by Will Rogers
Saturday, Apr 30, 2022MLB: April’s Best and Worst
The season started a week later than it was supposed to, but we’ve basically got a month’s worth of baseball to look back on.
The five most profitable teams to bet on have been the Mets (+7.6 units), Padres (+7.1), Angels (+4.7), Brewers (+4.4) and Yankees (+4.3). As you can see there’s a big gap between the top two and the other three. The Mets have the best overall win percentage in either league right now. San Diego has benefited from recent series with Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. The Angels have won six in a row as of this writing while the Yankees have won seven in a row and are the only AL team with a better run differential than the Halos.
Teams that look strong but haven’t been quite as profitable are the Dodgers and Giants. You’re obviously going to have to pay a high tax to bet the Dodgers on a game by game basis. The Giants, who were the most profitable team to bet on last year, aren’t far off from the top five (+4.1 units).
The five least profitable teams to bet on have been the Reds (-13.0 units), White Sox (-7.7), Rangers (-7.2), Braves (-6.3) and Tigers (-6.2). It is obviously looking like it will be a very long season in Cincinnati. They’ve scored the fewest number of runs in the National League and given up the most. The White Sox have been a huge disappointment as have the defending World Series Champion Braves. Texas is 2-9 at home. Detroit has scored the fewest runs in MLB and has dropped six in a row coming into the weekend.
Two teams that have been bad and sit just outside the bottom five in net units are Baltimore and Washington. Could be an ugly season in the Beltway. Pittsburgh is also bad, but like Baltimore, will be big underdogs most games, somewhat limiting their losses in the race to the bottom of net units
The rash of Unders has been a big topic of discussion. Entering play on Saturday, only five teams have gone Over in more games than they’ve gone Under: Reds, Guardians, Rockies, Phillies, Cardinals. The Reds and Guardians are the only two where the Over is hitting 55% of the time. I’ve previously mentioned the Reds’ ineptitude when it come to giving up runs. The Rockies obviously play half their games at Coors Field, which always has an effect. At 9.8 runs per game, Colorado has the highest scoring games in baseball. It’s interesting to see St. Louis on the list as they are giving up only 3.3 runs per game.
There are four teams that have gone Under in at least 70 percent of their games: Red Sox, Orioles, Dodgers and Diamondbacks. The Dodgers are allowing only 2.5 runs per game so far. The team whose games have been the lowest scoring on average is Minnesota at 7.2 runs per game.
