Marco, I've been doing my best over the past couple years of following you (and the pregame crew) to pay attention to your handicapping style and trends that you look at when you are giving your analysis of a card.
I've been listening to the betting first look now for a few weeks and I'm trying to do the same with MLB. I wanted to list a few things I've noticed, just to see if I'm on track and if you have the opportunity to reply when possible I would appreciate it. I just wanted to make sure I'm on track with some of these trends in MLB.
1)The starting pitching match-up: Look for a regression by comparing previous starts. A good spot to fade or back a team could come from a quality prediction of what he's going to accomplish. Look at his last 3 starts, if he has been pitching well or had a previous lights-out performance, there is a probability that he is going to regress...and vise-verse. A good example of this was the Cubs the other night.)
2) Starting pitching: make a comparison between home/road record, WHIP, & ERA. If you find a spot where a favorite might struggle on the road (such as the Mets tonight for example) this might be a spot to find value on the ML.
3)Starting pitching: Look for a bounce-back situation, especially from an ace who struggled last time out, or last time out vs team facing. Opportunity is there for him to have a quality outing.
4) Heading back to the "scene of the crime": No team is as good as one blowout, or one time getting blown out. Look for a bounce back game in game 2 of a series. (Good example of this would be the Brewers last night).
5) Start of a road trip: more focus from a team and a time you would look to back a team.
6) Coming off a road trip, first game back home: Look to fade a team in this situation where they could lack focus, especially if you're getting a visiting team coming into the previously mentioned situation.
7)Home teams in the second game back from a road trip: Look to back teams in this situation, as they are back home, rested, back with families, ect...and will be sharp and ready once all personal affairs are settled from being on the road (example).
8)Look at win or losing streaks for teams, good example is the Mets tonight. Find fundamental reasons for your trends, and look to back or fade teams you can find value with. Go back and look at 7-game (1 week) stretches to see if a team has a higher probability to regress, or possibly snap the losing streaks.
***Well that's really all I I've picked up on so far just from listening....hope I'm on the right track, so I can add these tools to my own analysis. Thanks for all you do and thank you in advance if you get a chance to read this. Best of luck Marco!
Mike