Since 1970, teams that have improved by 19 or more games declined by 7.34 wins the following season. The improvements by the Giants and Red Sox last season would rank in the top ten largest improvements in the modern era. However, there are still some sizeable increases where this theory may apply. The win improvements are going to be exaggerated with just a 60-game 2020 season, as any team can get hot or cold for two months. What teams made such dramatic moves from 2020 to 2021? [The win totals from 2020 are pro-rated from a 60-game season to 162-game season). This theory says that any team that improves dramatically in one season is likely to decline the next season. No other teams on this list spark an interest in making a bet on this theory. They also fit another theory as well, so we'll make a bet on Seattle later. Given that the Mariners are such an outlier, it warrants a bet. The sportsbooks have the Mariners declining even more by 6.5 wins. Those five teams averaged a decline of 5.74 wins the following season. There have been five teams that won more than ten games than expected by their Pythagorean win totals over that span. In fact, a 14-win difference is the largest since I've been tracking this since 1999. I usually like to look for teams that have a differential of ten or more games. Using the Johnson Effect and applying the Pythagorean Theory, who looks like they'll rebound in 2022? Here are the top teams that should have had more or less wins based on their 2021 runs allowed/created than they actually tallied: Team If the runs a team scores and gives up in any given season don't translate into the expected win total from the Pythagorean Theory, that means something odd took place that should turn around next season. You probably learned the Pythagorean theory in trigonometry, but in baseball, it means that the ratio of a team's wins and losses will be similar to the relationship between the square of its runs scored and the square of its runs allowed. My favorite type of statistic for this analysis is a tool called the Pythagorean Theory. A bad bounce here, a fluke play there - they can add up in one season and make a team look more powerful than it should be. The theory works based on the fact that sometimes a team has more success than it should just based on pure luck. For example, if one team scores more runs than sabermetrical formulas such as Runs Created or OPS might suggest, then it will score less the next season. The Johnson Effect argues that a team that scores more runs or allows fewer runs than most statistical formulas would suggest, is bound to regress the next season. Here's the breakdown on these theories and the teams I decided to actually wager on.
When I look at an upcoming baseball season, there are eight methods I use to judge which teams might be a good bet: Three are statistical, four are observations I've had watching the bookies set season-long lines for MLB and other sports and I'll also throw in a wild-card pick with no particular theoretical basis. Here's my take on each team with more analysis below on those I selected as my "bets." Teamįor this exercise, I'm using odds from FanDuel sportsbook on April 1. Nevertheless, let's look at the 2022 season from a wagering perspective. It doesn't get that much easier for 2022 since we're still factoring the shortened 2020 season into comparisons and we have another irregular offseason with the delayed start due to the lockout. That may have been a poor choice as I had perhaps my worst year going 3-6 and winning $75 and losing $275. I decided to steer into the uncertainty, making nine bets – the most ever for one season. The abbreviated 2020 season due to the pandemic gave us a much smaller sample size for many of the sabermetrical theories I've used each season. Last season may have been the toughest exercise in the past two decades. I'm most impressive when looking at the total amount bet, where I've been correct 59.9 percent of the time ($3,475 in winning bets, $2,325 in losers - not factoring in the vig*). I'm a little better on bets of $100 or more (I vary my bet size to emphasize how strongly I feel about the pick) where I'm 14-10 (58.3 percent). My best bet each season is 19-15 (I had multiple biggest bets some years). I've had a good track record, winning 56 of 101 (with one push) bets for a 55.4 percent win rate. I've used several concepts of sabrermetrical analysis to try to find teams that appeared to be good historical bets. I'm a big fan of the season win total bets ever since I started making them in person in Las Vegas back in the late 1990s (usually in the dingy Imperial Palace).
Before each season over the last 21 years I've written a story at RotoWire with my best bets for the season-long win totals.