Re: 365 plays in 365 days......IPP style
Since I find myself with a few minutes it's always a good time to reflect. I know most of you know me as IPP the idiot. I come to these forums to blow off some steam and to be an idiot. Have a few pops, talk some trash and get some people ticked off. I think its fun sometimes to be someone your not. The few people who got to know me a little off the forums would probably tell you i'm still an idiot but a pretty good dude. The one person I got to know really well off the forums would probably tell you i'm definitely an idiot but an idiot who would do anything for a friend. Sooooooooo I thought I would come into my little thread here and make a serious post for a change.
The start of interleague play is when I have my first sit down with myself to go over my information in depth. I look at all my spreadsheets, see where I am at, and plan a strategy for the next portion of the season. I gotta be honest and say that to me baseball is the toughest sport to beat. I've been doing this a little while and I keep thinking about the length of the season, the travel, the outside distractions for guys with a lot of money and fame. Baseball players have fuck off days. Late night partying, banging groupies, hangovers, day games after long nights out, etc. It's a tough sport to wrap your head around. I may get off track here and writing isn't my thing so rambling is to be expected from here on out.
A little about what I do in my baseball handicapping and how I approach things. I have a lot of info I look at and pound into spreadsheets. I know guys who use services for their data (info services not pick services). I know guys who won't bet anything but dogs in baseball. I know guys who bet strictly based on perceived value. Then you have trend guys, or umpire guys, or people who toss it all in a bowl and spit out the best plays they can find. I've had debates with myself on whether or not to play more games, or should I focus on the one or two best plays on the board every day and bet them for more. You know what I have learned about all this information and internal debates over the years. If you second guess what you are doing or what your aproach is going to be......your dead in the water. You have zero chance of winning if you don't believe in your approach. Confidence in sports investing is like confidence in every day life. A guy who has no confidence in a bar isn't getting any tail, and a guy with no confidence in sports investing will have an empty wallet. It took me a long time to find my groove and to believe in how I go about things. It makes it so much easier to live with bad results when you believe you made the right bet. Trust me I lose a TON of wagers every year and i'm fine with it. I am fine with it because I ask myself one really simple question each and every time I hit the submit button to make a wager. I ask myself "if this wager loses would I make the same bet again". If I can't answer yes then it's the wrong bet for me.
So every day my routine is the same. I log my results, update my spreadsheets, and I look over every game to see if it played out like I thought it would. I'll look at the box score and compare it to my sheets and say yup that's exactly how that game should have went. Others I say man that was so not how that should have went. I'll look at how a line opened and moved, where did it end, was there any correlation to the line move and what my data showed. Why did a team fold like a cheap suit when they should have dominated.
This leads me to some things I like to factor into my information. Lets face it we could all go nuts if we tried to analyze everything. Just isn't enough time in the day to look at it all. This goes back to my approach....what are my goals, how much time do I have, where do I want to focus my efforts. Some of the things I focus on in baseball in no particular order are:
BB/K ratio - this goes for starters and pen. Who do I think may end up pitching in this game in certain situations, what can I expect out of them, how many cheap runners may end up on base. Doesn't take a brain surgeon to compare Halladay to a Scott Kazmir type pitcher
WHIP - pretty self explanatory we don't want a high ratio type number
FIP - use this quite extensively to get a better understanding of your starter. I don't buy into just looking at a guys ERA it is so nondescriptive of what you might get that day if that makes sense. If you don't use FIP I highly recommend adding it.
Obviously lineup info is key. Who's sitting, who's playing, how do they fare against the starters and likely BP that day.
How did the previous game end, was it a long game, did the pen get worked to death, is there an early start the next day
I like to look at strand rates and is there any vulnerability there......is it likely to stay at the current level
ground ball, fly ball ratios......sometimes you can get away with different variances in different parks
I prefer GPA over OPS
Crap running out of time.....
I try and use a lot of the common stuff most people look at but I have my own style of where its going to fit into my sheets. I try and project the innings I can expect out that days starters, pitch levels, run differentials, can I get to the teams pen. I got some fun stuff I use in my sheets that do all kinds of crap.........do I need it probably not but it helps me try get a feel for the days games.
I won't pigeonhole myself into playing only dogs. I'll lay the wood on a team if my sheets say I have a very high probability of winning that same matchup a certain number of times. I'm not laying -200 just for the fuck of it.
It's no secret sports is hard to win at, and we all know everyone on forums is a winning gambler just ask em. I just think if you can limit the mistakes, find an approach that you have time to manage, and try and interpret why a game went the way it is you'll be better off.
I could ramble on forever about other stuff I use but try and get familiar with stats you may not have heard of. Go to a site like hardballtimes.com and maybe try some stuff you haven't used to get a better feel for the matchup. My dog knows matchups are key so look at them. The fun part about baseball to me is you could have the perfect game on paper, no way team A should lose.......and they get crushed. Take chances on a play here and there, find some good value spots, peek at a few trends.
There are some really good gamblers on forums who take it serious go read some of what makes them tick. Guys like IrishTim who knows math inside and out..........even if it doesn't make sense try and find why they do some things they do. Listen to guys who talk about their models, etc. Someone like Buffett and his style makes you look at your games and go damn didn't think of that. Whether you like a poster or not shouldn't rule out the fact he may have something valid to bring to the table. Most winners aren't going to take the time to tell you how they do it and could care less about getting credit on sites from a bunch of doorknobs. Lets face it chasing lines is time consuming, trying to figure out the best spot to jump in, do you wanna buy back a portion of your position, do you want to add more. How important is getting the best line in baseball when lines move like a dude on Meth.....it will make or break your season believe it. Know your ROI, track your wagers and bets against the closing number. Beat the line move. Start a simple spreadsheet to see where your money is going and where you made mistakes. If you make an error or a bad bet but don't remember why or how come you made that mistake you're probably going to make it again. I can look through my logs and tell you last year where I fucked up during football season. I can look at my note and say yup not a good position to be in and reading why I fucked up helps me see that same situation again and I can make a better decision.
I didn't get into a lot of the statistical stuff because im a rambling idiot and out of time.
Go read and research and ask yourself my one key question from earlier and you will save yourself a lot of grief.
Did I mention I never beat interleague play...........hmmm
Ok ladies cash some tickets.....find a way.......and in the words of that puss pocket Jose Lima......."believe it"
Gotta be noon somewhere, where is my friggin beer hat.........scramble eggs bitches
Seacrest out