"Betting Baseball" by Michael Murray?

[gak555]

Is this a good read ?

 

[WildBill]

Excellent book. Bought last year's version, saw they have a new one this year with a few updates to it according to Howard over at GBC. A good add to any collection should you bet the bases even casually. Gives an excellent overview of how to build a reasonable betting line should you not have your own methods already.

 

[honestabe]

i guess i've got the first edition. it looks like he didn't bother to spell-check and a lot of tables are unclear. plus the whole back portion is padded out with personal bios of umpires:

did you know ed montague was in the navy from 69-73 and enjoys astronomy and playing the guitar?

apart from that it's excellent. the first sabermetrics style gambling book i've seen.

 

[j-saul]

Entertaining-yes Applicable to reality-no My opinion..

 

[JackDee]

bringing this thread up because I have been reading a lot about Bill James and sabermetrics. Why would you, j-saul, consider this book merely entairtaining, if it's a proper application of the sabermetrics then it should have both predictive and explanatory worth.

 

[Santo]

I have the '06 edition and will be fiddling with it for the first month or so to see how it goes.. Just about converted most of the methods to excel now

 

[Labeeb]

Santo,
How many "methods" would you say there are? I attempted to use sabermetrics along with wagering last year with disasterous results. Perhaps some flaws in what I was trying to do, perhaps the PECOTA projections I was using.

 

[zee]

Labeeb, you're not allowed to tell Santo that a gambler will NOT show profits betting on statistical analysis in baseball or that the PECOTA projections could be wrong. I've tried and tried and tried and I found out I'd have an easier time convincing a nun to spread her legs and renounce the bible.

PS: That said, I don't doubt Santo will find some way to use the projections for profit....;o))

 

[Christian]

if you want to check out some great baseball books....pick up something by Bob McCune. excellent info. i still use some of his formulas, especially his pitcher/defense formula for MLB. the man was brilliant.

good luck with whatever you fin!

 

[newb411breaker19]

christian, which bob mccune book did you like the most

 

[Christian]

christian, which bob mccune book did you like the most

oh, man, i'm trying to remember. i know i read two of his books, but they all had similar titles (education of a sports bettor, insights into sportsbetting, etc.)

i really don't remember the titles, and after a move i did a few years ago, i threw out a lot of my books (since i had most of them memorized, page-by-page

anyway, i would recommend ANYTHING by bob mccune. even though a lot of his books contain the same info..even if you buy them all, the money you'll spend will end up SAVING you 100 hundred times more!

it's one of the BEST investements you will ever make, especially if you want to bet baseball.

granted, some formulas will have to be tweaked to suit your own ideas (i never agreed with how much weight he gave to a team's stolen base stats, for example...i feel he weighted that particular stat much too heavily)...

but, then again, no 2 cappers in the world will ever agree 100% on anything.

you won't do wrong reading ANYTHING written by bob mccune. but sorry i couldn't be more specific as to which title i'd recommend most.

 

[Iceman]

oh, man, i'm trying to remember. i know i read two of his books, but they all had similar titles (education of a sports bettor, insights into sportsbetting, etc.)

i really don't remember the titles, and after a move i did a few years ago, i threw out a lot of my books (since i had most of them memorized, page-by-page

anyway, i would recommend ANYTHING by bob mccune. even though a lot of his books contain the same info..even if you buy them all, the money you'll spend will end up SAVING you 100 hundred times more!

it's one of the BEST investements you will ever make, especially if you want to bet baseball.

granted, some formulas will have to be tweaked to suit your own ideas (i never agreed with how much weight he gave to a team's stolen base stats, for example...i feel he weighted that particular stat much too heavily)...

but, then again, no 2 cappers in the world will ever agree 100% on anything.

you won't do wrong reading ANYTHING written by bob mccune. but sorry i couldn't be more specific as to which title i'd recommend most.

It'e education of a sportsbettor that goes into specific's on betting bases.

How long does this take for you to cap a daily card? His system seems like a LOT of work (probably why it is so effective). Just looked at it the other day and looks like a lot of work goes into it

 

[Santo]

I've tried and tried and tried and I found out I'd have an easier time convincing a nun to spread her legs and renounce the bible.

Ignoring the maniac who drafts players out for the season in the early rounds tempoarily...

Labeeb: How often did you update your PECOTA projections? Were you using the normalized stats (PERA, eqOBP, eqSLG) etc? I think some weighted average of PECOTA and real data, combined of course with the human element has potential to be successful..

Basically Murray's method consists of creating Offensive and Defensive power ratings for each team, based on OBP/SLG/AB and PERA, combining OPR(H) and DPR(V) and vice versa to generate a runs scored prediction for each team, adjusting for defences/umpires/weather etc.. and then applying the Davenport translation to convert the runs scored into a % chance, which can then be converted to a ML and home field accounted for..

Oversimplified, but how does it compare to what you were doing?

 

[DonDollars]

I have the '06 edition and will be fiddling with it for the first month or so to see how it goes.. Just about converted most of the methods to excel now

Are you willing to share these spreadsheets? I just thought I'd ask. I just bought the book and was going to start applying them to EXCEL....which I am still learning how to utilize. It would be nice to not have to reinvent the wheel if someone already applied the concepts to Excel.

 

[Santo]

Get my email from Wilheim and I'll fire over what I have, it's still under development so could use another eye looking over them for obvious problems etc..

 

[zee]

I know I wouldn't share them if they were mine.;o)

 

[DonDollars]

I know I wouldn't share them if they were mine.;o)

I would be hesitant to share them with anyone that I envisioned was a total freeloader and just wanted to tail people. If I thought the person was going to use them to handicap and try to make a system even better I would share it. To me, that is the purpose of this site. I am reading the book and hope to share any info or insight that I find useful.

 

[JackDee]

I find it hard to believe how someone can't find profitable betting angle in what is arguably the more advanced collections of explanatory and predictive modalities for baseball, unless the books are been there done that, and use still more advanced methods not open to the public.

 

[Labeeb]

Got my copy of the book. In reading it, there is one fundamental thing I have a major problem with. Perhaps it's covered somewhere that I have forgotten about. On Page 60, there is talk of the pitcher's power ratings. He is advising to guesstimate it? Is that a joke? There is no other talk of the basis of the power rating and he says to guesstimate?

 

[Santo]

My reading is that it is an estimate of the runs the team will concede. On page 61 he says that he creates the power ratings on the basis of the league average of 4.45 (Avg Runs per team, NL 2005)..

He mentions the xERA is 3.04, and that he's been throwing better lately, so he (subjectively) downrated that to 2.5.. He gave the bullpen an effective group xERA of 4, and combined the two in expected innings 7/2 (I'm using 6/3 in the regular season).

I've been using BP's PERA stat as an estimate of this personally..

HTH