The sports world is completely focused on the Final Four this weekend, and with good reason.  It’s the culmination of a wonderful spectacle that receives intense interest, even if the dramatic upsets were rare this season.  But as a bettor, the opportunities are limited.  Our customers are much more excited about baseball season.  I’m as excited as any of them.

The reason I’m excited about the possibilities of this baseball season have nothing to do with “sportswriter romanticism” like the crack of the bat or the smell of freshly cut grass.  I have rooting interest in the Braves and the Red Sox, but first and foremost for for me, as well as for our clients, baseball is a financial vehicle.

Confidence Is High: We’re very confident in our baseball totals, and history has taught us to expect them to do well, especially early.  Full disclosure here, I don’t handicap baseball myself, there’s a guy who does it for us. I’ve known him for over a dozen years and have been betting his baseball for at least a decade. We figured out about 6 or 7 years ago that his totals were extraordinary and sides just above average. So we’ve been focusing on these very strong totals ever since.

Thanks to intensive preseason research, and an astute understanding of the sport, our “Baseball Guy” annually starts the campaign ahead of the linemaker, and he’s had some legendary Aprils.  The Sports Monitor confirms that last season our Strategic Sports Publishing late phone service saw us hit well over 57% of our plays and pick up over 24 units of profit.  Unlike those with double, triple, and octuple plays, when we speak of “units” we’re talking about single unit plays.  So that was over 24 net games of profit with all plays rated equally.  And those who follow our baseball know that this was not an atypical year.

Our “Baseball Guy” is not also a basketball guy or a football guy.  He handicaps only baseball totals. Nothing else. No football, baskets, horses, or hockey.  He doesn’t play poker or count cards.  Baseball is the total focus of his wagering world.

He has his own ratings systems and formulas, and knows every pitcher in the league. He analyzes every aspect of the game that influences scoring. He knows a lot of baseball professionals, top-level sabermetricians, and media members, and uses this network to ascertain the true health of pitchers through the long season.  They respect his work and he gets some great information as a result. This aspect of his workflow can not be underestimated.

Matchup Analysis Keys Profits: His daily analysis includes groundball/flyball, power/finesse, and other profiling of pitching style analysis. He does this for every pitcher in the league. He also knows how every lineup hits against every style of pitcher. He knows what players can’t hit groundball pitchers, but light up flyball pitchers. He knows what teams hit finesse pitchers but wilt offensively against power pitchers.  And not just for the starters. He knows about the middle relievers, the setup men, the closers, and how teams hit these guys.  He’s familiar with parks where the ball carries poorly at night, and those where batters don’t see well in the daytime.

His knowledge of the game is very complete.  It is rare for something to get past him.

A Unique Daily Service: Our “totals only” baseball service delivers the following:

• An average of fewer than two plays per day most years. He’s not starved for action, but is not shy. He’ll pass some days and have 3 or 4 plays other days.
• All plays released in the morning via a toll-free recorded voice mail with your own personal code. Call and act on the information at your convenience.
• Annual strong starts like 13-1, 53-29, 18-7, and a 45-25 start last year. This is not a “wait and see” program.  You’ll want to be involved from Day 1 and things will wrap up around Labor Day.

No Gimmicks: There is no vehicle buy these plays by the day or by the week. No “games of the month” or “big play specials.” If it’s hype you want you’ll find it elsewhere.  There are available via a seasonal plan and there is a flexible month-to-month option, with no daily or weekly sales on the web or through the office. Instead of focusing on promotions and marketing, he’s analyzing pitchers, hitters, ballparks, umpires, day/night differentials, and all other factors that influence baseball scoring.

Call 1-770-649-1078 this weekend to receive a special discount on a full-season subscription.  You’ll talk to me personally and if you don’t catch me and leave a message I’ll be the one calling you back, as we do not employ any salesmen.

If you’re interested in profiting over the long baseball season, I know of no better vehicle than our baseball totals program.  Call 1-770-649-1078 to receive that special discount.

Kobe’s Slump Leads to Storm of Unders: Interesting how a single player can determine a team’s over/under results for a period of time.  If a team’s center is out, some teams start playing more overs, as they don’t have a defensive force in the middle and might play smaller and faster offensively.  An efficient point guard’s absence can obviously lead to more unders.

Less frequent is how a single slumping player can effect results.  Kobe Bryant has been shooting miserably, keying a 1-9 under stretch for the Lakers.   Before shooting 10-18 at Minnesota on Wednesday night, Bryant had shot better than 40% in a game exactly once in his previous 8 outings.  Bryant hit only 63 of 167 shots for a miserable 37.7% from the field in that time period, leading to the surge of unders.

Pointspread Winners and Losers From Across the NBA Strata: As the season winds down, there are both good teams and poor teams that have made their backers money over the season.  The 55-19 Magic and 61-14 Cavs meet tonight, and they have both made a mint for their backers.  Discounting pushes, Orlando is an impressive 47-27 against the spread, while the Cavs are 44-31, very healthy for a team with the game’s most popular superstar.

Of the top-level teams, only Houston (36-38 to the number) and New Orleans (33-40) are below .500 to the spread, though the Lakers and Celtics are dancing around .500

A team doesn’t need to have a stout winning record to be a money maker.  The Knicks, at 29-46, are 43-31 to the number while the 34-41 Bobcats are a stout 46-29 to the pointspread.   But the pointspread is not making up for the ineptitude of a couple of bad teams.  The 17-60 Wizards are 29-45 to the spread, while the 18-57 Clippers are also burning money, with a lousy 30-45 spread mark.

Suns Total Adjustments Not Enough: When Alvin Gentry was hired to put the pace back into the Suns, it was obvious that Phoenix would be playing much higher scoring games.  As a result, the adjustments in totals are at a historic level.  In their last 5 games, the Suns have played teams they also played in November.   In their last outing against Houston, the total was 222, compared to 198.5 in November.  The total against Sacramento was 236 this week, and 202.5 back in November.  Utah has been played twice recently, with the totals 230 and 228.5, compared to 194.5 early in the campaign.  Last week’s game against Portland had a total of 221 compared to 195 for a November joust with the Blazers.

So the totals of the last 5 Suns games have totals that are higher than games against the same teams in November by a total of 152.5, or 30.5 points higher per game.  Alas, the oddsmakers’ adjustments have not been enough, the Suns are 4-1 to the over in those contests, taking them to 16-8 to the over since the hiring of Gentry.