As the lineup for the Yankees continues to fluctuate on a week-to-week basis because of health issues, it’s important for sports bettors to remember a key fundamental: Analyze the team that’s on the field!
Betting angles don’t matter if those trends were compiled with different personnel. It’s not the uniforms winning or losing games. Results are determined by the skill sets of players and game conditions, influenced some by the fickle nature of randomness.
If you liked betting the Yankees in the past with certain situational perks (bounce-back spots, to avoid a sweep, versus certain pitchers, in particular ballparks), those approaches should go on the back burner until you see what THIS group does.
It might help if you just called the current Yankees “the quilt,” or some other moniker that reminds you of the patchwork nature of the lineup and roster. Don’t ask yourself if you want to bet the Yankees tonight. Ask, “do I want to risk money on this quilt?”
It won’t be as easy as you think. Confounding your ability to judge all the temporary early-season starters:
- The Yankees had a home-friendly schedule thus far, making it easier to avoid disaster. Fifteen of their first 21 games were at home. Worth noting that their 11-10 record before the current road trip began was a negative in that context. A hypothetical team that “wins its home games and loses its road games” would have gone 15-6. The Yankees have played well below market expectations thus far.
- The Yankees had a very soft schedule in terms of opposition quality. Before heading west, they had played 13 games against opponents at .400 or worse in Monday morning’s standings, and three more against a Detroit team that was market-projected to lose more than 90 games this season. Even the current road series is against the Angels, who entered playing .409 baseball in the AL West cellar. Bad injury luck, great schedule luck!
- Baseballs look to be as lively in 2019 as they were back in the “juiced ball” season of 2017. That could make offensive replacements seem better than they really are. Remember to judge offensive stats by this year’s norms across the sport, not by raw instincts misled by lower past standards.
Talk about a harmonic convergence. Members of the patchwork roster got to hit lively baseballs against a very soft, home-heavy schedule. Results from this current road trip (that also includes visits to San Francisco and Arizona) should provide a more accurate read on true offensive quality.
Sharps deal with challenges like this very simply. They rate each individual player, either using their own time-proven scale, or “indicator” stats from analytics (such as “weighted on-base average, or “weighted runs created plus”). They don’t bet until they’ve seen the starting lineup for the night. Then, they basically add up the sum of the talent to project a result.
While this approach is time consuming, it prevents lapsing into lazy handicapping that relies on relative trivia.
