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Creating an MLB Money Line

2011-04-09 12:04:05 Rufio Magillicutty

*Over the next few weeks, re-posting (and possibly updating) a series of baseball write ups from last year that are yet relevant and useful. Anytime you are trying to analyze a market, you need a frame of reference. A way to compare some set of data to what the market formulates, lest you enjoy throwing darts. I like to keep objective, simplified data organized in the most aggregated form possible, meaning a collection of team and league data over the course of a regular season. As the season progresses, then you can start to provide a basic calculation of how the line should be convened and then compare to the set number given by linesmakers. Early in the season, basically your only form of information to negotiate arise from projections, forecasts, and just your own opinion of how things might occur based on previous seasons. Additionally, finding derivatives of the unobservable through forecast simulations is probably the most efficient way to appropriate a team by team comparison. MLB has the luxury of myriad sophisticated projection systems that have proved to be quite substantial in their team assessments. PECOTA, CHONE, MARCEL, ZiPs, among some others, are the more prominent Sabremetric-ated measures of an unbiased statistical simulation of an entire season. We are fortunate enough to have access to the imminent data required to set the various factors in place , thanks to the efforts of FanGraphs.com and the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog. So using the individual and team projections from the aforementioned websites, you can come up with a line for each game by placing the pitching matchups in an unconditional spectrum. Basically how would the team expect to perform given the respective starting pitchers pitched every inning of every game. By doing this you can save a little time by finding immediate value, therefore not having to expend additional resources to find precision that would ultimately be supernumerary for what is to be realized. Here is an example from a game I chose at random, using ZiPS forecasts of individual and team statistics (You can use whatever projection system you prefer). April 9th , 2011 Texas Rangers (Lewis) @ Baltimore Orioles (Britton) Open: Texas -113 / Baltimore +106 Extracting data from FanGraphs, here are the ERAs of the two starting pitchers:

Lewis 3.71 Britton 5.14 And the Projected Runs scored: Texas 775 Baltimore 783 Ill place the starting pitchers in a 162 game vacuum, 9IP per, and calculate the exclusive runs against: Lewis 3.71 x 162 = 601.02 Britton 5.14 x 162 = 832.68 This is beyond an oversimplified assumption, though its a starting point and from there one can adjust pitching factors to ones liking. Now we have runs scored and runs against, apply the Pythagorean method (exp 1.83) to each team to calculate expected team winning percentage. Texas PythW% = 61.42% Baltimore PythW% = 47.19% Now we apply the log5 formula, after that add in home field advantage, and convert to a line: Texas win probability = (.6142 .4719 * .6142) / (.6142 + .4719 2 * .6142 * .4719) Texas W% = 64.06% Baltimore W% = 35.94% Home-field advantage is somewhat tricky. This comprehensive analysis dating back 100 years in baseball found the average from 1991-2002 to be a 7% increase in wins compared to road percentage , or 2.84 wins, with averages displayed for each former decade. Diamond-mind.com took a different approach and merely took the average home winning percentage and subtracted .500, which is a Winning percentage of 50%, or the standard issue average of 81 wins, and found the number to be .042, or 4.2%. But then the visiting team has to be adjusted proportionally to the home increase, equating to a .084 advantage (and the .07 equates to .035 increase/decrease to each home/road team). Whichever number you use is simply preference, I tend to lean to the more regressive way of seeing things, and try to account for the lowest relative scenario in order to determine value. Therefore Ill give Chicago a .035 HFA rather than .042. With HFA: Texas W% = 60.56% Baltimore W% = 39.44% To express in the form of a US Money Line:

Texas = .6056/.3944*-100 = -153 Baltimore = (1/.3944-1)*100 = 153 By looking at the pinnacle opener (Texas -113), its apparent that Texas -153 is an expected performance value of 40 cents on the dollar, which is a huge advantage and at length will show a solid rate of return if you can beat the market in such ways consistently. Getting the best line possible is crucial in baseball because of market fluctuation. Whatever book you use, it may be a viable option to strip the juice from the market number and your own number for an easier comparison, then wager accordingly Like I said, Ive completely removed the impact of a bullpen from the equation, which unfortunately is not how baseball operates. You can calculate a teams bullpen ERA by averaging FanGraphs individual relief pitchers ERA and then determining the expected affect on a particular game by finding the IP/g projected for each starting pitcher. Then the runs surrendered by the bullpen can be subsequently calculated given the ERA. In this case, considerable value has already been established based on the exclusive condition of the starting pitchers, and I think it reasonable to assume that including the variable of the bullpen would not change the fact that the Rangers had value versus the opener. No reason to exert additional effort in measuring unnecessary variants. ***(The naivete of this statement in retrospect is mind-numbing) Once the season reaches a statistical flow, maybe June/July, then reality can displace sophisticated speculations and lines can be more easily determined while carrying more certainty. And some of the same methods can be applied. Ill probably revisit over the course of the season.

Related posts: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Creating your own MLB line Early Season Edition Adding Bullpen Variance to MLB Line Creation Extracting and Surveying Line Movement to measure a Model Breaking Down the ALCS: Yankees v Rangers MLB Average Line and Expected Wins