MLB betting in Week 2 of the season starts to pick up on trends and hype, both of which can be misleading.
We’ve seen it every year. Filling out the last leg of a parlay, MLB bets tend to go with the “safe” option, the sure thing.
And what’s more of a sure thing than a red-hot 6-0 or 5-1 Yankees or Braves team that’s tearing up the league and filled with HR, RBI, ERA stat leaders?
Plenty, that’s what.
Check out the latest odds at Lucky Rebel
Why “Hot Teams” Cool Off Fast
Win streaks are great. We’re not looking to rain on any team’s parade.
But after opening week in major league baseball, a hot team that has started off 6-0 is coming down to earth in Week 2.
We all know it, but many of us still bet against this knowledge.
Stats nerds – and a lot of us betting types – know that coming back down to earth is just called regression.
In a 162-game season where winning 2/3 of the time guarantees you’re the best team in the league, that leaves somewhere in the area 60-70 games where the team takes a loss.
What factors lead to the cooling off of a hot team?
If it’s a team that is locked in at the plate, with multiple players teeing off every night, we quickly see opposing pitchers adjust after week 1. Scouting reports and data crunchers behind the scenes spot tendencies and a hitter’s weak spots.
Those fresh scouting reports work the other way too. Pitchers on a hot team who are dealing every night are analyzed, and their preferred location tendencies and best pitches are passed on the next opponents’ sluggers.
Then there’s just luck running out. We’ve all heard the line that the best hitters in baseball, those hitting .300 or better, fail 7 times out of 10.
Apply that to hot teams. 6-0 or even 5-1 records after Week 1 in the majors means luck is running out for the best of them sometime soon.
Lucky Rebel players don’t play solely on luck or regression though. We know you need stats to back it up.
Consider a team’s ace with a crazy 0.65 or 1.25 ERA after two starts.
For starters, he probably only pitched until the 5th or 6th inning because of strict early season pitch counts.
He also might have started against a team that finished at the bottom of the league in hitting last season. They don’t typically turn it all around in one offseason.
Then look at how many pitchers finished the month of April last season with an ERA of 2.50 or lower. Only three were still standing: Skubal on the Tigers, Pirates’ phenom Paul Skenes, and the Red Sox’ Crochet.
League-wide, batting averages are lower in the first week and heat up as the month goes on. They’re 10-20 points below the full season average. Colder weather that marks the first week warms up, and hitters simply need time to dial in their timing after a lot of machine-only practice over the winter.
Looking at teams specifically, there were 7 of them that started at 5-1 in 2023 and 2024.
All 7 lost at least one more game in Week 2, and multiple teams lost 2 or more. The betting angle?
There will be blood.
In Week 2, underdogs will win some games against hot teams.
Position yourself accordingly.
Public Bets Heavily, and Wrong, on Perceived Momentum
Recency bias – that urge to make bets leaning toward what’s happened very recently – is strong in Week 2 of MLB games.
Feels like it’s just human nature. Our minds like familiar patterns and basing decisions on those patterns.
But for betting on baseball, especially after just one week of action to start the season, recency bias also = bad beats.
For Sportsbooks, Week 2 is “handle-heavy” towards last week’s winners. The current estimate shows between 65%-80% of all moneyline handle is wagered on teams that had Week 1 records of 5-1 or 6-0.
Recency bias traps show up several different ways.
They ignore underlying metrics.
Strength – or lack of it – of opposing teams is a big one. If Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are teeing off on teams with weak rotations full of AAA arms in Week 1, of course the Yankees will have a shiny early record. Matchups matter.
Public bettors will look at the headlines but ignore things like ERA or pitching matchups. A hot team might trot out a fifth start in Week 2 to see where he’s at. While the public goes in and automatically bets the 7-1 team, he’s getting pulled after getting shellacked for 6 runs in two and a third.
Lucky Rebel players know to look the other way when the betting public is showing such herd mentality.
While herd is throwing money at strong teams and the books are shading lines towards them to capitalize on the hype, we use regression from the other angle too. Team records mean very little this early into a long season. This goes for the cold teams too. A team that shot blanks in Week 1 and is sitting at 0-6 or 1-5 will also lean towards the mean (.500) over the course of a full season.
This means some underdogs will string together some wins as early as Week 2.
And this is where the sharps make their move.
How to Spot the Right Underdogs
Starting pitcher matchups are big at any time of the season. Week 2 is no exception.
We look beyond ERA. FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) takes away some luck/bad luck and estimates what a pitcher’s ERA should be based only on events under his control.
A much lower FIP than ERA for one pitcher shows he’s probably throwing better than his ERA shows. And in Week 2 as the underdog, he could shine vs. a pitcher that has a FIP close to his ERA.
Bullpen usage is another way to spot the right MLB underdogs in Week 2.
Bullpens are stretched as starters only go to a certain pitch count in the early weeks. They can be overworked already. Check the favorite’s middle relief stats for Week 1, and if they look on the heavy side, fade them in Week 2. Schedule context is important. If the ‘dogs started two road swings against top teams in Week 1, but their underlying core is solid, they might enjoy some W’s when they get that home cooking in Week 2.
Bottom Line for Baseball Lines
Regression, pitching imbalances, and fresh scouting and strategy.
All signs point to picking some ‘dogs in Week 2 of the MLB season.