I ran across something interesting while randomly clicking through my site to ferret out bugs. Roger Maris and Ken Hunt are not only buried in the same cemetery, their plots are right next to each other.

There has to be a story behind this so I googled and discovered they were boyhood friends.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ken-hunt/

Cemetery data came from retrosheet.org and I data based it accessible via the web.

https://baseball-handbook.com/index.php?cemetery&city=Fargo&state=ND

Maris died in 1985, Hunt in 1997.

#mlb #history

After 193 100 unit bets betting > +110 under dogs during spring training the system was up a mere 390 units or ~2% net gain, much less than expected. Attached is the graph showing earnings cratered in the last 7 days / 40 bets. Interesting nonetheless and we'll see what happens next year.

#mlb

The running preseason betting theory is if you know little to nothing about an event other than there are two outcomes then from your perspective the probability of each outcome is 50/50. If you flip a coin and know the force used to flip, distance, angle, etc. you can get predict a probability greater than 1/2.

Betting the underdog in preseason ( > +110 ) is up ~10% on 133 bets so far.
https://baseball-handbook.com/index.php?betfor

Attached graph is running total. This does not work in regular season.

#mlb

Changed the Vegas Standings view to show average Vegas break even probability vs. Real Win Pct and then BetFor and BetAgainst numbers. Betting for Rockies returned ~65% net gain on 6 bets so far this pre-season, betting against them loses almost 60%. Bets aren't being taken on all games and lots of games are tied.

Full table at:

https://baseball-handbook.com/index.php?vegas=today

#rockies #mlb

The other day checked Cubs preseason guys and saw Greg Workman with the most plate appearances. Today he's #2. Looked him up and he was #1 AA player in 2024 playing for the Detroit affiliate "Erie Seawolves" according to this data model. Tigers have a lot of good players bubbling up from AA.

https://baseball-handbook.com/index.php?minors=2024&leagueid=aa&teamid=DET

According to mlb.com Cubs got Workman from DET for cash in a Rule 5 draft last December.

https://www.mlb.com/player/gage-workman-669398?stats=career-r-hitting-minors&year=2025

#cubs #tigers

Now that we're 1 week into Spring Training let's look at betting the underdog data ( > +110 ). It's up 36.4% which is way more than expected ( ~10% ). Data fluctuates in the short term. Past results don't affect future results. Had a bad day yesterday ( 2/27 ).

I made a web page to check the data and it looks OK. You can view it at:

https://baseball-handbook.com/index.php?betfor

This site does not endorse gambling. This is purely an academic exercise.

#mlb

Spring training starts today with Cubs playing Dodgers at "home," or somewhere that has nice weather this time of year.

The working theory is that betting the underdog, > +110 always has a positive expected value during Spring Training due to the fact that winning isn't important and we don't know anything about this game. Today the Cubs are +170.

The purpose of handicapping on baseball-handbook.com is to prove the efficacy of the WAA value system for players.

#baseball #mlb #cubs #dodgers