Blue Jays!

[MapleLeafpoker 1,462]

for the most part Sportsbooks aren't studying teams they are studying the betting habits of their customers. They'll occasionally set a line hoping to generate more action on one side of a bet but for the most part their business is just trying to get as much action as possible on both sides of the bet.

 

Correct me if Im wrong, this is my fairly uneducated view on how Sportsbooks work:

 

Company ABC sets the lines. Maybe there are 1/3/5/10/?? of these in the world.

Major casinos and sportsbooks buy the lines and information from said Company ABC, and post them on their site.

Adjustments on made on the lines depending on many factors, not the least of which is the betting patterns of the customers of said sportsbook/casino.

 

Company ABC does an incredible amount of research into players/teams/whatever, to decide who should win todays game of Boston vs Detroit.

 

how off am I?

[mrdannyg 274]

Very detailed look at the AL Cy Young possibilities. Sanchez is mentioned as one of several possibilities. I saw a tracker recently that gave more credence to 'headline' stats (like wins, ERA), which unsurprisingly had Happ as the leader!

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/there-simply-isnt-an-al-cy-young-frontrunner/

 

Whoever picked there to be TWO Jays pitchers in the Cy Young race, and neither would be Stroman, and the Jays weren't up by 9 games in the East...

[FCP Bob 1,312]

Correct me if Im wrong, this is my fairly uneducated view on how Sportsbooks work:

 

Company ABC sets the lines. Maybe there are 1/3/5/10/?? of these in the world.

Major casinos and sportsbooks buy the lines and information from said Company ABC, and post them on their site.

Adjustments on made on the lines depending on many factors, not the least of which is the betting patterns of the customers of said sportsbook/casino.

 

Company ABC does an incredible amount of research into players/teams/whatever, to decide who should win todays game of Boston vs Detroit.

 

how off am I?

 

you're off in that the linesmakers, whether a service that many books use or a book's own linesmakers, are predicting the outcome of a bet and setting a fair line for that. They are setting a line based on what they think the people making bets will do. That of course factors in their expected outcome but it is different.

[pezeveng 207]

Sportsbooks will adjust line according to customer base. Some books like bodog always have more juice on the fav and the over than a sharper players book like pinnacle.

 

Remember guys these are computers setting the line and humans tweaking them here or there ao they are not left exposed on one sided action.

[serge 904]

Our friend Ed from AHL was at the game in Cleveland. I have a screen capture of him from my tv.

 

 

[Babying 613]

Our friend Ed from AHL was at the game in Cleveland. I have a screen capture of him from my tv.

 

I blame him for the loss

 

I would have gone to Cleveland too but Otto starts working at the cne this weekend

 

 

[mrdannyg 274]

That sucked

[pezeveng 207]

Not sure if anyone else noticed, Osuna shook off Martin at least 5 times in that inning.

 

 

[Babying 613]

Jeff Hoffman making his major league debut against the league leading Cubs. If you remember he was in the 2lo deal.

[pezeveng 207]

Great teams bounce back!

 

I wonder if Grilli, Osuna, and Benoit are available today?

[pezeveng 207]

If you want to test a friends baseball knowledge just watch how they react to Sanchez's "demotion"

[serge 904]

If you want to test a friends baseball knowledge just watch how they react to Sanchez's "demotion"

 

Well said.

[mrdannyg 274]

I'm a bit surprised they did it without incurring the wrath of the MLBPA, since Sanchez will lose some money from it. Hope they find a way to make it up to him 'under the table'.

 

Very frustrating weekend with the Jays losing 2 close ones. 1-run games of course! I'm going to see if I can find some inning-by-inning stats for the Jays - seems like they have been terrible at scoring runs late, and almost never score insurance runs off relievers...but that also seems like something that is probably just confirmation bias.

[mrdannyg 274]

Blue Jays runs scored/allowed by inning:

 

1st: 88/44

2nd: 40/52

3rd: 90/52

4th: 74/55

5th: 54/50

6th: 70/61

7th: 58/78

8th: 84/45

9th: 31/50

10-19: 7/13

 

I don't really know what all that means. Obviously we are better early in games, though the crazy outlier in the 8th kind of messes up any conclusions I was thinking we'd see about us being much better early in games than late.

 

Source:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/inning_summary.cgi?year=2016&team_id=TOR

[Zach6668 513]

Looks like nothing but randomness.

[mrdannyg 274]

It does look pretty random, and the craziness of the second and eighth innings makes me hesitant to draw much in the way of conclusions. But if you break it down a bit, there's a pretty clear pattern of trending downwards through the game, effecting both the offense and defense.

 

Innings 1-3: 218/148

Innings 4-6: 198/166

Innings 7+: 180/186

[mrdannyg 274]

Here's another chart that shows percentages of runs scored/inning:

 

http://cleanuphitter.com/mlb/stats/mlb_sortable_scoring.php?parse=inningrunsscored

 

Jays have scored 14.48% of their runs in the first (league average is 12.37%) and 5.22% in the 9th (7.49% league average)

 

Extrapolating that chart above:

 

Innings 1-3: 36.4% / 29.6% (league average is 33.5%)

Innings 4-6: 33.2% / 33.2% (league average is 35.7%)

Innings 7+: 30.3% / 37.2% (league average is 30.8%)

 

Pattern is even more distinct now. Remember this is just showing the percentage of the team's total runs, not how many runs are being scored, so it shouldn't be biased for or against a good team. On one hand, you could say the Jays being much more likely to prevent runs early and give up runs late is reasonable because the starters are performing better than the bullpen. But it's a bit weird that the offense matches the same trend. Putting them together, it at least shows that my anecdotal feelings weren't crazy, and that the Jays really are playing much better in the early innings than late, though I was not correct in thinking they have been bad at 'insurance runs', since they are scoring about the same percentage of their runs in the later innings as other teams.

[pezeveng 207]

This will be interesting to watch for next year.

 

Old article from May

 

http://www.vocativ.com/321368/why-baseballs-strike-zone-is-changing/

[mrdannyg 274]

Agreed pez - there has been some very interesting stuff in regards to the strike zones and possibly juiced balls from some of the stat guys this year. If you look really in depth, a few have basically concluded that the increase in home runs in the last season or so (dating back to last all-star break) was too significant and otherwise unexplained to be anything but related to the balls. I don't like to say "juiced" balls because that makes it sounds like it is against the rules, and in this case it would be "fair" since it is the same for everyone. But it would be shady if they did purposely change the balls without announcing it.

[mrdannyg 274]

lol great timing, Jonah Keri writes about the Jays struggles in 1-run games:

 

http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/08/22/the-30-power-rankings-week-20-reds-rockies-royals-blue-jays

 

 

Also a concern...with Cecil's ERA now over 5 and Aaron Loup still not very good, the Jays basically don't have a left-handed pitcher in the bullpen. That could be a real problem in the playoffs.

[pezeveng 207]

lol great timing, Jonah Keri writes about the Jays struggles in 1-run games:

 

http://www.si.com/ml...oyals-blue-jays

 

 

Also a concern...with Cecil's ERA now over 5 and Aaron Loup still not very good, the Jays basically don't have a left-handed pitcher in the bullpen. That could be a real problem in the playoffs.

 

I heard Loup was doing well at triple A. I hope Cecil snaps out of it, amazing how a stupid freak injury happens, and he hasn't been the same since.

 

Speaking of juiced balls 18-9 score today Angels vs Reds!

 

In other news

 

Danny Valencia and Billy Butler were involved in an altercation in the Oakland Athletics clubhouse that possibly resulted in an injury that kept Butler sidelined over the weekend, according to a published report.

The

San Francisco Chronicle

reported that Valencia and Butler scuffled Friday night. Butler sat out the next two games against the Chicago White Sox because of nausea and vomiting, according to A's manager Bob Melvin. The players' beef arose, the Chronicle reported, after Butler told a representative of a shoe company that Valencia was not wearing the cleats he claimed he was.

Butler has struggled since signing a three-year, $30 million deal with Oakland before the 2015 season; this season he's hit four home runs while batting .286. He was teammates with Valencia on the 2014 Kansas City Royals. Valencia is batting .302 with 15 homers in his second season in Oakland.

One former and one current teammate of the pair seemed to side with Valencia in this squabble.

[pezeveng 207]

Agreed pez - there has been some very interesting stuff in regards to the strike zones and possibly juiced balls from some of the stat guys this year. If you look really in depth, a few have basically concluded that the increase in home runs in the last season or so (dating back to last all-star break) was too significant and otherwise unexplained to be anything but related to the balls. I don't like to say "juiced" balls because that makes it sounds like it is against the rules, and in this case it would be "fair" since it is the same for everyone. But it would be shady if they did purposely change the balls without announcing it.

 

Remember this from 3 years ago?

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/japan-baseball-commissioner-resigns-over-juiced-ball-scandal-150806768--mlb.html

[pezeveng 207]

The woman alleges Encarnacion gave her two sexually transmitted diseases following a February trip to the Dominican Republic and is requesting more than $11.5 million in damages. Encarnacion's agent offered no comment to TMZ Sports regarding the allegations.

The woman said she had an STD test following a separate romantic encounter with a Blue Jays player in 2015, and the results came back negative for any disease. After returning from the Dominican Republic, the woman visited a doctor, who discovered the presence of two STDs.

The woman alleges Encarnacion misled her as to whether he had any STDs at the time of their February rendezvous.

[pezeveng 207]

As much as playing 2 last place teams seem like a soft spot in the schedule I think the Jays are getting these teams at the wrong time.

 

Angels had lost 11 in a row on the road till yesterday.

 

Tomorrow they get the Twins who have lost 7 in a row.

 

Baseball being baseball these streaks usually don't go too long.

[pezeveng 207]

Amazing one dp ground ball up the middle hits Happ's foot and its baseball being baseball.