The first odds have been posted for team win totals at some online gaming sites. And for the past month, BP Fantasy’s John Burnson has been running expected win-loss records in Heater e-Magazine. So, I decided to see how the two matched up. As a Heater writer, I will note that one of the aspects of it is that there is a local “expert” for each team. This tends to lead to slightly optimistic projections, though perhaps not as much as one would guess.
For history, last year I scaling the final “Radar Tracking” (the pre-season edition of Heater) projections from 2009, and compared the RMSE of the variances compared to the actual win totals, and the Heater “team experts” were right up there with the best projection systems in the report which vegaswatch.net runs (and in which PECOTA has been known to far exceed the others - at least in 2008). Anyway, here are the win total projections from the Heater writers and 2 well-known online gaming sites (opening line, not accounting for movement, though if you wanted to bet on the “under” for Toronto, the line seems to be moving downward quickly…)
All win projections have been scaled to add up to 2430, some rounding has definitely occurred, since the oddsmakers frequently have half-wins in their lines:
Key: Heater - Site 1 - Site 2
Arizona 81 - 82 - 82
Atlanta 88 - 85 - 86
Baltimore 71 - 76 - 73
Boston 90 - 94 - 94
Cubs 83 - 83 - 83
White Sox 82 - 82 - 82
Cincinnati 79 - 79 - 78
Cleveland 68 - 75 - 73
Colorado 86 - 83 - 83
Detroit 78 - 78 - 81
Florida 83 - 81 - 81
Houston 74 - 73 - 77
Kansas City 70 - 72 - 71
LA Angels 93 - 84 - 84
LA Dodgers 87 - 86 - 84
Milwaukee 76 - 80 - 80
Minnesota 90 - 84 - 82
NY Mets 79 - 81 - 81
NY Yankees 93 - 95 - 94
Oakland 78 - 79 - 78
Philadelphia 88 - 92 - 92
Pittsburgh 74 - 69 - 71
San Diego 70 - 72 - 71
San Francisco 84 - 82 - 83
Seattle 87 - 82 - 83
St. Louis 88 - 87 - 88
Tampa Bay 89 - 89 - 89
Texas 85 - 83 - 83
Toronto 68 - 72 - 71
Washington 68 - 70 - 72
Well, as you can see, some of us at Heater are more optimistic about our covered teams than others, and these can be expected to change as we get closer to opening day… so if Kazmir or Liriano report any health problems, you can expect their team win expectations to decline. I write about both Chicago teams, and am actually rather surprised that the oddsmakers and I are so much in agreement at this early juncture.
I chose the 87 for the Dodgers in Heater, and I think that if anything it's too LOW - despite the two gaming sites thinking otherwise.
Obviously, the PR around the team this offseason has been HORRIBLE, but this is still a very good team coming off a 95-win year. To expect them to be 11 games worse, as the third column says, simply because they don't have Randy Wolf (who won't repeat his 2009) or Orlando Hudson (who was terrible in the 2nd half) is silly, especially when you consider you get more Manny/less Pierre, and that guys like Kershaw and Kemp are likely to keep improving.
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One big flaw.
Someone, somewhere is winning more than 95 games. It happens pretty much every year, usually by more than one team. And here, only Site 1 predicts 95 wins by any team - just the Yankees.
Generally, teams that win 95+ or lose 100+ are those that do better or worse than reasonable people would project them to. So this is not a flaw in the system. It's the same issue Bill James raised 20 years ago when his projections included no batting average higher than about .320. But he predicted that the batting title would go to someone who exceeded their projected BA.
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And the problem is some of the bad teams are being vastly overrated. Kansas City is not a 70-win team and neither is Cleveland. And explain to me how Toronto wins 70 in that shark tank of a division they're in and with the pitching they have. And the entire AL West is at or near .500?! I doubt it.
So all the above teams are getting blown up out of proportion while clubs like Philadelphia - who is heads and tails better than ANY other NL team - sits at 88 wins. How much can someone win by taking the over on Philly anyway?
I'd take the over on Cleveland. I expect them to be much better than expected. Sizemore and Druby are excellent, Choo's pretty serious, and I expect the pitching (notably Masterson) to be better than most expect.
Joe Sheehan used to call for the under on some low numbers and be wrong every year.
I've never bet online and don't really know if you can bet over/under for wins, but if you can, would't it be possible to go to two sites that have a spread and bet the under with the site having the higher number and bet the over for the site with the lower number? If you do this for multiple teams, you would have odds better than 50/50. I am sure there is a reason this is not possible, but I am curious.
If you're only right that it's under the higher number and not right that it's over the lower, then your two bets cancel out. Betting the under with one number and the over with another number means that you only win if you're right twice: if the team ends up between the two numbers. If you think you have their future win total THAT precisely, well, better to bet on a lot of sites in one direction than in competing directions.
I don't gamble, but that's my best guess as to why not.
I thought of this, especially since there are at present some huge gaps between the two sites - but to start with most sites have a 15% margin right now (or "vig" or "juice" or whatever you want to call it). Still, if one was to bet 115 units on, say, Baltimore UNDER 76 and 115 units on Baltimore OVER 73, that person would then in essence be risking 15 units to win 215 units if the win total fell between 73 and 76, or 115 in case of a "push" (either exactly 73 or 76).
For those disputing these numbers, what are the Vegas odds? And what is the historical probability that X team will end up with less than 70 wins or more than 95? What's the distribution curve?
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All you have to do is look back at the standings. There are 95+ win teams every year, usually 2 or 3. Who this year? My guess would be Philadelphia and the Yankees. Boston and/or Tampa could come close too, but obviously only 2 of the AL East teams will come near or over 95 wins.
These predictions are just too conserative. The good teams usually aren't projected high enough and some of the obvious weak teams are given too much credit. According to this, NO ONE wins fewer than 68 games. LOL When's the last time - if ever - that happened?
I love predictions....just make them realistic. There are always outliers.
But you have to predict who the outliers will be. The over/unders won't have a 100-win team, because predicting that a specific team will win more than 100 is much tougher than predicting some team will win more than 100.
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Sure....but why not go out on a limb with say Philly or the Yanks? We all know someone will win close to or more than 100, just like every single year. So why pretend as if that won't happen?
AL West is really going to be interesting, I think. Site 1 and 2 thinks Seattle is going to lose 2-3 more games than last year, and Heater thinks the angels are going to win 94 games.
Yeah, early in the preseason, opinions can vary wildly - as can be seen from the contradictory comments here. And I'm sure that's how sports books make a lot of their money, getting 7 months of usage on money on both sides of each line, from people who see "sure things". I thought this would generate some interesting discussion about which teams were over- and under-rated by various sources, so feel free to share yours! I'll be happy to review outcomes after the season, and people who out-predicted the Heater experts on given teams will be welcome to point out those predictions. :>
Some things are certain: a) People won't agree, which is how the sports books make their money, b) every projection/handicapping system will end up being relatively far off on a few teams, and c) hopefully - all will become more accurate as the season approaches.
Excellent. I bet in Vegas most years (missed one due to work) on winners of the pennants, but I don't like to bet the over-unders because with the vig, the hold, and the necessissity of doing something that costs to collect... I'm looking for a bigger payout. But this is fun.
Baltimore 71 - 76 - 73 Over. Really like Baltimore.
Cincinnati 79 - 79 - 78 Over. Even with Dusty. Low confidence.
Cleveland 68 - 75 - 73 Over. High confidence. Over 68, over 73, over 75, over 81. Gimme some over goodness.
Florida 83 - 81 - 81 Under. Expect a selloff.
Houston 74 - 73 - 77 Under.
Tampa Bay 89 - 89 - 89 Over.
Ideally, Rob can bring this back at the end of the season for those willing to predict publicly. Mock the losers, exalt the winners. (I will not be mocked! Or maybe I will!)
PECOTA was the best by a tiny margin in 2008, but was the worst projection system by a huge margin in 2009. Overall, from 2006-2009, PECOTA ranks third out of four systems tracked in RMSE (CHONE, MGL, PECOTA, ZIPs).
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I'll take those overs on Baltimore.