MLB Marketwatch Edition 10 2008
Sports MarketWatch
MLB Edition
8/15/2008 4:00 PM EST
By The Team at SportsInsights.com
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Sports Marketwatch – MLB Edition, where the Team at SportsInsights gives sports fans unprecedented insight into the sports marketplace. If you ever wanted to know what was really happening on the sportsbook side, you now have an all-access pass with Sports Marketwatch! Sports MarketWatch will be published weekly on Friday, normally by 5PM Eastern Time.
The staff at SportsInsights.com speaks directly with the line managers at some of the sports betting industry’s largest sportsbooks about which games the public is chasing and the Sharps are pounding. We’ll take a look at what’s in store for upcoming games.
Sports Marketplace – MLB Edition
Last Friday the MLB Edition of MarketWatch made headway, going 2-1, with all underdogs. The Oakland A’s gave fairly “juicy” odds at +144. Let’s see what the baseball marketplace has in store for us today.
2008 MLB Games to Watch: 13-24, 35.1%, -8.38 units
Sports MarketWatch – MLB Games to Watch
San Diego Padres +118 over Philadelphia Phillies
As readers of SportsInsights.com’s MarketWatch column know, we often need “bad” teams to do well against “good” teams. These seemingly extreme match-ups are the kinds of games that yield “value” for sports investors. This game falls into this category, with the last-place Padres hosting a Phillies team that has been in first place most of the season.
The public is all over the Phillies, with almost 90% of all bets landing on the Phillies. This kind of one-sided betting is creating value for us on the side the public doesn’t like. Indeed, even before a single bet was placed, the sportsbooks could probably guess that most bets would land on the Phillies, so that the line might be shaded too much to the Phillies’ side. We’ll grab the value on the home team Padres and note that the Padres are above .500 at home.
San Diego Padres +118
Cincinnati Reds +102 over St. Louis Cardinals
Similar to our San Diego selection, above, we are looking for value in a game that pits a last place team against a playoff contender. The Reds are basement dwellers while the Cards are in the middle of the wild-card chase.
The public looks at this game and bets that a motivated St. Louis team will probably beat up on the lowly Reds. Our readers know that we see value on a MLB home team that the public hates. With about 75% of the bets on the Cards, we’ll “bet against the public” and take the contrarian view – and the bet on the Reds.
Cincinnati Reds +102
Florida Marlins +122 over Chicago Cubs
Ummm – someone might want to let the Cubs know that they are playing baseball, not football. The red-hot Cubs have scored in the double-digits in each of their last two games. They have won four games in a row and 8 of their last 10. The Cubs have the best run differential in baseball this year, outscoring their opponents by 159 runs so far.
On the other hand, the Florida Marlins have lost two in a row and have gone 4-6 in their last 10 games, slipping to 2.5 games behind the Mets in the tight NL East race. So who do we like in this game? We see value on the Marlins. We’ll “sell” the Cubs on a “high” and “buy” the Marlins at a “low.”
SportsInsights’ betting percentages agree with this value play, with more than 80% of the bets taking the visiting Cubs. We’ll take the other side of the public’s bet – and take the home team Marlins.
Florida Marlins +122
Games to Watch (13-24, -8.38 units)
San Diego Padres +118
Cincinnati Reds +102
Florida Marlins +122
It should be another exciting weekend in the sports marketplace. Keep Sports MarketWatch picks handy and your browser pointed to SportsInsights.com for the latest real-time updates, using our exclusive Sports Investing tools.
We’ll be back next Friday with the new edition of the Sports Marketwatch – MLB Edition.
Enjoy the games!
The Team at SportsInsights.com