandwagon on Monday night.

All data taken from Wagerline.