MLB Has A Baseball Problem

I have a buddy who goes by the name Paulie V. Most people don’t know what Paulie V does for a living and if you ask him, you probably won’t get a straight answer.

One thing we do know about our mysterious friend is that the man with no last name dominates fantasy baseball.

Or, maybe I should say that Paulie V used to dominate fantasy baseball, that is until baseball developed a baseball problem.

Let me explain.

Above we can see some of the reasons why team G.I. Jane 2 has struggled so far this year.

You have six quality major league hitters who combined for a .172 batting average over almost 400 at-bats.

As you can imagine, once our friend Data_Josh saw these numbers the hamster immediately began to spin in its wheel.

Is Paulie V. a victim of some truly bad luck having all these players rostered on one fantasy team?

Or is this a sign of a much larger issue going on in baseball?

We turned to our friends at Baseball Savant (@SavantTips) for some answers.

Our table above shows that Data_Josh was right to poke the hamster inside his head. The stats above are actually pretty wild.

The batting average is at an all-time low this season, however, the expected batting average (XBA) is higher than anything tracked recently.

What? How does that even make sense?

If you compare the slugging percentage the gap is even crazier. A paltry .366 league-wide slugging is terrible, but the expected slugging (XSLG) is actually the highest total it has been in the last five years.

Somehow the stats are telling us that players are hitting the ball harder than ever but that these hard-hit balls are turning into outs when traditionally they have been base hits and home runs.

At BestOdds.com, we always enjoy some quality baseball stats, but we need to convert those into some actionable gambling data that may help us all one day quit our day jobs.

So let’s go.

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MLB Over/Under Totals – 2022

Here is what we know so far:

League-wide batting average is way down.

Overall team slugging percentage is way down.

When BA and SLG are down, does that impact Over/Under totals?

The one-word answer to that question is: Hell Yes!

Wow. Are we really a month into the season and seeing Unders cash in at almost 60%?

Yes, we are.

16 of the first 22 days saw Unders outperform Overs.

Are 22 days of data enough for sportsbooks and oddsmakers to react to this trend?

22 days of data is more than enough to have the oddsmakers reacting in a very big way.

Our table above shows us that on opening day the average Total for all MLB games was 8.64 runs. A couple of days later that total peaked at +9 runs.

Since that day it has been a steady downward free fall.

As of last night, the average total for an MLB game was down from +9 to a ridiculously low +7.5 and yet the Unders still somehow paid out.

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Big Swats And Home Run Trots

It’s worth noting that all of these historic low offensive numbers are being produced in a year the National League finally gave way to tradition and adopted the Designated Hitter rule.

In theory, this rule change alone should have had a positive impact on the number of runs scored per game, but instead, we are seeing something very different.

Our graphic above shows us the win/loss record for someone who had blindly bet only Unders. Even with an assumed -110 Moneyline, they are still providing an ROI of over 13%.

Family vacations are planned and paid for with less of an ROI than that.

Although MLB has not publicly admitted that something is wrong with their 2022 baseball, I think we can assume that Rob Manfred and the company are not overly pleased with the April statistics it is providing.

No doubt MLB is already working on their next baseball and no doubt they have no plans to tell us about that new ball.

However, if you notice a trend in scoring going up, you might have an opportunity to beat the sportsbooks.

Baseball is going to change their baseball. It’s what they do.

When that happens is anyone’s guess, but a new ball with a little more bounce will once again provide an opportunity for savvy bettors to capitalize.

Hopefully, that’s you.

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