Favourites in MLB have been discussed here many times in the past, with many of you aware that the reverse favourite-longshot bias present in baseball for many years is no longer observable.
This post here from 2015 is one example of my comments, and although 2016 saw a loss when backing shorties, it was miniscule with 279 bets recording an ROI of -0.1%.
The 2017 season to date has seen good profits from backing favourites, with May's +23.60 points a record monthly total, at least since 2003.
The All-Star break doesn't seem to help hot favourites (I use 1.5 as the definition of a hottie).
July 2016 was nothing short of a disaster, if betting losses can ever be classified as a disaster in the whole scheme of things (probably not), but it's noticeable how profits start well enough with the new season, drop off in May and again in June, before struggling in July. August is like a new beginning, with profits then declining again in both September and October (which has only a few regular season games).
A couple of other simple, and not very original MLB systems, revolve around the idea that after two home losses, a home team will be motivated to win the third series game and are a value bet to avoid the home sweep. What this idea doesn't take into account is that if there were any such bias, it would long ago have been identified and the prices adjusted as necessary. Nevertheless, it's a fun play which wasn't much fun in 2016, but what may happen with systems such as these is that after a losing season, people drop them and move on to the latest hot system.
So far in 2017, backing all home teams in game three after losing the first two games is +11.83 points (ROI 12.1%), and in games where the home team is favourite, are +13.35 points, an ROI of exactly 20%.
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