Season! Let’s dust off your notes from last season and take a look at some betting trends from 2022.
We want to see what happened, find out why, and then use that information to prepare ourselves when the time comes to place our future bets.
Here are three things I noticed:
MLB’s Top 10 Free Agents
Ben Verlander and Alex Curry take on MLB’s free agent craze.
Unders prevailed
By my calculation, if you ignore the push-ups, Unders in the Over/Under won 52% of the time.
One of the things we discussed was how offense has decreased in general in MLB. Fewer home runs were the main (and perhaps the only) reason for the decline.
This season, 0.74% of pitches have been hit outside the arena, the lowest mark since 2015. It’s not that hitters haven’t tried, considering that 17.52% of pitches have been put into play, the highest percentage in five years.
The batters weren’t hitting too often. The strike rate of 5.78% was the lowest since 2018. Home runs were simply a premium.
Blame it on how the baseballs were stored, bad luck, or something else. Unders betting tends to be the right move.
Few teams have captured the wins
If the Yankees had another win, we would have seen five teams have 100 wins in a season for the first time in MLB history.
The Dodgers have won 111 games, the most in the National League in over a century. NL East featured two Ball clubs with triple-digit wins (Braves, Mets). The World Champion Astros surpassed his wins by 14.5. The good teams were dominant to an extent that we don’t usually see.
What this score means for the preseason win total is that only 12 went over, while 18 went under. For perspective, last season it was an even split, 50-50.
What do these four 100-win soccer clubs have in common? The ability to reach the base. Four of the top seven teams in weighted average on-base were the Dodgers, Astros, Braves, and Mets.
It may have been harder to hit the ball at home this season, but the best teams have adjusted and are still finding ways to score goals.
Return of the Baltimore Birds
The Orioles won’t be bad forever.
It was the ballclub’s first successful season since 2016 worth backing against the spread, covering nearly 60% of its games, the best average in MLB. It seems like bettors think Baltimore will fall back to mediocrity and return to the lackluster brand of baseball we’re used to seeing.
One thing the O’s did well was put a rule on the balls. Their walk rate of 7.2% was the eighth best in the majors. But it wasn’t just a pitch. The youngsters began to showcase their talents, with FanGraphs ranking the Orioles as having the second-best farm system in baseball.
At some point, these players were ready for the primetime. No one embodied this idea more than catcher Adley Rutschman, who finished with FanGraphs’ second-highest Wins Above Replacements among rookies (5.3). Right off the bat, the O’s ceased to be a team that you could simply bet on losing outright and getting small payouts.
As always, we’re learning things now to apply these ideas next season. However, it is important not to assume that immediately the lines and totals will simply bounce the other way because the market is efficient.
For example, I will not blindly bet large sums next season. However, I would look to see if home runs happen more often, then adjust accordingly. Teams may also try to average more, which can result in more runs scored.
Nor do I expect more teams to achieve their total wins. It’s probably closer to a 50-50 split, though I’ll be watching free agency to see if the market overreacts to the big names moving to new places, and I’ll be watching how well the farm systems are doing to see if the team is set to be The young stars are ready for the show.
Finally, the Orioles have been a great story and are definitely a postseason possibility in 2023, but the winning total may be exaggerated. It’s best to look at next season in the void.
