Betting Systems - Baseball Teams Saving Their Bullpens

The dynamics of how a bullpen is used throughout the long 162 game season is actually quite important when you bet on certain games of a series. There is a large number of games during the baseball season that end up in a 1-run difference.

Over the past 8 years, about 28% of the games have ended up with a team winning by exactly 1 run. So imagine a stronger bullpen can help influence the eventual outcome of 15% of the total games a team plays. That comes out to be about 24 total games a season that could be shifted from a loss to a win. Imagine your favorite team wins about 10-30 more games because of a stellar bullpen? That can be the difference between a wild card winner and a division winner. Or a playoffs loser and a wild card team.

It also can mean the difference betweeen a winning bet and a losing one. The odds of a game are generally created with too much emphasis on starting pitching. This is because it is hard to predict the use of a bullpen in a gam. Therefore people just go based solely on what they know. But the reality is if a team has been "saving" their bullpen, they will be more likely to use the bullpen when things get a little rough. Specifically this happens in tough games that are necessary for a team to win.

Like the Devil Rays may save up their entire bullpen against a meaningless Kansas City Royals so that when they face the Yankees, they can play spoiler and beat up on their rival. This happens often and represents a reason why home underdogs in divisional rivalry games play much better than expected. And why there are some systems for betting underdogs that win well over 50% because the bullpen works in their favor.

Ways to tell that a team is saving its bullpen usually can be seen at the end of a series when its starting pitcher struggled but the manager refused to take out its starter. And made him work through the game. And in those rare cases where the bullpen does not need to come in, they have a rested bullpen for the next game. And chances are that they will want to win starting the next series, so don't be afraid of a poor starting pitcher if the manager has already made it clear that he saved the bullpen for this game.