Baseball - Home Field Advantage

In baseball, the home field advantage is not as well known as it is in the NBA and NFL. It is because of this novice baseball bettors do not take the home field advantage into account when they are placing bets. If only the knew!

Baseball teams playing at home win approximately 53.6 percent of the times and when they play on the road, they win just over 46 percent games. This means that the team playing at home has an advantage of 7.2 percent.

So even if a the opposing team has a good pitcher on the mound, the home team will have a 7.2 percent advantage and this is good news for baseball bettors as it might be well worth their while to place a bet on the home team.

Another fact that baseball bettors should note is the correlation between the home team’s winning percentage and the game number in a series. The home field advantage keeps decreasing as games in the series are played and by the fourth game of a series, the home field advantage is no longer an advantage. The next sentence might be of interest to serious baseball bettors. The explanation for this is very simple.

When baseball teams are on a road trip, they play practically everyday and the first game of the road trip is always the toughest. However, by the time the fourth game is played, the road team gets used to traveling and is well adjusted to the hectic schedule. This results in the home field advantage being nullified.