And with that, the excitement of a new MLB season fades into number-crunching. 15 games on Thursday’s slate, 15 opportunities to start on the right foot. I model games to determine a probable score based on team and starting pitcher projections (and actual stats once we get a body of work for this season). It’s not meant to be perfect, just consistently more right than it is wrong. Situational aspects are important but play second fiddle to the numbers.
In conjunction with the BetCrushers team, I look for live dogs on the money line and favorites to win convincingly on the run line. Historically, I play the former about 2-3 times more often than the latter. A sharp baseball handicapper told me years ago that I’d burn through my bankroll betting favorites. A season and a half later, I realized he was right.
So here we are today with a fresh season and a fresh slate of games to wager…and all I’ve ended up with is 1 play. Go figure. Most of these games I project to be tight and in favor of the team laying on the money line, which is a no-go for me. Those lays add up, and they’ve proven to do so in the wrong column enough over the long run to keep me away. One game I have undoubtedly going towards the favorite: the Yankees over the Orioles, as you would expect. But not for -175 on the RL and sure as hell not -375 on the ML.
Cleveland Indians @ Minnesota Twins
Corey Kluber. Division-dominating Indians. Do you need much more than that? Well, despite stacking this against the home team, the Twins are live. I expect Kluber to be a ~1 WHIP, 9 K/9 dominator this season (nothing novel here, I know) and for the Indians to take the AL Central yet again. But the Indians are expected to miss half of their starting infield Thursday (Lindor & Kipnis), have a subpar offensive output from their outfielders, and may have trouble putting enough runs on the board.
The Twins should have a slight bullpen edge and generally have more offensive potential as compared to the Indians in their current state. Berrios is no slouch (and no Kluber) and has the potential to keep the game under control for a solid 6 innings. Minnesota took steps in the offseason to bolster their lineup, which should get some runners on and take advantage of their power to score. Can this bolstered Twins lineup push a fourth or fifth run across the plate to get the W? This likely depends on whether they can take advantage of a Kluber mistake or two and if Berrios has a solid Opening Day outing for the home crowd.
This line had lost about 5 cents of value from the consensus open (BetOnline’s soft open was about 20 cents higher), but I’ll take the home squad in the season opener. Undoubtedly, it’s tough to go against Kluber fresh out of the box. This one is effectively a coin flip but I’m getting +105 for it to land on heads. It’s a long season and many times the edge comes down to this sort of simple math.
