Why Does Vegas Hate the Twins
I always look forward to the release of the Vegas over/unders from the great Vegas Watch. My friend Derek Zumsteg did a great piece on odds in Vegas a few years ago, and due to the bookies fanatical desire to make money, they’ve always struck me as a nice stand in for what they see public perception of each team being. They aren’t predictors of final record, but instead, numbers set to even out the bets, so that they book will make money no matter what happens. To do this, they have to be pretty good at projecting where the money will fall at a given number of wins.
Apparently, Vegas thinks that people with money hate the Twins. If there’s one over/under that stands out like a sore thumb, it’s Minnesota at 82 wins. 82 wins – the same as the White Sox, one win more than the Tigers, tied for the seventh best record in the American League. Really? Seriously?
The Twins had a tremendous winter, as we’ve discussed. They added quality talents in J.J. Hardy, Orlando Hudson, and Jim Thome, plus retained Carl Pavano for a full season (or however much of it he’ll be able to stay healthy for). They got more good news when Francisco Liriano found his fastball and dominated the Winter Leagues, and for those who are into this sort of thing, uber bust Delmon Young showed up at camp 30 pounds lighter.
Their losses? Joe Crede and Carlos Gomez, who accounted for +1.9 wins combined a year ago. They didn’t take a significant hit at any position, unlike their rivals in Michigan, who lost Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, and Edwin Jackson. And yet Vegas shaved an equal number of wins off both the Twins and Tigers records from 2009, despite very different off-seasons.
Honestly, I don’t get it. Sure, there’s expected regression from Mauer (it’s really hard to repeat that kind of season, no matter who you are), but they aren’t likely to get a brutal performance from Alexi Casilla again. CHONE has the Twins as an 86 win team, and there’s certainly upside beyond the expected performances of guys like Young, Liriano, and Hardy. My back of the envelope calculations have them at something more like 87 or 8 88 wins.
Could the Twins win 82 games? Sure. Anything is possible. But smart money will go heavily over on that number, because the Twins are better than a true talent 82 win team. I don’t know what Vegas thinks the perception of Minnesota’s team is, but it’s certainly not the same one I have. And I don’t know too many people who think the Twins are in a dead heat with the White Sox and Tigers for the AL Central. They’re a clear favorite in my books, and I’d expect them to finish well north of 82 wins.
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Aren’t betting lines based more on how much money they think is going to be put on certain teams than on true expected outcomes? I’m guessing the Twins are bucking a fairly strong geographic bias.
Yeah, that was addressed in the article, but it was part of the section that got caught up by the link gone bad. It’s fixed now.
Great post, but it looks like part of the first paragraph got cut off — or rather, it got mixed into the link for “we’ve discussed.”
Thanks for catching that.
A few years ago I remember an article where someone looked at this pretty extensively and Vegas over/under beat the field pretty handily (using PECOTA, DMB, and some other projections). It would be interesting to see the last few years worth of data put up against CHONE, Fans, and several other systems.
Interesting that these numbers are out already. Usually they don’t publish books on the O/U until just a couple weeks before the season in order to try to account a little more for injury possibilities through the Spring.
Well, because Vegas knows what they are doing. They have been analyzing sports alot longer than Mr. Cameron and most other bloggers.
Once again, Mr. Cameron shows 1. He knows nothing about the AL Central. 2. He thinks he knows more than people who’s decisions could cost millions of dollars. 3. That his ego is through the roof.
How terribly convincing and well-reasoned.
The real shame of it is that I’d be interested in hearing you talk about what you believe Dave has wrong about the AL Central. But you’re too busy being snide to get around to actual baseball opinions.
Also, people routinely are idiots when handling millions of dollars. Routinely. Seriously. Look around.
Thanks for the link, Dave.
Cross posted from Tango’s blog:
“Here and CHONE and Vegas’ RMSEs for the last three years though:
2007: CHONE 5.87, Vegas 6.74
2008: CHONE 9.76, Vegas 10.71
2009: CHONE 9.63, Vegas 9.65
CHONE has been better, but it’s also true that we are (well, I am) cherry picking the projection system that has done the best over this time to compare to Vegas, so I don’t know that we should expect CHONE to continue to “beat” Vegas, and definitely not by the average margin of 0.61 shown above.”
MGL also notes later in the same thread (linked from my name) that the Vegas O/Us have likely gotten more efficient over the last couple years, with more attention being given to the projection systems.
Is this starting lines or ending lines? I have to think there’s a big difference there.
It’s the latest lines I was able to find, but at least last year (SSS obviously) the difference between the RMSE of the opening and closing lines was basically zero.
With over/unders on wins, Vegas rarely changes the set number if there is heavy action on a team. Instead, they change the odds to try to increase the action on the other team. I suspect that they do this to eliminate the chance of being middled.
Could be wrong, but Liriano found his slider in WL, I believe, not his fastball. He relied too heavily on the fastball last year, which is what got him into a lot of trouble. It was said that he was a little tentative throwing the slider, both because of the surgery and the fact that they were trying to get him to throw it with a less violent motion.
Well the slider was reported as improved over the winter, but Liriano’s fastball was the biggest issue for him last year. The ’09 slider was still above average, but his fastball was one of the worst in the majors last year.
Yeah, I looked a little harder after I wrote this, and obviously his fastball is the real problem. I was partially just trying to get at the fact that he threw the fastball a lot less when he was uber-successful in 2006 – 43% vs. 60% – and the slider a lot more – 38% vs. 24%. His fastball became more of the out pitch instead of the slider.
Yeah, the problem was his fastball, and more than anything it was location of the fastball. The most encouraging sign from the WL is the lack of walks IMO.
FanGraphs should have a pool for users on here! Give me:
Minnesota over 82
Texas over 83
Seattle over 83
Houston under 77
Florida over 81
Houston under 77 sounds like easy money to me. That team reeks of “collapse.”
Yeah, but a 76 win team is really bad, and it’s not like the AL Central is strong competition. The odds of Houston stumbling towards 76 – 88 can’t be too far off 50%.
I think an under-rated reason to be optimistic about the pitching staff is that Baker (hopefully) won’t be hurt to start the season like he was last year. He had a 9.32 ERA out of April (on just 14.2 innings) and a 6.32 ERA after May. Had a 3.66 ERA after that, which was closer to his 2008 stats.
Also Slowey will be back, hopefully healthy. And if Pavano and Liriano can improve their luck (two of the most hard luck pitchers in all of baseball last year), the pitching staff should be vastly improved.
But then again it wouldn’t be a stretch if everyone got hurt, it is pitching afterall.
I usually place a few bets every year at Sportsbooks.com (a few over/unders and a few long-shot world series winners). Anyway, that website sets the Twins’ over/under at 84.5, which might be a tiny bit low, but is pretty close to reasonable. I think the “Vegas” odds, as compared to online gambling places, are more heavily influenced by how people are likely to bet than which teams are actually likely to win.
The Twins’ starting pitching is not impressive. If they’re counting on Francisco Liriano to do much – I saw him pitch decently in a Caribbean WS game, five innings against the equivalent of maybe a AA team, and everyone made a huge deal about it like he’s ready to dominate the AL this year – they may be in for a rude surprise. Joe Nathan is coming off an injury. They won’t even have their biggest advantage anymore, the Metrodome. The Twins are a mediocre team -but play in a mediocre division, so yeah, they could win it. But they’ll get thumped again by the Yankees or Red Sox in October. Or they might finish under .500.
So two players will determine how the entire season will go, neither of which are named Mauer?
I agree that the Twins are underrated(as they seem to always be) but you failed to mention a few things. First off you mention Mauer as regressing but you fail to mention Kubel and Cuddyer. Kubel more than quadrupled his previous best WAR and Cuddyer probably would’ve smashed his highest too if it wasn’t for his atrocious defensive numbers but considering he’s on the wrong side of 30 that maybe a coming trend.
Another thing you fail to mention is the the effect it will have on the Twins leaving the Metro Dome where they play so well at, to an outdoor stadium where they usually don’t play at. This may not have a significant factor but I think it atleast deserves mentioning.
The final thing you fail to mention is about the Tigers. All you say is who they lost but you fail to say any of the people they got. You make it sound like they lost those 3 guys and got nobody back. They got Scherzer who posted a better FIP and WAR than Jackson, and they also got Damon who boasted MUCH better offensive numbers the last 2 years than Granderson. And considering the Tigers lack of offense last year that could mean more than the defensive difference which is why their WARs were different(even though they do play different positions).
That doesn’t even account for Austin Jackson or Scott Sizemore, yeah both of them have never played in the big leagues but unless you are expecting nothing from them they deserve mentioning. Jackson is a top 75 prospect on most scouts boards and top 50 on some. Plus he brings something the Tigers sorely needed and that’s speed. Sizemore is a top 5 2B prospect on many lists also and depending on how his defense turns out he could post a WAR similar to Polanco’s last year. Plus lets not forget they improved their closer situation as well by adding Valverde.
So yeah the Twins may still be the favorites but if you’re going to make an article like this I think you should atleast mention the things I brought up instead of completely ignoring it. Especially the part about the Tigers, if you’re going to bring them into the conversation talking about the people they lost atleast talk about the people they gained.
I would love to agree with you as a Tiger fan, and I don’t understand why so many people have the White Sox clearly ahead of the Tigers, but the Twins are a clearly better team entering the season that Detroit. Better line-up. Significantly improved defense with Hardy at SS. Underrated rotation that could be better with Liriano comes back again.
For Detroit to beat Minnesota, everything would have to go right (Zumaya and Bonderman healthy and back in 06 form; Guillen healthy; Mag comes back to 08 form at least; Jackson and Sizemore play at least league average at their positions). Detroit’s got a lot more question marks going into the year than Minnesota has.
Yeah I definitely agree that the Twins are the team to beat but I was just pointing out all the things that I thought he failed to mention.
Also I disagree that everything needs to go right for the Tigers to win even though they do need some help. Last year the Twins offense really carried them but can you expect the same numbers from Mauer, Kubel and Cuddyer? Three of the bigger reasons why. Not to mention Span who had a great year too but he is still young so that could be a coming trend.
While the Tigers on the other hand dealt with Jackson’s second half debacle, the Washburn trainwreck, Inge basically playing on one leg in the 2nd half, Ordonez’s bad season and even Granderson and Polanco had down years at the plate. Really only Verlander and Rodney played way above their heads yet they still lead the division for the last 5 months of the year with the exception of the final day. I think that shows that everything doesn’t have to go right for them, they just need some lucky breaks here and there.
True. But one thing consistenly mentioned as a positive for the Twins is “having Carl Pavano for an entire season”. Seriously. Carl Pavano. People say this with a straight face. Call me when Baker and Slowey learn how to miss a bat and when Liriano dominates MLB caliber competition as well. To say that the Twins don’t have questions in their rotation is Minnesota homerism. They’ll be competitive in a crappy division, but to say that they are a “clear favorite” is overstating the case.
DET has exactly 1 starter with a higher K/9 than Slowey/Baker.
Not that it’s a huge deal but the Tigers actually have 2 starters with a higher K/9 them Slowey and Baker last year and if you count their career totals it would be 3 of them. Verlander, Scherzer and Bonderman.
It’s here that I should add I always get Slowey and Perkins confused for some reason. So, yeah, I meant Perkins.
Fair enough. Didn’t realize Scherzer actually threw 170 innings last year and made 30 starts.
Also, hopefully Perkins doesn’t start much next year.
To sum up the Tiger’s off season in the simplest manner… Why/Where/How did they regress? – Jackson + Scherzer? – Grandy + Jackson and Damon? – Rodney, Lyon + Valverde, Coke, Schlereth?
Well, since Dombrowski relies on scouting more than stats, Cameron has a bais against the Tigers. Find me one article where he says something good about Detroit. According to him the Tigers gave up the #1 prospect in baseball to get Washburn last year, or so he acted. And they gave the whole farm away for Edwin Jackson last offseason. They only turned a minor league OF without much upside into Max Scherzer.
Dave, determine how many wins a team should get by looking at how many wins they got in the previous year then adjusting up or down based on the new players they got or lost is not the correct to go about things. It is best to start from scratch and build up – possibly using a WAR or Monte Carlo method.
For example if a team in 2009 had a true talent win level of 80 wins, but won 88 games for whatever reason (luck?), by adjusting from an 88 win baseline you are headed down a slippery slope. But I agree, the Twins (and the Dodgers) are 82 and 84 wins respectively is a little low.
vr, Xei
People keep bringing up the fact that the Twins had 5 hitters who had great years last year and can’t repeat it. That may be true but their pitching was also as bad as it possibly could be. They also upgraded over HORRIBLE middle infielders like Casilla and Tolbert with some real major league players like Hudson and Hardy. Some of the big guys might regress a little but that should be evened out by adding Hardy and Hudson. The way I see it, the offense should be at least as good as it was last year and there’s no way the pitching is that bad. The Twins still won 86 games last year with god awful years from Liriano and Perkins and only haf a year from Slowey so they should win more than that this year. With (hopefully) a full year from Pavano, who had around a 4 FIP last year and Slowey coming back, the pitching will easily be better, as it really has nowhere to go but up.
Don’t forget that Morneau had a dreadful second half until he was shut down due to injury. No way he repeats those awful numbers.
It surprises me people continue to erroneously believe Vegas is only after getting an equal amount of $ on each side of every bet (and often by smart people, which Dave Cameron certainly is), b/c this simply isn’t true.
That said, I agree with the conclusion here, although unfortunately, I’m guessing the “vig” is heavily on the over here. It’s not like it’s -110 on both sides for every teams’ o/u. That doesn’t mean a profit still can’t be made, of course, but it does make it less enticing.
This guy has it right. The “equal amount of $ on each side” theory needs to go. It’s simply not true, 95% of the time.
Careful out there, kids…..Rotoscoop nailed it.
Vegas will tweak a little for LA, NY and Texas teams but they’re almost entirely focused on the right number, not bettor sentiment. There’s plenty of unsentimental money that will destroy them if they’re trying to get Minnesota fans to bet as much as Detroit fans. (And they’re very good, I lost my Houston and Cincinnati O/u’s last year by a combined 1.5 cgames, which is common).
Also, if you only look at the O/U you are incorrectly assessing the bet. The money line to bet Over for Minnesota’s 82 wins could be -150, while Detroit’s 81 wins might get you +110. Tha is a very, very different bet than if both were -110. (I would check the money line, but my employers don’t think I should visit those sites.)
1. Las Vegas has the Twins line at 84 or 84.5, depending on which live sportsbook you prefer. The “Vegas” lines you’re talking about are quite inconsistent with what you’ll actually find out in the desert.
2. What if we take a 103-win team and add a stud center fielder and a .400 OBP DH, plus replace Chien-Ming Wang’s 9.64 ERA with Javier Vazquez’s 2.87? Sounds like the line should now go to at least 110! However, bettors and bookies are not complete rubes: they understand that many Yankees will likely fall back a little this year, just as they suspect many Twins hitters were at the top of their range in 2009 and will regress some.
3. I notice that everyone has their own pet theory that certain popular teams have biased odds, but no one ever submits any evidence for their claims. To me, this sounds like pure conjecture. Note that this year’s Yankees line is set well below their CHONE projected record.
Halfway through last season, I placed a lot of bets on the Yankees to win the World Series, getting very favorable odds because the public didn’t understand just how strong their position was. Meanwhile, World Series futures for the small-market Twins were going at a terrible price, even though it was obvious that the AL Central champ would face the Yankees as a 4-1 dog in their first playoff series. Where was the New York bias then? Apparently tourism from the Bronx dries up in July.
These win totals are pretty much all regressed to the mean. Only 3 teams over 90 wins and none under 71? What are the odds of that? The trick is to consistently pick out where they are wrong which most bettors can’t do. The reason predictions are tricky is because most results in this sort of sample will cluster and there will be a few outliers but predicting those outliers is next to impossible.
It’s similar to the recently published Baseball Prospectus player predictions. I think they do not have a single pitcher with more than 15 wins. Think what you will about wins as a stat, i’ll bet you any amount you like that some MLB pitcher will get more than 15 of them.
*Some* pitcher will win more than 15 games? Undoubtedly.
*Pitcher X* will win more than 15? Significantly less likely.
Just saying it’s MUCH easier to say *someone* will win fifteen games, rather than specifying pitchers X, Y, and Z.
(Although I’ve got a good feeling about pitcher Z this year…)
CAIRO and PECOTA actually project the Twins at under 82 wins, and even CHONE only has them a few wins over 82 (85 or 86, depending on the method used). This is nothing to be outraged at, and the pseudo-projection reasoning used to justify it is not fit to appear on this site.
2010 Simulator has the Twins at 86.5 wins.
vr, Xei
Ditto what several people have said above:
1) Using a team’s actual w/l loss record and then adjusting for their personnel additions and subtractions is a horrible way to prognosticate a team’s expected w/l record. That “method” should not be in any serious discussion. Shame in your David C.! ;)
2) It is true that Vegas no longer sets a line that anticipates public sentiment. There are too many smart bettors that would kill a line like that. It may be true that they used to do that, but not anymore. In some sense, you can say that they still do that, but that “public sentiment” includes the smart bettors. There are very few of these smart bettors, but they bet a crap-load of money compared to the general public.
3) They can’t really even out the money with futures bets to make sure that they win no matter what happens. For one reason, there are too many of these future bets (e.g. trying to get the same amount of money over and under on all 30 teams is simply not going to work). For another, for playoff bets, you can’t really do that. If a long shot team wins the WS or a pennant, the books will likely lose money. They take that risk.
4) As many people have mentioned above, can we stop with the fiction that the “Vegas Line” is 82 for the Twins? For example, at Olympic Sports Book the line is over 82 1/2 -125 and under 82 1/2 +105. So in order to break even, the Twins would have to win 83 games or more almost 56% of the time. On Sportsbook.com, the line for Minny is 84.5 -115 either way. So, there is essentially no 82 win over/under, at least not anymore.
Slowey is a big question mark. He doesn’t expect the wrist to ever feel like it once did and he has two screws in there holding something together. Given the amount of torque and other forces in a pitcher’s wrist I’d say the prognosis is guarded at best.
More on Slowey From an interview with him in the Winnipeg Free Press (?) on 2-25-10, or 25-2-2010: .. they cut down some tendons and pulled out some tissue and bones that were no longer necessary (!) and just sort of floating around in there”. Does this sound like it will be a highly effective pitcher’s wrist?
Coming in a bit late here. Yes, this is a betting line, but it is predictive. Other than the very loaded teams(like the Yankees), teams moving to new stadiums have a slow adaption rate. This stadium will most likely be pitcher friendly but that probably won’t benefit the Twins much. Particularly because they seem to have a VERY mediocre staff outside of the aging closer. Hudson may well do nothing as well. This group smells fishy and I think that’s what Vegas is saying as well.
The whole division is AAA to the East, but I’ll be entertained. My Tigers have a shot, South Side has a shot, and the Twinkies are definitely the favorites, but it’s close enough that relatively minor injuries could end up being the difference. Should be fun.
I’ll note that, given some luck and accelerated player development, the likely 4th place team in the East (Baltimore) could win the Central, although they likely won’t end up with more wins in the current alignment.
Your nuts… The O’s and Jays would have no chance…
I bet even the Rays wouldn’t be a lock.
What about ‘em? Seems a little personal for Fangraphs.
I don’t claim any team is a “lock” — that’s why they play ‘em — but Baltimore has a lot of talent, certainly as much as the Tigers or White Sox. It’s very young for the most part, though, and wouldn’t be a favorite to win the Central (note I said “could”, not “would”), but I think they’d be competitive, certainly moreso than the Tribe or the French Quarter Pounders.
Thanks dave! I just took out a second mortgage on my house and bet on the over in Vegas for the twins. I’ll have a bigger house this fall for sure :-)
The Twins are a well-managed team who sometimes make the playoffs, but almost always wins significantly more than half their games.
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