Vegas Watch

These are from Sportsbook. They are the first to post them, I believe.

8.5 for the defending Super Bowl champs. Nice.

Some crazy juice on these, since the season is 1/10 as long as baseball and there's not much room to move them around. Ignoring the juice for now, average wins for each division:

The NFC average is 7.72, while the AFC is 8.03 (the overall average is less than 8; it looks like you have to pay more juice for most of the overs, though). The only NFC team over 8.5 is the Cowboys, at 10.5.

Money Line had a post a few weeks back listing various helpful stats from last year. The correlation between last year's wins and this year's O/Us is .887; the correlation between last year's Pythag record and this year's O/Us is .900.

Here are the biggest difference between '07 Pythag and '08 O/U:

The three teams with the biggest discrepancies between '07 wins and '07 Pythag were the Patriots (16, 13.8), Bills (7, 4.9), and Dolphins (1, 3.8). So, in theory, that would make the NE U, BUF U, and MIA O attractive, although there are obviously many other factors to consider.

It's May 11th, and Chipper Jones currently has a .400 batting average. This has inspired some discussion about whether Chipper can hit .400 for the entire season. Well, it's obviously a possibility, but how unlikely is it?

The first thing to do here is to figure out Chipper's true talent level. He's hitting .400 at the moment, but it's certainly lower than that. Various projections had him between .294 and .318
in the preseason. PECOTA expected him to hit .316. I'm going to use that, and incorporate his current .400 BA over 148 PAs (as Tango describes here) to arrive at an expected BA of .32677 going forwards.*

The next thing is to figure out is how many at-bats he'll end up with. This is very important- it's a lot easier to hit .400 over 10 ABs than over 1000. Before the season started, PECOTA expected him to have 600 PAs. Incorporating the 148 PAs he's already accumulated over his team's first 35 games, we should expect 618 PAs at this point- that'd mean about 525 ABs. I'll also include situations where he has 518, 568, and 668 PAs, since the probabilities will be different for each.

Using this information, here are the chances that he hits .400 given each number of PAs:

Ideally, he'd like to get exactly 502 PAs, which is the minimum required to qualify for the batting title. If he did that, his odds would be 1 in 225. As those PAs go up, it gets very unlikely, very quickly. Weighting the 618 PA scenario as 40%, and the other three as 10%, 30%, and 20%, respectively, we come to odds of 1 in 546.

If he keeps this up (unlikely), some enterprising gambling site will probably offer odds on whether he'll hit .400. I'll be interested to see what they are, although I'm sure they'll be absolutely terrible. If they were listed now, I think they'd probably be along the lines of 50:1, maybe even 25:1.

I think this is because it's a rate stat, rather than a counting stat. What I mean is that he's hitting .400 now, so at first glance it seems at least somewhat likely that he'll keep it up. Contrast this with a guy who gets off to a hot start (20 HRs) hitting 70 HRs- he's still got a long way to go. For a guy hitting .400 with 20 HRs at this point in the season, even if it's more likely that he hits 70 HRs, it'll seem more likely, to the average person, that he'll hit .400, since he "just" has to keep up his pace, rather than more than triple his HR total.

The ideal candidate would walk a ridiculous amount. In 2004, Bonds had 617 PAs, so he easily qualified for the batting title, but only 373 ABs. He probably had a better chance of hitting .400 that year than anyone else in recent memory- he ended up at .362.

The closest thing to that today is Pujols. He's walked in 21.7% of his plate appearances so far. In theory, he could end up with the requisite 502 PAs, but only about 385 ABs. He's off to a very good start himself, hitting .348 through 172 PAs. If we figure his true talent level at .335 (which includes the boost explained below), he'd have a 1 in 694 chance of hitting .400 if he ended up with exactly 502 PAs this year. Lower than Chipper, but only because he's currently hitting 52 points lower. Point being, the person most likely to hit .400 in 2009 is probably Pujols, both because of all the walks and his historically high BAs.

*There's a reason I'm using such an optimistic prediction. Since we only care whether he reaches such an extreme milestone or not, his BA for the purposes of figuring out whether he'll hit .400 or not is higher than his expected BA for the rest of the year in all situations. For example, take two scenarios, one in which he hits .200 over the next two months, another in which he continues to hit .400. To determine his BA over the last two months of the year, the first example is irrelevant- if he's hitting .285 on July 10, he is not going to hit .400, so we don't care. However, if he's hitting .400 on July 10,he still has a shot. So, we care about the .200 but not the .400, which skews his batting average for this exercise upwards. Thus the optimistic .32677 BA.

Photo: FanIQ

Also: Forget What You Think You Know [The Money Line Journal]

14-22. Worst record in the AL. First baseman throwing his helmet at opposing pitchers. Fire McLaren!

"Charles Barkley Is a Dumbass."

Cliff Lee took the subway to Yankee Stadium before his start on Wednesday. He should just run for President at this point, really.

What would happen if you let a pitcher play CF? Oh, I see.

"Wait, let me get this straight, you proposed when it wasn’t even Felix day?"

Starting price for Super Bowl XLIII commercials: $3 million.

Congratulations to Brian Sabean, winner of the Worst GM tournament.

First off, Sportsbook followed The Greek's lead and put up odds on the Draft lottery. Strangely, some of them are pretty close to the true odds. The Knicks should be +1216; Sportsbook has them at +1200. I'm not really sure what they get out of this- if they want to have more attractive odds than The Greek, why not put them at +1000? At +1200, they are barely making any money.

They also have odds on who the #1 pick will be; this is somewhat more interesting, since we don't already know what the actual odds are.


This matches my intuition- it's essentially a coin flip between Beasley and Rose, and it'd be a shock if anyone else went first.

Obviously, a lot of this depends on which team wins the lottery. So I figured I'd mess around with ESPN's Lottery Mock Draft thing, and see which teams picked which players when they landed the top pick.

Here are the results, along with the percentage of the time that the team in question is expected to get the #1 pick.

The Pacers (0.8%) and Trail Blazers (0.6%) are noticeably absent from this list. That's because they never won in the ridiculous number of lotteries I ran, so I don't know who they would pick. Edit: Apparently he has both teams taking Rose. Which kind of makes the next paragraph irrelevant.

I question the uniformity in the bottom of this list, with each of the last six teams choosing Beasley. This may be true, but it's also possible that Chad Ford didn't actually break down the "2,184 potential lottery scenarios", and Beasley was the pick for these teams by default.

Mostly on the strength of being theoretically picked by the Heat, Timberwolves, and Grizzlies, Beasley looks like the favorite. I wouldn't bet on him with this information, since I have no clue how accurate Chad Ford's predictions on this are- it's likely that the oddsmakers' predictions are superior. We'll see if the odds change after the lottery, which is on May 20.

Last week:
Cincinnati, 150:1 (still 150:1)
Texas, 1000:1 (now 500:1)

Both teams that were 1000:1 at VIP last week (Rangers & Nationals) played competently this week (5-2 and 4-2, respectively), and are now 500:1. It's not like their World Series chances doubled; the folks at VIP probably just realized there is no reason to put a team at 1000:1 to win the World Series in early May.

The Reds were not as fortunate, going 1-5. This dropped their PECOTA Playoff Odds from 8.8% to 5.9%. Their odds are probably about right at this point.

This week:
Oakland, 45:1 (5Dimes)
Current Record: 21-14
PECOTA Playoff Odds: 34.2%
Tampa Bay, 100:1 (Sportsbook)
Current Record: 17-15
PECOTA: 33.9%

The fun is almost over with these two. Oakland's odds are entirely reasonable- between 30:1 and 45:1- at all five sites now. Sportsbook is a little behind on Tampa, but the best you can do on them anywhere else is 66:1. And at BetUS, their "to win division" odds have been dropped from 25:1 to 14:1. It was fun while it lasted, at least.

Rough week for Tampa's run prevention. Over their last six games they've gone 1-5, and allowed 42 runs. They're now on pace to allow 722 runs; a big dropoff from last week's pace of 654, but still 222 fewer runs than last season.

Now would be the time to get them at Sportsbook at 100:1. People are starting to catch on, if slowly.

After staring at all the current odds for about 10 minutes, I've got nothing. At times like this, I turn to Matchbook. Always something interesting going on over there.

The most useful thing about Matchbook, from an informational standpoint, is that it's an exchange, so you can bet on both sides of their futures. For example, you can currently bet on the Red Sox at +530 to win the World Series, or at -650 to not win the World Series. With these, we can figure that Boston has between a 13.3% and 14.6% chance of winning it all. Averaging those, it's 14%; "true odds" of +580. Sure enough, the best odds you can find on them is the +530 at Matchbook, followed by +485 5Dimes.

I did this same exercise for all 10 teams that current have money being offered on both sides of the "World Series 2008" prop. Here are their "true odds", compared to their highest available odds elsewhere:

The first nine all come in below their true odds. They're all close- none are terrible bets, but none are worth making.

Then there's Toronto. The Blue Jays are 60:1 at VIP, and between 30:1 and 35:1 everywhere else. My focus has obviously been elsewhere, but Toronto is off to a decent start. They're only 17-18, but they've outscored their opponents by 17 runs. True to expectations, their run prevention has been excellent- their 124 runs allowed are the fewest in the American League, and second fewest in baseball (Atlanta, 120).

Sadly, they cannot score, and managed to get both their shortstops injured in one game. Realistically, 60:1 isn't that great; you'd be better off taking them at +1700 to win the East at Matchbook.

Related: Cliff Lee: great pitcher, or greatest pitcher? Discuss.

I spend a good deal of time on this site looking at odds, and trying to determine whether they're worth betting on or not. Sometimes this is pretty difficult, trying to incorporate all kinds of different factors, and make necessary adjustments.

Sometimes it's really, really easy.

The Greek has posted odds on the NBA Draft lottery. No, not the NBA Draft- the lottery. Like, which ping pong ball will pop up. It's not very hard to figure out what these odds should be-the chances for each team are listed here.

If you bet on these, you have a problem.

Shockingly, there is no value in these. It'd be pretty amusing if there was- if the oddsmakers screwed up and put the Heat at +1750 or something. Alas, no.

Unless...remember this? For anyone who throws these conspiracy theories around, this is your time. Oh, Stern is going to give the Knicks Beasley to get their franchise back on track? Okay, then put $300 down on them at +800.

What would be really funny would be if any of these odds changed. We'd have to assume that someone maxed them out, and The Greek didn't want to put themselves at too much risk on a silly prop. I'd like to interview anyone who actually bets significant money on these, and figure out what their reasoning is.

The fact that there is actual evidence that players perform better in contract years has always interested me. It's one of the relatively few old baseball clichés that have been confirmed by actual data. Today- and, probably, a couple more times throughout the course of the season- I thought I'd check in on some of the bigger names that are eligible for free agency this winter.

The following players have been selected completely arbitrarily (from here)- I'll probably look at a different group if I do this again.

Pat Burrell
.320/.445/.670, 9 HRs, 24 BBs, 23 Ks

It's unlikely that Burrell will continue doing his best '00 Bonds impersonation, but notice the BB/K ratio. In his first year in the league, he struck out in 34.1% of his PAs, and walked in 13.4%. He's been steadily improving since:


His other numbers have also steadily increased, if not as consistently. He's 31- the hot start puts him in good position to have a career year, and it's certainly nice timing.

It'll be interesting to see how much he gets in the offseason. In theory, I'd think that the same GMs that appreciate the walks and don't mind all the Ks (read: the smart ones) would be hesitant to invest too heavily in a 31-year old with the dreaded "old player skills". Although maybe he'll end up with a high enough BA and HR total that it won't matter.

Adam Dunn
.209/.371/.374, 4 HRs, 24 BB, 24 K

At least he's still walking.

This seems like unfortunate timing for Dunn, doesn't it? Unless there is a dramatic reversal of fortunes, he will be viewed as a secondary option to Burrell. I won't waste everybody's time pointing out the obvious similarities. Not an ideal situation for Dunn, but it might make him a good deal for whichever team he ends up with. Maybe a certain GM with a team incapable of scoring runs that needs a LF anyway is thinking the same thing.

C.C. Sabathia
1-5, 7.51 ERA, 38.1 IP, 50 H, 6 HR, 18 BB, 37 K

The K/BB still isn't yet at the lofty numbers we've come to expect from Sabathia, but considering it was 14/14 after four starts, he's recovered quite nicely. And if Franklin Gutierrez was capable of catching a fairly routine fly ball, his ERA over his last three starts would likely be under 1. The ERA looks like it'll be fine, if a little inflated because of the early struggles. Whether the Indians will be able to score enough wins to get him a respectable win total is an entirely different story.

It doesn't really matter though. By November, those four April starts will be ancient history- barely more recent than the the '07 Cy Young award. How much will he get? Santana's contract (6/137.5) is probably a good starting point- Johan is better, but he also never got to test the open market. With the way "Generation Trey" is shaping up, I might even (cringe) take the over on that.

Ben Sheets
4-0, 2.29 ERA, 39.1 IP, 3 HR, 11 BB, 33 K*

Well, Gagne isn't helping. Obviously, the big thing with Sheets is health, as he has a 3.77 career ERA but has averaged just 21 starts/year since 2004. I apologize if this was covered in Baseball Between the Numbers- strangely, I don't own it- but I wonder if guys tend to stay on the field longer in contract years. That's not to question Sheets' "toughness" or whatever- I can't blame the guy for having some extra incentive to stay out there and get those IP totals back to his '02-'04 levels.

Because of the injuries, Sheets probably has the most to lose/gain over the next five months. If he wins the Cy Young, how much could he get? 5/90? That may be a little high, but it doesn't seem unreasonable. On the other hand, if he gets hurt in his next start, who's going to give him more than one, maybe two years? Besides him.

Rafael Furcal
.381/.466/.603, 4 HRs, 19 BB, 15 K

Both Furcal's BABiP (.411) and ISO (.222) are way above his career averages. There's no way the BABiP stays that high- he's been between .298 and .350 each year of his career. The ISO is impressive though, and it's not only a product of an increased HR/FB%, since he has 12 doubles and 4 triples. He won't keep this up, but this winter's contract should look similar to the 3/39 the Dodgers gave him after 2005.

*Stats include Sunday's game; everybody else's are through Saturday.

(By the way, Macklin is transferring to Florida.)

Photo: ESPN.