Point Blank – September 2
Coaches Love Shutouts (go ahead and laminate it now)…If you ignored NFL Pre-Season Week #4 completely it might make you a better person (and if you had Seattle/Oakland Under, I feel your pain)…The Price is Right on the mound, and at the Betting Windows, in Oakland tonight…
Thursday brought the kind of optimism that comes with the opening of most sports, but College Football in particular, along with the cold shiver of pessimism that comes when it is time to chart the NFL preseason Week #4 results. Of course one of the antidotes for that can be to not chart those results at all, which I will get to in a moment. But first the NCAA comes front and center.
Item: Coaches Love Shutouts (a primary for NCAA Halftime betting)
It didn’t take long for one of the prime mantras of the College Football game-day threads to come into play this season – when Louisville/Charlotte went to halftime, the Cardinals in command 56-0, a reader was quick to bring up whether it was time to get in play with a prized notion – “Coaches Love Shutouts”.
In this case the answer was no, a combination of Bobby Petrino not being a defense-first guy, and also the fact that the oddsmakers had set the Second Half Total in that one rather short, a 20.5 in the key precincts that got played up to 21. Not necessarily what we would have wished to so, and certainly not a "go", as noted in the thread.
As the season begins it is time to go to the fundamentals of the concept itself, because it is an important one, and it also allows for the best way to start another round of autumn Saturday’s, some reminiscences of Old Joe (there will be more to come about him next week, with watching the South Carolina offense struggle last night also leading to some memories). Coaches do indeed love shutouts, especially as they become increasingly rare in the modern age. Naturally players love them - not just the defense, but the offense as well, as a sense of “team” gets built into the scoreboard in the second half. The obvious role of the defense is to not allow any points, but for the coaching staff and the offense it also means not doing anything to impair the defense, turning the focus to clock management and avoiding turnovers.
What this combines to produce are settings in which Second Half Under tickets come to the forefront, and it is amazing over time how much that “Power of Zero” is in play. The difference in attitude between a team up 27-0, vs. 27-3, at the half is mot pronounced, and the savvy handicapper should be on the lookout to take advantage. It isn’t just about cashing the tickets, but also understanding the concept – there are many times that you would switch the television away from a game that is 42-0 in the fourth quarter, especially on these modern Saturdays in which just about every lined game is available for viewing. But take the time to stay with a few of them, and watch the energy that remains on the sidelines of the team with the lead as long as there is still a shutout on the board.
Since I am going to cause unintended damage to some of you by bringing up last night’s Seattle/Oakland ending in a minute, I can also share one of my Halftime “Hall of Fame” Bad Beats, because it came out of this concept.
Mark Dantonio and Michigan State fell almost perfectly into the scenario in a game at Central Michigan in September of 2012, building a 24-0 halftime lead against an opponent they could command, and with no second half focus on anything other than grinding, since the Spartans hosted Notre Dame the following week. As such, plenty of Under 23 went into pocket. Ultimately the ticket was shredded, and in this instance it was about Dantonio wanting the shutout so much that a strategy back-fired.
You will note that the only points in Central Michigan’s 41-7 defeat came on a 55-yard interception return with 1:39 remaining in the game, a harrowing way for a bet to lose. Why on earth did Dantonio have Connor Cook (then the back-up QB) throwing the ball that late? Because it was a third down play, and the way the clock was set, a first down would have meant a couple of kneel downs to close it out. Dantonio had his team going to clinch the shutout at that moment by keeping the ball, rather than punting away for a final CMU drive. That one stung.
The issue going forward is that the markets are catching on to the phenomenon, which is why I am not letting a secret out by detailing it here – last night’s Louisville game was a prime example, but there is no better place to look than Nick Saban.
Saban’s teams annually put together some of the best defensive statistics in all of college football, and that is indeed a tribute to talent and coaching. But often unnoticed in that is also how much is game management, which will be a future topic here as we discuss the impact of pace on various statistical metrics. Absolutely no one in the nation shuts a game down in the fourth quarter better with a big lead than Saban, and for several years Old Joe and I had a major run with Second Half Under tickets when the Crimson Tide had a game in hand, regardless of whether it was a shutout or not (they do have 15 of those under Saban). Alas that run suffered the fate of many edges over time – it gets to be known; too many in the marketplace line up for it; and the oddsmakers react accordingly.
Will “Coaches Love Shutouts” work again in 2016? I would certainly hope so, leaving that plaque on the desk rather than having to relegate it to the legacy drawer. But even if the margins get narrower in the betting markets, understanding the concept will help you greatly in your weekly post-mortem charting of the results.
Item: If you choose to skip NFL Pre-Season Week #4 completely you are not wrong
You will note that Thursday’s NFL close-out to the Pre-Season did not merit any feature space in PB this week, and perhaps it never will. There is such a lack of integrity in the outcomes, and even the “good” information was not of much use this week.
--CLEVELAND was a topic of discussions in the threads when Hue Jackson announced that his starters were going to see some action, which drove the line from -3 to -6. Those that laid -3 made a sound move, since it did allow some buyback at kickoff. But the savvy positioning was to have more on the -3 than the +6, and the savvy stake was a financial loser. The Browns did lead 7-3 in the second quarter; after the starters left it turned into a 21-7 Bears victory.
--NEW ENGLAND drew money when it was made known that Tom Brady would play, and Brady indeed did, going the entire first half. But the Patriots only scored six points under his direction. Someone that played NE for the First Half only would have cashed a ticket if they got there in time (it became a painted -3, a rare instance in which the First Half line was higher than the Full Game), but the full 60 minutes backers lost.
--NEW ORLEANS also drew money against Baltimore when Sean Payton decided to play Drew Brees and most of the starters for a while, and the Saints did manage of couple of field goals in the first quarter to go up 6-0. But by halftime they trailed 16-6, and lost the game 23-14.
And so much for having good info. But how about if you had Seattle/Oakland Under, a game in which neither side showed any interest at all, outside of Russell Wilson surprisingly playing the first series for the Seahawks. It was 2-0 Raiders at halftime and 5-3 Raiders after three quarters, and if you went to bed believing you had a winner it was the proper thing to do – sleep is more important than watching the clock tick in the 4th quarter of a dead pre-season affair. The final of 23-21 Seattle would have shocked you this morning, of course, with both interception returns and kickoff returns for TDs in the final stanza, and three TDs being scored over the final 2:17.
Should you decide to simply ignore the Week #4 board in the future, and put your focus on getting up to speed on the NCAA teams, it may be time better served.
In the Sights…
As noted here so often, Betting Markets both give to, and take away from, our wishes. Because I was up logging the first College Football box scores of the season I did take a quick peek at the MLB overnights, something I usually do not do because I don’t want to be overly emphasized by those numbers, and as would be the case if I did it more often there was disappointment – an opener of Cleveland -185 and 8.5 was going to set up an ideal spot to back Carlos Carrasco and a fresh Allen/Miller via a Miami Team Total Under. But as -185 became -225, and the Total dropped to 8 Under -115, that option disappeared. The flip side is that one is now being created, and with 8’s beginning to appear in Oakland tonight, it will be #925 Red Sox/A’s Under (10:05 Eastern). Consider the ticket good at 8-120, or at 7.5 Even money or better.
There have been discussions here this season about both the Red Sox and Yankees having “warning track power” on the road, and it has indeed been pronounced for the Boston offense, an .867 OPS at Fenway falling off to .760 everywhere else. West Coast ballparks at night are where fly balls go to die, and while Boston scoring 38 runs in 11 games of the first western swing may not look completely awful, track those starters – Weaver, Lincecum, Santiago, Skaggs, Paxton, LeBlanc, Iwakuma, Miranda, Kazmir, Stripling and McCarthy. Not an overly talented group. In terms of Oakland, the last four trips have seen the Red Sox produce just 33 runs across 13 games, and it will not be easy on the first look against Andrew Triggs, who checks in with a 3.24 FIP, and 3.34 from both xFIP and SIERA, because he has done a little of everything right – strikeouts, control and ground balls.
Meanwhile some folks are still calling David Price a disappointment for the Red Sox, but in going 13-8/3.97 he has basically been the same pitcher as the one that turned in an 18-5/2.45 line in 2015 –
2015 2016
K/9 9.2 9.1
BB/9 1.9 2.0
GB% 40.4 44.1
SWS% 11.9 12.1
The gap has been about BABIP and HR/FB, and it has also been mostly about Fenway, the park rating #4 for highest BABIP across MLB this season. With pennant pressure on Price has picked his game up to a 4-0/1.59 tune over his last four starts, and the friendly confines of Oakland at night should call for that form to continue.
In the Sights, NCAA Saturday “Market” play…
One of the things that we will do often here this season is focus on value being provided in the trading across the game-day marketplace, and we get an ideal setting on kickoff Saturday, with +14 now becoming available on #194 Wisconsin (3:30 Eastern). The Badgers are the epitome of the kind of team you look for in this price range – fundamentally sound, slow tempo, and defensively tenacious up front. The Badgers are not going to get pushed around, and while not get worn down physically, and while there are some issues for an inexperienced secondary, the pedestrian LSU passing game is not well-tooled to take advantage.
The Tigers do not push the tempo themselves, which calls for an extremely clean ride to get over this pointspread hump. There is also no intimidation here – with Wisconsin leading LSU 24-13 in that 28-24 loss in Houston to open the season two years ago, a game that the Badgers controlled the line of scrimmage, with a 270-130 edge in rushing yards (Wiscy has lost two games by more than 14 points over the last six seasons, both vs. teams that went on to win the National Championship). I thought the opener of -10 was correct, and at +13 the bells started to ring. +14 makes it a full “go”, and you can stay in the game at +13 for a slightly lesser amount.
In the Sights, MLB Saturday…
The price is not in the right place for the gap between the Indians and Marlins right now, with the reputation of Jose Fernandez still outpacing his road realities, so with pick’em out there he value fits to put #980 Cleveland (7:05 Eastern) into play. Make this one good up to -115. The Fernandez numbers have been detailed often, but let’s go to them again for a clean perspective -
Career 2016
Home 27-2/1.57 10-2/1.91
Away 8-14/3.86 3-5/4.02
And while he did throw six shutout innings against the Mets in his last outing, that was against a depleted lineup, and even in that one he labored out to 18.8 PPI. There also remains that “utility” issue of the fact that Fernandez is not going to be used in the 8th inning this season, and has only appeared in the 7th once over his last six starts, which makes his impact on the game pricing more than it should be.
Trevor Bauer is on solid form, a 2.45 over his last five starts, and there are no fatigue issues for the Cleveland bullpen. It does not take much for them to shackle a slumping Marlins lineup that has only managed 17 runs in their current 1-6 slide.
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