How to Pick a Home Baseball Winner
By Michael Williams (2/19/2007)
The home field advantage does exist in baseball. And there are many teams that perform better at home than on the road. So I first like to look at the heavy home underdogs that have a decent win percentage at home and a horrible road win percentage.
The horrible road win percentage tends to give everybody the illusion that the team is horrible. When in reality they might actually be decent at home. Teams like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have always won their backers money when playing at home. That is because they are known to be such a bad team that when they are at home, they are undervalued by as much as 30 points on average.
You also have to realize that the home field advantage in baseball is the strongest in the beginning of the series. The road team gets more acclimated to playing on the road in Games 3 and 4 of the series. So find these home teams the strongest bet in the beginning.
Teams like the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Devil Rays may look like a horrible bet but when they win at a 45% clip at home in Game 1 of their series when they are consistently about -220 is a good deal.
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