Anytime a sport is being played outdoors the weather is going to be a factor. Sometimes you will have perfect conditions, other times players will have to deal with bad temperatures, the wind, or precipitation. Baseball is a sport that is played in all sorts of conditions.
You can use this with your baseball handicapping to win more of your bets. You have to remember that the books factor a lot of things into their MLB lines, but sometimes they don’t adjust enough or miss something entirely. Other times they over-adjust. We think we have found a couple strategies that will help you profit this summer.
I don’t really believe that warm weather teams have trouble traveling to cold places and playing in chilly temperatures. In fact, I did some research and found the opposite is true. When the average temperature is below 45 the visiting team has gone 265-243 the last 10 years. I looked at the opposing teams to see if that only applied when a cold weather team visited a cold weather team, but that wasn’t the case. Some of the best visiting teams were the Tampa Bay Rays, LA Dodgers, Oakland A’s, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers, and Houston Astros. All of those squads you would think of as warm weather teams.
Blowing Straight In
Now we are on to the real weather factor that gives you an edge with betting MLB totals. Whenever the wind is blowing in you have to give consideration to the under. I like from anywhere from between 5mph to 15mph for there to be a real edge. Of course, you throw out teams with domes and you have to see if a retractable roof is being used. That means no games at Chase Field, Marlins Park, Miller Park, Minute Maid Park, Rogers Centre, or Safeco Field.
If you play the UNDER is all of these games then over the last 11 years you would have gone 502-352 (58.8%) for a profit of $11,411!
Blowing In From Left
Here we are just looking at the wind blowing in from left at between 4mph and 12mph. Using the same fields you will have found that the UNDER has gone 487-410 (54.3%) for a profit of $4,720 the last 11 years!
Blowing in From Right
Now let’s look at what happens when the wind blows in from right. Since there are more right-handed batters and home runs at typically “pulled” and not taken to opposite field I thought the numbers here might be a little worse.
I was right, but it’s still an edge. If the wind is blowing between 3mph and 12mph the UNDER went 1,281-1,119 (53.4%) for a profit of $8,711 the last 11 years. That’s still quite a significant edge!
Blowing Straight Out
There are a couple of extra parameters I used here. The first is that the total has to be under 11. It’s just difficult to get 12 or more runs to have a winning over bet. The second is that I used the temperature of 54 degrees of higher. This makes sense since the ball doesn’t travel as well when it’s cold. When the wind is blowing out the OVER has gone 2,013-1,817 (52.6%) for a total profit of $12,185!
Blowing Out to Left
Again I used the temperature of 50 degrees or more and a total of under 11. The OVER in this situation was 887-751 (54.2%) for a profit of $9,574 provided the wind was blowing between 6mph and 18 mph.
Blowing Out to Right
I didn’t find a significant advantage here.
Here is where I check the wind reports:
