Grover says he's so ashamed by having tennis picks on the blog that I have to keep making them until the record is in the red. He says having a winning record in tennis makes him feel like a girl. I assumed the "body wash" he uses in the shower instead of soap made him feel like a girl. Go figure.
Or, at least, don't bet against Lester just because you think he has to be overvalued today following his no-no the last time out. Being a contrarian bettor, who likes to bet "against the public" on a regular basis, I have to admit that when I saw the highlights of Lester's no-hitter in his last start, my first thought wasn't "Wow, what a great performance!" or "Wow, what a great survival story!" My actual first thought was "Wow, the line on that guy is going to be WAY overinflated in his next game!" They call me Mr. Sensitive.
Out of curiosity, I went back and looked at the last 10 no-hitters and how those pitchers performed in their next start. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), if you had wagered on all 10 of those pitchers in their next start, you would have gone 9-1. 9-1! All 9 of those winning performances were quality starts (at least 6 innings, and no more than 3 earned runs). And, really, that should probably be 9-0 if you leave out the bizarre situation with Clay Buchholz at the end of last season. Buchholz throws a no-hitter and then is used out of the bullpen in his next appearance? Incidentally, he actually did pick up the win in that relief appearance (3 innings, 0 ER, 3 K), but since he didn't start, there's no real way you could have wagered on that. In his next actual start, TWO WEEKS AFTER his no-hitter, he got the loss, but pitched well (4.2 innings, 1 ER, 5 K).
So, it would appear that there was no post-no-hitter-letdown for any of the no-hitter pitchers over the last 7 years. And, looking at the lines from those games, it also doesn't appear that there was much over-inflation in the lines. The only line over -175 in the next appearance for any of the last 10 no-hit pitchers was a -210 for Derek Lowe and the Red Sox in 2002. But, that line wasn't out of whack from the lines the Red Sox were getting anyway that season. In the game before Lowe's next appearance, the line on Burkett was -185, and in the game before that, Pedro Martinez was -360. In 2001, A.J. Burnett was +100 in his next start for the Marlins following his no-hitter. Today, in fact, Lester and the powerhouse Red Sox are somehow only -102 against the powerless Oakland A's.
I was planning on writing a post about how you should look to fade Lester after the no-hitter inflates his value, but this strategy would have lost you a lot of money over the last several years. I'm not advocating you play on Lester today based on the performances by other no-hit pitchers described above, because obviously the way Hideo Nomo or Anibel Sanchez or Randy Johnson performed in their next start has no relation to how Lester will pitch today. But, I wanted to point out the importance of doing your homework on each game the same as you always would before betting, and not necessarily trusting your knee-jerk reaction to unusual circumstances. It's a mistake I came very close to making today.
Wait, no, not those Royals. I meant the Kansas City Royals. Somebody in our photo department thinks he's pretty funny. Anyway, following the win by the Royals as ridiculous +204 underdogs yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to point out that these seemingly stunning occurrences are really not all that unusual, using yesterday's giant-killing Royals as the example.
The Royals have been thought of by the general public as a pathetic baseball team for several years. And while it's true that the Royals have been a lousy team for quite some time, the fact is that even in their worst seasons they have won approximately 60 games. To the casual fan, a record of 60-102 looks awful, but to the experienced sports gambler, that looks like 60 opportunities to win a bet on a moneyline underdog of +160, +180, or, often, in excess of +200. That's a lot of money to be won if you're paying attention. As you could probably have guessed, the lines on the Royals have been especially high when they are playing on the road.
Even if you're too lazy or don't have the time to do your betting homework every day, you could have made some easy money in recent seasons just betting on the Royals every time they were a road underdog of +160 or higher. In 2005, there were 51 instances that fit this criteria, and if you made a one-unit bet on the Royals in each instance, at the end of the year you would have made over 10 units profit. In 2006, in a whopping 73 instances, you would have ended the season ahead by more than 14 units. In 2007, as the public and therefore the books appeared to catch on to the Royals steady improvement, there were "only" 37 games that fit this criteria, but you still would have won more than 12 units over the course of the season just from betting in these situations.
This year, there have only been 4 games where the Royals were an underdog of +160 or more on the road (yesterday and the 3-game season-opening series at the Tigers). If you played a one-unit bet on the Royals on all four of these occasions, you would be 4-0 and up over 7 units already. Now, don't go overboard - the Royals are not going to win every time they're a huge underdog. On the contrary, I promise you they will lose more of these games than they win. But, as shown over the past few seasons, they don't even have to sniff .500 to make you a nice profit. For example, in 2006, when you would have won over 14 units, the win-loss record of these situations was only 27-46.
That's one of the things I love about baseball betting. If you can find good situations to get your money in on promising underdogs and small favorites, you can win money even where you lose more games than you win. There have been several years where I have ended a baseball season under .500 in wins and losses, but still earned 30 or 40 units profit. Also, although I used the Royals as the example here, there are many teams that are overly disrespected by the public and therefore in the betting lines. If you can identify these Rodney Dangerfields of the MLB, and play them in favorable spots, you will have learned one of the most important lessons in smart baseball wagering.
