S2000 and I have corroborated in an attempt to design a mathematically-based system to pick baseball winners profitably. For fun, I'm going to post the picks and results along the way. The system uses a 1-20 unit spread based on the amount of the perceived advantage. For simplicity's sake, I'm basing the results on a $50,000 starting bankroll with bets ranging from $50 to $1000. I started posting the plays on another site a few days ago (during my [ahem] 'hiatus'). Going into today, the bankroll is down to $48,105. Odds posted are available at the time of the pick. Today's picks so far:

Mets: 318 to win 200
Pirates: 262.50 to win 250
Royals: 59 to win 50
Cardinals: 346 to win 200
Rockies: 50 to win 64.50

More to come.

Gonna spill the beans on the model's inner workings?

It's basically, well, y'know, technical stuff.

It boils down to which team is going to score more runs than their opponent.

That's, as it were, the nub.

Lobo, one of the great pleasures of my trip to the States was that Dodgers Stadium has veggie dogs. They tasted excellent.

Now, Angels Stadium was a disappointment. The only vegetarian thing we could find was cheese pizza. And Anaheim has a real problem with their security check and parking lot.

And you and Bill think baseball is about math. Fools! Baseball is about magic.

I will do so in general terms later today or tomorrow.

There were also (published elsewhere prior to the teams' opening days) seasonal "over/under" picks (current records follow each team. 81 wins is 50-50 (for those who didn't know that off the tops of your heads)):

Cardinals OVER 87.5 wins (3-2)
Blue Jays OVER 83.5 wins (4-2)
Twins UNDER 71.5 wins (1-5)
Tigers UNDER 84 wins (6-0)
Rockies OVER 72 wins (4-2)
Rays OVER 79.5 wins (3-3)
Nationals UNDER 93.5 wins (2-4)
Marlins UNDER 82.5 wins (1-5)
Royals UNDER 79.5 wins (6-0)
Angels OVER 88 wins (2-4)
Mariners OVER 86.5 wins (3-3)
Dodgers UNDER 91.5 wins (3-3)
Indians UNDER 84.5 wins (2-4)
Rangers UNDER 76.5 wins (3-4)
A's OVER 81.5 wins (3-4)

Full-Season Projections:

A.L. East:

Toronto: 88-74

Tampa Bay: 87-75

Boston: 82-80

New York: 82-80

Baltimore: 81-81

A.L. Central:

Chicago: 83-79

Detroit: 77-85

Cleveland: 77-85

Kansas City: 73-89

Minnesota: 65-97

A.L. West:

Los Angeles: 95-67

Seattle: 93-69

Oakland: 89-73

Houston: 78-84

Texas: 70-92

N.L. East:

Washington: 87-75

New York: 83-79

Miami: 76-86

Atlanta: 73-89

Philadelphia: 69-93

N.L. Central:

St. Louis: 95-67

Cincinnati: 82-80

Pittsburgh: 82-80

Chicago: 80-82

Milwaukee: 79-83

N.L. West:

San Francisco: 87-75

Los Angeles: 86-76

San Diego: 81-81

Colorado: 78-84

Arizona: 72-90

Strat-o-matic-martingale!

Yankees $100 at +102
Rays $50 at +135
Marlins $50 at +102
Cubs to win $50 at -132
Angels to win $50 at -137
Astros $50 at +112
Padres to win $100 at -147
Mariners $200 at +115


:)

I'll do yesterday's accounting later. Slight plus for the good guys. Today:

Nationals $200 at +115 (i.e. 200 to win 230)

Pirates to win $200 at -124 (i.e. 248 to win 200)

Yankees $50 at +113

Rays $100 at +136

White Sox $50 at +117

Braves to win $250 at -104

Mets to win $250 at -200

Reds $50 at +136

Angels to win $200 at -114 (Still haven't learned my Angels lesson)

Astros to win $50 at -109

Giants to win $100 at -129

Are these paper bets, or are we making real money here?

Paper, paper...I'm waiting on the R & D results.

Beta testing, I should say.

Balance sheet?

I have to calculate yesterday's results, but down about 5%, I think.

Early games today:

White Sox 100 at +119
Braves 100 at +108
Nationals 100 at +118

Rangers 50 at +116

Pirates 200 @ -144
Orioles 50 @ -113
Rays 100 @ +135
Mets 50 @ -155
Cubs 50 @ -146
Twins 200 @ +123
A's 50 @ +100
Cards 100 @ -160
Padres 100 @ -125
Mariners 200 @ +127
Giants 100 @ -108

All picks presuppose listed pitchers (not included here) and are canceled otherwise.

The starting point is that a teams expected winning percentage can be accurately calculated from it's runs scored/runs allowed totals. You tell me how many runs a team scored over the course of a 162-game season and how many they allowed, and I'll tell you how many games they won with a high degree of accuracy. That's well established.

What Bill did, with data I sent him, was try to quantify the luck that teams had last year in scoring runs. For instance, if two teams each get 9 hits in a game, but one of them gets them all in one inning, and the other gets one hit per inning, the first team is almost certainly going to win the game. He found formulas that estimate the number of runs will score per hit it gets based on a few key indicator numbers (on-base percentage, etc.) Armed with that, I made adjustments for personnel trades and player aging (if two players both hit .320 with 20 home runs, and one is 25 years old and the other is 35 years old, the first one is expected to have a better year next year than the second one) and computed an expected total of runs scored and allowed for each of the 30 teams.

That calculation resulted in projected W-L records, and was the basis for the preseason bets.

The game to game bets are similar, but modified based on who's playing, particularly the starting pitcher. For instance, let's say the Dodgers are expected to score 750 runs and give up 700. But if Kershaw pitched every day (or a "Kershaw equivalent"), they'd give up 650. So I treat them as a team that scores 750 and allows 650, and compute what their winning percentage would be; I do the same for the other team, then I use a formula that calculates the expected winning percentage of two teams head to head. For instance, if a team that wins 60% of its games plays a team that wins 40% of its games, it is expected to win about 69% of its games (calculation omitted). That expected winning percentage is compared against the money odds offered by the casinos to determine if a bet is warranted, and the amount of the bet increases with the amount of the perceived advantage.

For instance, let's say the Diamondbacks have an estimated 25% chance to beat the Dodgers. If the (money) odds exceed 3-1, a bet is recommended on the Diamondbacks. If the odds on the Dodgers are better than 1-3, a bet is recommended on the Dodgers. If the odds offered are 2-1, that suggests that the Dodgers have a 67% chance of winning. Since their actual (expected) chance is 75%, we have an 8% advantage, which would translate to a 3rd-level bet (4 units in the 1-20 unit spread).

In the arbitrary $50-$1000 spread I'm using for scorekeeping purposes, a $50 bets means an edge up to 3%. $100 is 4-6%. Up to $1,000 when the perceived edge exceeds 15%. Max bets are 1-1 so far.

Some recommended bets are expected to lose. For instance, you'd probably take 10-1 odds that you couldn't pull a heart out of a randomly shuffled deck, even though you'll probably lose the bet.

Twins $200 at +120
Brewers $100 at +139

Further picks and record update to come.