Betting Trends in Baseball

Betting trends in baseball can be fun and profitable. Betting on major league baseball lends itself well to trends because the teams play so many games each year. The regular season is 162 games, and this allows many teams to distinguish themselves each year by playing well at times and poorly at times. If you know what their track record is, you can boost your bankroll.

Teams are made up of players, and some players perform well in certain circumstances, such as cold weather or warm weather, early season games or late season games, and night games or day games. These trends are season-long, so keeping track of a number of teams year by year is necessary. Good baseball bettors take advantage of these very trends, but have usually put many seasons of stats together to obtain viable information.

However, most annual trends can become worthless because player rosters change so quickly. You need to dig deep to find nuggets for smart betting. You have to ask yourself why a trend is continuing. For example, lets say you notice that for the past three seasons Ichiro Suzuki hit for a very high average in July when on the road to Cleveland. Perhaps it is because he slaps down at the ball and the turf is baked hard in the summer sun, so he gets extra infield hits. Is that information exploitable? Perhaps, especially if there is another player on the team that hits in a similar fashion and you can get a few bets in as big dogs.

For a few seasons the San Francisco Giants had several speedsters in their lineup and they kept the infield very moist and the grass was thick and long. That played towards the Giants favor and the speedy guys beat out infield choppers that would be outs in most stadiums or on artificial turf.

This type of information, home and away games, and natural surface and artificial surface can lead to some good bets. However, the most useful trends are those that are current, and have more to do with the performance of specific players right now. Many of these trends involve streaks.

Because bookies try to even-out the betting on each sporting event (so the casino can win the vig) many good bets happen with major teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers, and any teams that are currently in first place. When a team like the Yankees is struggling against left-handed pitching it might be because the lineup is heavy in right handed batters and one big-bopper like Alex Rodriguez is not hitting well. Is that a trend? Sure. And the good part is that there are so many people who are Yankees fans that the line will be distorted by their many bets compared to say the A's, who don't have anywhere near as large a fan base. So, when the Yankees play at home against the A's and are favored at -175 and you can get the A's for +165, even with the A's best lefty going, that may be a great bet. Especially if the Yankee's won the first two games of the series!

Baseball is a streaky game, and it's a long season, so even very good teams can go dry for a while. Teams that win 90+ games a year rarely have a long losing streak. A few years ago the Yankees only lost two weekend series all year. Before that when the Mariner's were hot and won their division and 116 games, they only lost three 3-games series all year. Think you had a nice trend and streak with that information in July, August and September?

In the long run, find trends that you can deduce the reason for. Don't just bet a team because they have won six straight night games - that's a useless trend, unless there is a reason. Maybe they were playing several games at places like Wrigley Field where the late evening wind was strong to the outfield and they hit several home runs. That's exploitable. They may have several guys who routinely fly out several times a game, but with a little extra gust of wind, their long fly balls turned into home runs.

Search and you will be rewarded.