Here's an article from Covers on the lack of scoring so far. Usually when Covers starts talking about a trend it goes the other way!
Under-standing baseball’s lack of early season scoring
Thu, Apr 12, 2007
By Jeff Mason
A startling and potentially profitable trend has developed over the first two weeks of the baseball season.
The under has been cashing in at a surprising rate of 59 percent heading into Thursday’s action. The numbers are especially disparate in the National League where 62 percent of games have played under.
The hard numbers read like this: the American League has an over/under ratio of 48-58-5. The National League has a ratio of 50-82-8.
“You just don’t have the dominant bats in some of those lineups in the National League,” says professional handicapper David Jones. “The Arizona Diamondbacks come to mind as a team that doesn’t have any real bats, but is still able to have success.”
Arizona is 7-3 on the season despite Orlando Hudson (a career .277 hitter with 275 RBIs in 629 major league games) batting third and Eric Byrnes (.262 and 266 in 662 games) batting cleanup. The Diamondbacks have played under in seven of 10 games this season and are averaging 4.6 runs per game.
Their numbers are actually better than most of baseball at this point in the season. The average major league team is bringing home just 4.37 runs per game and batting .248.
Those numbers are well down from each of the last five Aprils when the average team hit.262 (never cumulatively hitting below .258 in any given year) and scored an average of 4.8 runs per game (never scoring below 4.65).
Power and patience are also down. The average OPS, calculated by adding a team’s on base percentage to its slugging percentage, is .709. The league has an average OPS of .753 over the five previous Aprils, which never dipped below .739.
“I don’t think it’s any one thing contributing to the downturn in scoring,” says Jones. “But obviously April weather has played a factor. The changing climate is making for quite a few more cold weather games than the same time over the last few seasons.”
Lack of certain illegal supplements has also helped, and it’s quite possible that the effect of baseball’s crackdown on performance enhancing drugs is finally beginning to show in the numbers.
“One thing that was brought to my attention that I hadn’t really thought about was the new drug testing policy,” says Jones. “These numbers may be more the result of a league without as many drugs.”
Oddsmakers aren’t quick to react to trends developing this early in the season, but the severity of this one has caught their eye. Even still, they admit the adjustments are minimal and it's been more of a wait-and-see approach.
“Baseball is a long, long season,” says Wynn Hotel and Casino sportsbook manger John Avello. “You can’t overreact to things this early in the season or else you are going to get killed on the other end. There may be a reason the scoring is lower, there may not. We will see in time.”
Only eight of 30 major league teams are favoring the over this season, with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays leading the way with an 8-0 O/U. The Cincinnati Reds are the most profitable under bet to date at 1-7-1.
The National League West has also stood out as an under goldmine with the five teams combining for a 14-31-1 over/under ratio. That division is led by the majors’ quintessential under team, the San Diego Padres. San Diego’s games are averaging just six runs and the Padres have seven unders and two overs this year despite not seeing a total greater than 8 ½ runs.
“A team like San Diego provides the perfect blueprint to play under,” says Jones. “They have a great bullpen and play in a pitchers park. You can’t set the line low enough for them.”
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Under-standing baseball’s lack of early season scoring
Thu, Apr 12, 2007
By Jeff Mason
A startling and potentially profitable trend has developed over the first two weeks of the baseball season.
The under has been cashing in at a surprising rate of 59 percent heading into Thursday’s action. The numbers are especially disparate in the National League where 62 percent of games have played under.
The hard numbers read like this: the American League has an over/under ratio of 48-58-5. The National League has a ratio of 50-82-8.
“You just don’t have the dominant bats in some of those lineups in the National League,” says professional handicapper David Jones. “The Arizona Diamondbacks come to mind as a team that doesn’t have any real bats, but is still able to have success.”
Arizona is 7-3 on the season despite Orlando Hudson (a career .277 hitter with 275 RBIs in 629 major league games) batting third and Eric Byrnes (.262 and 266 in 662 games) batting cleanup. The Diamondbacks have played under in seven of 10 games this season and are averaging 4.6 runs per game.
Their numbers are actually better than most of baseball at this point in the season. The average major league team is bringing home just 4.37 runs per game and batting .248.
Those numbers are well down from each of the last five Aprils when the average team hit.262 (never cumulatively hitting below .258 in any given year) and scored an average of 4.8 runs per game (never scoring below 4.65).
Power and patience are also down. The average OPS, calculated by adding a team’s on base percentage to its slugging percentage, is .709. The league has an average OPS of .753 over the five previous Aprils, which never dipped below .739.
“I don’t think it’s any one thing contributing to the downturn in scoring,” says Jones. “But obviously April weather has played a factor. The changing climate is making for quite a few more cold weather games than the same time over the last few seasons.”
Lack of certain illegal supplements has also helped, and it’s quite possible that the effect of baseball’s crackdown on performance enhancing drugs is finally beginning to show in the numbers.
“One thing that was brought to my attention that I hadn’t really thought about was the new drug testing policy,” says Jones. “These numbers may be more the result of a league without as many drugs.”
Oddsmakers aren’t quick to react to trends developing this early in the season, but the severity of this one has caught their eye. Even still, they admit the adjustments are minimal and it's been more of a wait-and-see approach.
“Baseball is a long, long season,” says Wynn Hotel and Casino sportsbook manger John Avello. “You can’t overreact to things this early in the season or else you are going to get killed on the other end. There may be a reason the scoring is lower, there may not. We will see in time.”
Only eight of 30 major league teams are favoring the over this season, with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays leading the way with an 8-0 O/U. The Cincinnati Reds are the most profitable under bet to date at 1-7-1.
The National League West has also stood out as an under goldmine with the five teams combining for a 14-31-1 over/under ratio. That division is led by the majors’ quintessential under team, the San Diego Padres. San Diego’s games are averaging just six runs and the Padres have seven unders and two overs this year despite not seeing a total greater than 8 ½ runs.
“A team like San Diego provides the perfect blueprint to play under,” says Jones. “They have a great bullpen and play in a pitchers park. You can’t set the line low enough for them.”
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