Baseball Betting Strategy

Having a solid baseball betting strategy is a must if you're going to be successful at wagering on baseball. So many people just dive right in with no plan or strategy in place...don't be one of them.

What we'll go over in this chapter are some baseball betting strategies that will be very important to your overall handicapping philosophy. Now we've already covered some general advice and tips, but we'll start getting into some more detailed information here, while going even more in depth throughout the rest of the guide.

Now each baseball betting strategy we list here aren't absolutes, but I would highly encourage you to practice each one because I can promise you that every professional handicapper does.

Some will be easier to grasp, while others you will continue to fine tune over the years (power rankings). What we're trying to do is introduce you to some of the concepts that will make you a sharp handicapper.

As we've said throughout our baseball betting guide, we're not going to give you some kind of top secret formula or even walk you through step by step everything you need to do. It's up to you to follow through and put in the work.

We'll give you the groundwork to get you started, but it's up to you to individualize it to how you feel is most appropriate for your baseball handicapping...remember, this is a "do it yourself" guide. In other words, we're not going to do everything for you.

You'll learn so much more doing it yourself rather than us laying it out there for you. Alright, enough of me preaching again, I'm sure you get the point. Let's get to our first baseball betting strategy.

By far the most vital baseball betting strategy (at least in my opinion) centers around the importance of accurate power rankings (much easier said than done). Whether you develop your own or you follow someone elses, I believe they're crucial to your handicapping.

They should really be used as the basis for your baseball handicapping philosophy (any sports handicapping for that matter). Baseball has become an extremely analytical sport especially with the introduction of sabermetrics.

I won't go into the details of sabermetrics, but they can play a major role in creating your own power rankings or in following someone elses that implements sabermetrics into their power rankings.

Again, I'm not going to go into the details of sabermetrics, but click here to visit the Wikipeida page. Other great sites for sabermetrics information and power rankings include Beyond The Boxscore, Baseball Reference, and Baseball Prospectus. Obviously, there are others, but these will certainly get you going in the right direction.

Getting back to power rankings though, we'll teach a pretty basic strategy to create your own within our Handicapping a Baseball Game chapter. This will give you a great base to start from and then of course you'll want to add your own tweaks over time as you see necessary.

Power rankings are extremely important and I can assure you that every professional handicapper has their own formula's for calculating them. What you're essentially looking for are discrepancies between your own rankings and the lines that are set by the sportsbooks.

When you can accurately find these discrepancies, then you may have just found a possible bet on that side or total, but of course you'll want to dig deeper into it. If you can create good power rankings, then you will be a very successful baseball handicapper.

It isn't easy, but I can assure it can be done. As I've said before, I've met many handicappers that consistently win at baseball year after year and the primary reason typically stems from accurate power rankings.

Well get deeper into this later on in the guide, but I'd like to bring up this formula right now for reference since it's very important in the whole scheme of things pertaining to power rankings and win probabilities. We're talking about predicted win percentage based on the betting line.

To determine win percentage based on the lines listed by sportsbooks, take the amount your risking and divide it by the amount risked plus amount to win...clear as mud, huh?

Here's an example of a -150 favorite. If you are risking $150 to win $100, then you would first add $150 (amount risked) to $100 (amount to win). You would then take $150 (amount risked) and divide by the total of amount risked plus amount to win: 150/ (150 + 100) = 60%.

In other words, a team with a -150 line is predicted to win 60% of the time. A team with a +150 line (100 / (100 + 150)) is predicted to win 40% of the time. These are extremely critical numbers to know because you'll then compare those to your own projections (power rankings). If there are discrepancies then you may have good bet.

Estimated win probability is very important and if you can create a system/formula that is accurate, then you're going to be one very successful baseball handicapper (check out Accuscore if you're more of the hands off type because they offer some good probability software). However, for more of the hands on, we'll go over the basics to creating your own within our Handicapping a Baseball Game chapter.

We can't tell any type of top secret formula for them though, simply because everybody does it a little differently. However, if there's one baseball betting strategy that you take away from this chapter, it should be the crucial role that power rankings play in becoming a winning baseball bettor (this actually goes for any sport).

I think I've probably beat this baseball betting strategy into the ground enough, but I'll mention it here again just because it's so important: bet underdogs. Simple as that. Underdogs, on average, win about 45% of the time...this is very important to know.

I truly believe betting underdogs is the key to winning at baseball in the long run and trust me, I'm not alone. As I've already stated quite a few times throughout our Baseball Betting Guide, I would never bet a favorite of -150 or more.

And if you look at our free baseball betting picks on our sports betting blog, you'll see it's very rare for us to ever lay more than -110. It's very simple, the more dogs you bet, the less games you have to win to turn a profit.

As I've said before, basically every team will win 60 games and lose 60 games, no matter how good or bad they are. That's telling you right there that underdogs will win at least 60 games.

If I only have to pick 45-50% of those games correctly to make a profit then that offers great value (that would basically be lines between +122 and +100. Trust me, it's much easier than having to pick 55-60% correct in order to turn a profit (that would basically be laying between -122 and -150).

Don't ever forget this baseball betting strategy because it is extremely important to the success of your baseball handicapping. Underdogs are where the value/money is at and should serve as one of your primary strategies for years to come.

Staying along the same lines as the above baseball betting strategy, we'll go into a little more depth in betting underdogs.

Most professionals (and any good handicapper for that matter) should know the significance of betting division underdogs. Obviously, division opponents play a lot of games together, which makes them very familiar with each other. Divisions produces rivalries and that means great competition and an all out effort.

Of course you shouldn't just bet division underdogs blindly, but you should pay very special attention to them since tremendous value and opportunity can be found in these matchups.

Here are a few scenarios that make division dogs even stronger: if they are coming off a blowout loss (oddsmakers may adjust the line to much, thus creating great value), if they were swept by their division opponent in the previous serious (revenge), if it's later in the year (more squares are betting the favorite, thus giving the dog better value).

Each of the above scenarios should certainly be accounted for in your overall baseball betting strategy. And trust me, over the years you'll began to develop your own that you can implement into your power rankings/win probabilities.

This is a baseball betting strategy that you really don't hear mentioned much in books or websites. I'm a huge proponent of it in college basketball and football, but also feel that it has a place in betting baseball as well.

Basically it's this: pick 1-2 small market teams and follow them religiously throughout the year (if you live in a small market town, then even better). For me personally, I live in Kansas City, so it makes it easy to know everything about them.

But even if you don't, you can still find everything you need to know on the internet. Watch or listen to the games as much as you can, listen to local radio, read local newspapers, watch boxscores, follow transactions, follow the farm club...etc (you get the point).

Become an absolute expert of that team. Not only will you learn a ton (which is nice), but you'll become a great handicapper at betting for or against that team. I'm telling you, this baseball betting strategy works because I used it for many years.

Most people don't have the time to be an expert at every team in baseball, but most people can find the time to become an expert on 1-2 teams. That still gives you at least 324 betting possibilities throughout the year...and that should be plenty of opportunities to make a nice profit.

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