Sports Marketwatch
MLB Edition - Season Recap
10/9/2009 6:00 PM EST
By The Team at SportsInsights.com
 
Sports Marketwatch - Final Record: 52-48, 52%, +23.84 Units Won
 
Our final Marketwatch article for the MLB season was a great one, padding our stats and your bankroll with a couple of underdog wins and another 2.71 units.  We hope you stuck with us until the end to take advantage of the late-season hot streak, as we jumped from the mire of the mid-teens to well above 20 units won just over the last month of the season.  A couple of lefties sealed the deal for us Friday.  David Price pleased the tiny home crowd with seven innings of 2-hit baseball against the fairly disinterested Yankees, and the Rays won 13-4.  On the other coast, Barry Zito pitched well in a no-decision, helping the Giants break what had been an 0-for-6 streak in Petco Park this season.  The Giants scored late to defeat the Padres 7-2.

There's a certain satisfaction, of course, to picking more than 50% winners from a pool of nothing but underdogs.  Our goal all year long was to find value in lines - to analyze, interpret and then communicate to our readers what the market is saying about the sport.  It spoke strongly at times about individual match-ups; at others, it whispered about teams and trends.  We fully believe that sports betting should be viewed as an investment rather than a gamble or game of chance.  To that end, our picks and betting advice were focused on some major themes.  First, we know that the sportsbooks must be making money to stay in business, much less for the industry to have grown as rapidly as it has in the last decade.  Our broadest philosophy, then, is to use our proprietary betting percentages to find out who the public is betting on and fade them.  Our Square Plays have plucked the baseball games with the widest disparity in public betting, each time taking the team getting no public respect.  For the season, Sports Insights MLB Square Plays are up +38.4 Units.

More specifically, history shows us that the public loves to bet on favorites and overs.  Sportsbooks, then, in the hopes of having bets fall evenly on either side, very likely shade their lines toward favorites and overs, creating immediate value in betting the other way.  Simply put, that is why we feature an article of nothing but moneyline underdog picks, and judging by its record year after year, our opinion seems justified.  Finally, we know that there are big, smart players and syndicates in the sports betting world that do beat the sportsbooks on a consistent basis.  Our Sports Insights Betting Systems have been designed to read line movements to determine what teams these proven winners are playing on, and the sharps at a few books this season have stood high above the rest:

Smart Money
CRIS:  +21.51 Units
SI Test (Totals):  +29.44 Units

Steam Moves
Pinnacle:  +49.22 Units
Olympic (Totals):  +18.72 Units

These are the principles by which we make Marketwatch picks, and this baseball season, we're very pleased with the results.  A $50 bettor following our articles would be up $1192.  We know many of you bet significantly more than that and have profited proportionately.  To that we say, "Thanks for your faith."  We're going to keep working hard for you.

And speaking of work, you should all know that we're doing the work for you again this fall and winter.  We're now well under way with our weekly NFL Marketwatch and NCAA Football Marketwatch series.  Our football editions have a proven history of winning, so we hope you'll join us in these ventures as well.  Also, stay tuned for NBA and NCAA Basketball versions of Sports Marketwatch, both of which will be starting in the next few weeks. 

Finally, thank you very much for your readership and your feedback.  It's awfully likely that we enjoy writing these articles as much or more than you enjoy reading them.  Still, as long as we keep making money together, everyone's happy, right?  We see you there, rolling your eyes.  We'll take that as a yes.

We won't be making any Marketwatch picks this MLB postseason, but that doesn't mean there aren't still opportunities to profit.  Stop by SportsInsights.com to check out the latest Smart Money plays and Steam Moves.  The playoffs are here, the most exciting time of the baseball season, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we will.

Best,
The Team at SportsInsights.com