Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

Juan Soto – The San Diego Padres made the biggest splash at the MLB Trade Deadline, acquiring arguably the greatest young hitter since Mike Trout.

Combine that move with adding infielder Brandon Drury, first baseman Josh Bell and closer extraordinaire Josh Hader, and you have a ballclub that’s made the biggest move in the futures markets. The Padres moved from +1000 to +400 to win the N.L. pennant and from +2200 to +1000 to win the World Series (FOX Bet).

Even with the acquisitions, power metrics still say the Los Angeles Dodgers have the best roster in the National League. But, on Covering the Spread, I explained why the Atlanta Braves are still a value play.

Betting on First-Inning Runs – Maybe you want to bet on baseball but don’t want to watch a full game. NRFI (no runs first inning) and YRFI (yes runs first inning) could be more of your jam, where you simply bet on if any runs will be scored in the first frame.

I wrote a general guide to first inning bets, and bettor Jared Smith has also assembled some outstanding resources to help you take the plunge, notably how ballclubs and pitchers have faired in first innings this season.

Premier League Futures – The new season of EPL is already underway, and with it, a number of opportunities to enter the futures markets.

A fun one is the top goalscorer. Last season, per understat.com, among qualifiers, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah led the way in both expected goals and expected goals per 90 minutes. He has the second-shortest odds on FanDuel at +470 behind Erling Haaland, the young Norwegian who joined Manchester City this off season.

However, if you’re looking for someone who vastly underperformed his xG, Harry Kane finished 3.69 xG short of his actual goals scored. Kane has the third best odds +550.

Pass Rush – Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt led the NFL with 23 sacks last season. However, as Ed Feng explained on a solo episode of The Football Analytics Show, sacks are not that predictive from season to season.

Instead, he suggests looking at pressures, the sum of sacks, hits and hurries. PFF has the data to track pressure rate, or pressures divided by pass rush snaps.

In 2021, Watt had a pressure rate of 14.9%, very impressive compared to the NFL average of 10.3% for edge rushers. However, Von Miller had a pressure rate of 15.2% for two teams in 2021. The pass rush abilities of Miller are one reason Buffalo is the Super Bowl favorite (+600 at Circa).

Detroit Lions – Fabian Somner isn’t buying the hype. He believes the Lions will struggle in the secondary, and these PFF passing grades for QB Jared Goff don’t impress him (out of 100):

• 2019: 72.5
• 2020: 71.6
• 2021: 61.7

He also notes that offensive guru Sean McVay was calling the plays those first two seasons. Fabian doesn’t see these Lions contending for the playoffs.

On his appearance on the Deep Dive podcast, Fabian also talked about the NFL stat that has replaced DVOA with bettors and many other betting topics.

Stefon Diggs – Is he still an elite receiver? Diggs had fewer receptions and yards last season than in 2020. In two playoff games, he had only 10 targets. Instead, Gabriel Davis had a monster 8 reception, 201 yard game at Kansas City.

However, JJ Zachariason of Late Round Fantasy Football believes in Diggs. He has shown all the attributes of an elite receiver, and Buffalo’s offense should keep their pass heavy tendencies even without OC Brian Daboll. JJ’s fantasy draft guide had Diggs ahead of CeeDee Lamb and Davante Adams.

On The Football Analytics Show, JJ also discussed how his NFL player projection model works, how to use regression to your advantage, and the importance of supply and demand in fantasy football drafts.

Money in College Football – Many in college football are complaining about money infiltrating the sport through Name, Image and Likeness agreements players are making with companies willing to pay them for advertising. But, as the old saying goes, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

Fans have complained for a long time about money ruining college football. College football editor Matt Brown found a newspaper article from 100 years ago about Baton Rouge residents complaining LSU was paying its new football coach too much.

Data driven betting information

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

• Valuable
• Concise
• Entertaining

Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet.

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We’re back with your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

NFL market rankings – One component of The Power Rank’s NFL model comes from market win totals. Each team gets a rating which is consistent with the market win total and the team’s schedule.

For 2022, here are the top 5 teams (the rating gives an expected margin of victory against an average NFL team).

1. Buffalo, 6.8
2. Kansas City, 6.1
3. Tampa Bay, 6.0
4. Los Angeles Rams, 4.9
5. Green Bay, 4.4

Tampa Bay signed veteran wide receiver Julio Jones, and the markets liked this move. Compared to the beginning of July, the rating for the Bucs has risen 0.6 points.

Based on this model, Tampa Bay is a 1.5 point favorite at Dallas week 1. Predictions for the first two weeks of the season are available to members of The Power Rank.

NFL season player props – From the 2021 season, Connor Allen analyzed 243 season long NFL player prop (Passing Yards, Rushing Yards, Receiving Touchdowns, etc). He found that the under hit in two of every three bets (66.7%). The hit rate for the under was even higher in categories like rushing touchdowns.

The sample size is small, so you should not blindly bet the under based on this data. The analysis does suggest that injuries play a big role in the outcome of these bets.

Cy Young – If you’re looking for projections for who will win the Cy Young, you may have stumbled upon ESPN’s Cy Young Predictor. However, its projections do not match with odds-on favorites.

For instance, while Miami’s Sandy Alcantara has been a sizable favorite for weeks, ESPN says the likeliest winner is Los Angeles Dodger Tony Gonsolin.

Their model comes from Bill James and Rob Neyer, who are obviously two of the foremost sabermetricians in the universe. However, this model does not come close to matching the markets.

One approach that seems more predictive is from Tom Tango and charted by Baseball Musings. If you don’t want to bet on the favorites, this model suggests value in Chicago White Sox hurler Dylan Cease and Atlanta’s Max Fried.

NFL Betting Tools – Even if you aren’t betting on NFL Preseason games beginning next week, you will want to have tools at your disposal for finding the best prices.

NFL analyst Robby Greer will have you prepared. His site includes the standard odds calculator that provides a payout and an implied probability based on odds and money wagered.

But, if you click the > button, you also get a Cover Probability calculator and a Hold Calculator. The former gives you expected value for your line compared with the market’s line, and the latter gives you the hold (book’s profit margin per money wagered) based upon the odds of each side.

MLB Trade Deadline – Is it weird to be refreshing Twitter more frequently than usual this weekend and having several alarms set in advance of 6:00pm Tuesday’s MLB Trade Deadline? If so, nobody asked you anyway.

Former Kansas City outfielder Andrew Benintendi was dealt to the Yankees this week and already their odds to win the World Series shortened from 4/1 to +350 (FOX Bet). Friday night, Jeff Passan reported Luis Castillo is leaving Cincinnati for Seattle. It has not affected their pennant or World Series odds.

When charting other big names that will likely be uprooted, a couple of ballclubs that look to be active include the Dodgers, Padres and Cardinals.

New players do not guarantee anything, but value is lost once news breaks, so plan accordingly and be obsessed like me.

Breaking into sports analytics – While he was working on his Ph.D. in neuroscience, Nick Wan dabbled with sports data. One day, Justin Wolfers of the New York Times messaged him about his work on Arizona State.

Nick had looked into whether the fans impacted opposing free throw shooters. This story eventually landed on the front page of the newspaper.

While this work didn’t directly lead to a job in sports, the experience gave Nick the confidence to seek out these jobs. A team like the Cincinnati Reds wanted to hire analytics folks with a broad background, and now Nick works as their Director of Analytics.

On a recent episode of The Football Analytics Show, Nick talked about many aspects of analytics, including working as one of two data scientists for a Fortune 500 company.

Learning from History – One book I’ve been reading this summer is Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, a study on what happens when empires and nations rise and fall.

Author Ray Dalio listed several determinants for a country’s overall health. Among them is the ability for that country’s population to learn history. As Dalio put it: “Learning from one’s own experiences is not adequate because… many of the most important lessons don’t come in one’s lifetime” (p. 72).

I believe this advice is also salient in sports betting. Crafting a process and learning from mistakes are important, but you should not do this alone. Study others. Your experiences are few compared with the many bettors who have done it for years.

For starters, check out:

• Alan Boston, long time pro college basketball bettor, on home court.
• Rufus Peabody, professional sports bettor, on wind in MLB stadiums.

Data driven betting information

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

• Valuable
• Concise
• Entertaining

Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet.

If you sign up, I’ll send you my Top 5 Sports Betting Podcast Episodes, an education for your ears.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”

 

 

 

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

Betting on Wimbledon – While Novak Djokovic is a massive favorite to win his seventh Wimbledon championship, there are lingering questions about if he can come close to the peak of his powers given his routine may have been challenged with what happened in Australia and the “shoulder injury” from last summer.

On the Deep Dive podcast, Drew Dinsick and Andy Monitor discussed Wimbledon futures with @MatterTipTennis. Two players they mentioned include Carlos Alcaraz, who has an incredible drop shot, and David Goffin, who has had success against top tier competition but hasn’t put it all together in a Grand Slam yet.

How to break into sports betting – Here’s the convention wisdom for success: work hard in school, go to college, maybe even get an overrated Stanford PhD (how can you trust anything from a Pac-12 school anyway?). But maybe this is all balderdash.

On an episode of Be Better Bettors, Antonino De Rosa talks about getting hired at Pinnacle sports book because of his success at Magic: The Gathering. In this card game, players defeat opponents by casting spells, using artifacts and summoning creatures based on their cards.

Antonino made part time money playing Magic: The Gathering in college, and this skill led to a future career first as a trader and now as a sports bettor. In a great episode of Be Bettor Bettors, he talks about his transition from card playing to trading to live betting basketball.

The critical receiving statistic – Consistency. Big plays come and go, but an offense in football thrives when it can consistently gain yards.

Consistency is important for receivers as well. Does a receiver make himself a threat on each play, even if he doesn’t get the ball? Looking at yards per route run gives a sense for this consistency, while yards per target can be influenced by big plays.

On a recent episode of The Football Analytics Show, Ed Feng noted how Cleveland’s Donovan Peoples-Jones had a better yards per target than Cooper Kupp and Davante Adams last season. While Peoples-Jones is a promising WR heading into this third season, no one will mistake him for elite just yet.

By yards per route run, Kupp (3.12) and Adams (2.81) were 1st and 3rd in the NFL in 2021. Peoples-Jones earned 1.46 yards per route run, below the NFL average of 1.52 over the past 3 seasons.

Feng also discussed the symmetric stat for coverage players in the most recent episode of The Football Analytics Show. You can also catch this episode on YouTube.

Perceived Velocity – While physics would suggest the velocity of a pitch is consistent from Point A to Point B, how fast a pitcher throws and how fast it feels to the hitter can be two different things. That’s where perceived velocity comes in. Given the release point for a pitcher (how far past the rubber they throw from), a pitch may seem faster than it really is, giving the hitter less time to react.

Statcast says, among those with at least 750 pitches this season, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider has the fastest perceived velocity (95.4 mph). In a previous nugget, I recommended investing in Strider for NL Rookie of the Year (+750 on FanDuel). In second place is Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler at 93.8 mph. He is 17-1 on FanDuel for NL Cy Young.

Kevin Durant’s Next Team – Though they often boasted the shortest odds in nearly all futures markets in the NBA last season, the Brooklyn Nets, the biggest sucker bet this side of the F Train, the one that could win it all as a 7-seed in the east but instead got swept in the first round…these Brooklyn Nets now have an epilogue: Kevin Durant wants out. Kyrie Irving will be gone as well, meaning their “Big Three” will all leave with one, single solitary playoff series win in two seasons. Unfulfilled, unvaccinated, undone.

Not long after the KD news broke, two teams that were reportedly bandied about were Phoenix and Miami. While both are title contenders next season, both have fundamental hinderances with one-on-one trades.

For a Phoenix trade, acquiring the obvious choices like Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges would mean Brooklyn would have to shed salary. For Miami, no trade can include an obvious choice like Bam Adebayo because you cannot have two players on max rookie contract extensions, and the Nets already have Ben Simmons who probably cannot be moved.

One team not discussed much but is a value play if you shop around is Memphis (7-1 on BetOnline). If the Nets are tanking, they can pick up Jaren Jackson Jr. who is missing the start of the season after recovering from foot surgery. They also have first-round picks and role players like Dillion Brooks, Ziaire Williams and Desmond Bane. Lastly, the Grizzlies finished second in the west and Ja Morant would probably pair well with a veteran superstar.

Conference Realignment – USC joined what’s now the Pac-12 Conference in 1922. UCLA followed just six years later.

So much for a century of commitment.

Both the Trojans and Bruins are bolting for the Big Ten in 2024. The reception here in Los Angeles has been one of shock that the news was never leaked, horror at the ensuing travel schedules and understanding that each school stands to make an additional $60 million annually.

The rest of the country has already used Hollywood stereotypes to tease USC and UCLA once football road games commence:

USC and UCLA showing up to the Big Ten pic.twitter.com/xtZcBZOYa1

— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) June 30, 2022

USC and UCLA showing up for Big 10 road games in November. pic.twitter.com/E0tMxV13SM

— Jake Welch (@BYUAllBlue) June 30, 2022

The Football Analytics Show on YouTube – Missed some of the past podcast episodes? Do you like skipping around the parts of the podcast (e.g. process vs predictions) that you like best?

Some of the more popular recent episodes of The Football Analytics Show are now available on YouTube. With a simple click, you can skip to various segments on the podcast. To check it out:

• How to get sports betting accounts – Long time betting partners Mike Craig and Mark Scalley discuss the one thing to know about scaling your sports betting business.
• Matt Metcalf on sports betting and bookmaking – The sports book director at Circa Sports was very honest about his process but also frustrations with his work.
• Matt Courchene on the Data Golf predictions – Learn more about the golf analytics that have significant market influence. The Open Championship is less than two weeks away.

Data driven betting information

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

• Valuable
• Concise
• Entertaining

Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet.

If you sign up, I’ll send you my Top 5 Sports Betting Podcast Episodes, an education for your ears.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”

 

 

 

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

Live predictions for the US Open – While Collin Morikawa and Joel Dahmen sit atop the leaderboard at -5 after two rounds, neither golfer has the highest odds to win this major.

Data Golf gives pre-tourney favorite Rory McIlroy (-4) a 16.9% chance to win. The golfers with the next highest win probabilities are Jon Rahm (-4), Scottie Scheffler (-3) and then Morikawa.

In the markets, Circa has Rahm as the favorite but Morikawa has the second best odds at +460 (17.6% break even probability). Morikawa has major wins at the PGA Championship in 2020 and The Open in 2021, and this might explain the discrepancy between the predictive models and the markets.

Conn Smythe – While many are focused on Stanley Cup series results and puck lines, let’s discuss the MVP of the Final. As with any player future, you want to pick someone on the winning team, giving you value if a team is trailing in the series (e.g. Nikita Kucherov at 6/1 on FanDuel).

Analyzing which positions have won the award in the past could also be useful. Centers have won it most frequently (34%), followed by goalies (30%), defensemen (20%) and wingers. Even though defenseman Cale Makar is the favorite, that position breakdown could mean value taking center Nathan MacKinnon.

Braves Bets – The longest winning streak in MLB this season belongs to the defending world champion Atlanta Braves. They have cut their division deficit in half and are also in the running to earn a first-round bye if they surpass the Mets in the NL East.

In my latest article for FOX Sports, I explained why the new MLB playoff structure is a reason to back the Braves in any futures market. I also suggest investing in Spencer Striker to win NL Rookie of the Year.

How to make golf predictions – On an episode of Deep Dive Gambling Podcast, pro sports bettor AbnormallyDist (AD) asked how a newcomer could use data to win at betting golf. He suggested it was unlikely this person would make a better model than Data Golf, so a different approach is required.

As an example, AD noted how The Open course tends to hurt golfers that miss fairways to the right but not left. Digging further into the data, he found Xander Schauffele as a golfer that might struggle on the course.

AD was most likely talking about The Open in 2019, and Schauffele finished +2 for 41st. Any interview with AD is worth your time, and this episode of the Deep Dive Gambling Podcast is no different.

Why NBA Models Fell Short – Friday, I wrote a Twitter thread about why models like FiveThirtyEight’s and ESPN’s could be drastically off by forecasting the Celtics to win the NBA Finals comfortably.

One key lesson was the difficulty of predicting injuries. When it comes to NBA futures for next season’s championship, this factor should be taken into account. Is it safe to assume the Warriors and Celtics will remain healthy for the next playoffs, or is it better to assume other teams that were unlucky with injuries will enjoy positive regression?

If you believe in this Plexiglass Principle, then back teams like the Clippers (+850 on FanDuel), Nuggets (+1700) and Lakers (+2600).

How to get sports betting accounts – Back when he got started around 2009, Mark Scalley would walk into a sports bar and chat up anyone who looked like they had action on the game. In some cases, this led to a new sports betting account.

Scalley and his long time betting partner Mike Craig made an appearance on The Football Analytics Show to discuss how relationships lead to betting accounts. They compared and contrasted the process in 2009 and now in an enlightening conversation.

J.J. Watt Hits Hard – Omar from The Wire gave the world one of the more enlightening lessons in human interactions: “You come at the King, you best not miss.”

The folks at DraftKings should have heeded that advice.

J.J. Watt has done more than enough to deserve a place of royalty, so when DraftKing’s official Twitter account decided to tease him about throwing a football saying his pass would be intercepted, Watt added to his highlight reel:

you might want to think about intercepting some profits sometime soon… https://t.co/HiGkq6A1X0 pic.twitter.com/N68BXLZe8u

— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 15, 2022

Free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting

In their foundational book, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow provide the ultimate introduction into the sports betting world. Among other topics, they write about:

• The crucial concept of a no hold market
• The surprisingly simple procedure that market making sports books use to determine the spread (it’s not analytics)
• The truth about parlays

To get a free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting, sign up for The Power Rank’s free email newsletter. Valuable. Concise. Entertaining. Those are the goals with each correspondence.

To get these emails and a pdf copy of the book, enter you best email and click on “Sign up now!”

 

 

 

After signing up, you will get a confirmation email. Click on the link in the confirmation email. This will send you to a page to download a pdf of The Logic of Sports Betting.

Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, each Saturday at 10am Eastern.

Stanley Cup Finals – On Thursday, Tampa Bay took a 3-2 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. They can clinch tonight at home. Perhaps what’s most impressive about overcoming the 0-2 deficit is doing it without Brayden Point, who finished in the top 50 this season in expected goals per Money Puck.

Point has been seen skating at practice in full gear. While one player should not substantially change the probability of a series, like if the Lightning advance to the Stanley Cup Final to face Colorado, there may be value betting on them at +195 (FanDuel) to win the Cup outright.

NBA home court – This is the average margin of victory for NBA home teams in full arenas:

• 2016-17, 3.42
• 2017-18, 2.10
• 2018-19, 2.72
• 2019-20, 2.17 (971 games before COVID 19)
• 2021-22, 1.72

The data show a downward trend, and it remains to be seen whether the current season is an outlier or a continuation of the trend (the standard error for the current season is 0.44 over 1230 games).

NBA home court advantage is higher in the playoffs; from 2017 through 2019, home court was 4.11 points, or 55% higher.

If you look at home court in full arenas since the beginning of 2018 in the regular season, that mark has been 2.21 points. With a 50% increase in the playoffs, home court advantage should be about 3.3 points. This suggests about a 7 point swing in spread from home to road.

In the NBA finals, the markets went from Golden State -4.5 in Game 2 at home to Golden State +3.5 in Game 3 at Boston. This 8-point swing suggests the markets might be slightly overestimating home court.

Show me the money – Speaking at a Goldman Sachs investor conference this week, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins made it clear that his sports book is not for pro sports bettors.

We’re trying to get smart in eliminating the sharp action or limiting it at least. Then trying to make sure we have a high parlay mix because people do like that.

You mean square bettors like parlays, Jason.

DraftKings stock has dropped faster than Tom Cruise’s 18F Super Hornet in Top Gun Maverick, as its current price of $13.10 is less than half its price to start 2022.

Golf predictions – Jordan Spieth used to be one of the top golfers in the world. He had a historic 2015 with wins at the Masters and US Open.

More recently, Spieth’s play has fallen off. On an episode of The Football Analytics Show, Matt Courchene of Data Golf discussed the difficult of making quantitative predictions for the former elite player. His research shows that data from more than three years ago has little predictive value.

When Spieth has a streak of good play, Data Golf doesn’t treat him any differently from a golfer without the elite track record. In contrast, the market often gives Spieth more credit because of his history.

Matt gave a comprehensive view of how the Data Golf predictions work in an episode of The Football Analytics Show.

Aaron Judge – Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has made a massive leap to becoming the favorite to win the A.L. MVP award. With the other favorites in Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout slumping at the plate, the honor might be Judge’s to lose (+150 on FanDuel Sportsbook).

It’s an interesting trend because team performance has meant less and less for MVP honors in baseball. However, the Yankees are clearly on an uptick and the Angels are on a downtick, perhaps affecting the outlook among the top three.

Still though, is now the time to bet on Judge to win MVP? I break down the numbers in a recent FOX Sports article.

Belmont Stakes – This July will mark three years since I began working with Dave Weaver on “More Ways to Win”, and yet we’ve never had a public conversation about his first love of horse racing.

While that wait must continue, Dave offered a long shot in Golden Glider (20-1 to win) for which horse could be a good trifecta or superfecta bet in today’s Belmont Stakes. For me, Mo Donegal might not have value at 5-2, but he has proven his versatility and success with just the right draw.

Keeping It Simple – This week, I was reminded about baseball player projection models and how sabermetricians like Tangotiger were able to project hitting and pitching stats about as effectively as anyone, using a simple model.

In it, the model only featured the three most recent seasons and included a simple aging component. When unveiled, it worked well, and has since been used as a benchmark for not overcomplicating other approaches.

That lesson of keeping things simple is an offshoot of what the psychology podcast Hidden Brain discussed this week. It’s a temptation for us to think innovation involves adding, but often, subtraction can be the best approach, whether it’s building betting models or taking a business to the next level.

Free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting

In their foundational book, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow provide the ultimate introduction into the sports betting world. Among other topics, they write about:

• The crucial concept of a no hold market
• The surprisingly simple procedure that market making sports books use to determine the spread (it’s not analytics)
• The truth about parlays

To get a free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting, sign up for The Power Rank’s free email newsletter. Valuable. Concise. Entertaining. Those are the goals with each correspondence.

To get these emails and a pdf copy of the book, enter you best email and click on “Sign up now!”

 

 

 

After signing up, you will get a confirmation email. Click on the link in the confirmation email. This will send you to a page to download a pdf of The Logic of Sports Betting.