2010 San Diego Padres
At least once a year, I seem to find a way to talk myself into betting an irresponsibly large amount of money on something that I think has really good value. Past examples of this include the 2007 New York Giants (nice catch, Tyree), the 2008 Oakland Athletics (oops), the 2008 Presidential election (mega oops), and Joe Cada at last year’s final table (ding ding ding ding ding). My latest betting crush is on the 2010 San Diego Padres. I can’t believe how good the value is on this team right now.
It’d be tough to make an argument against the Padres being the best team in the NL right now. Yet for some reason, they’re 7:1 to win the pennant on Bodog. If we assume they have about an 75% chance of reaching the playoffs, which I think fair if you put faith into the Baseball Prospectus season simulation, then they should be more like 5:1 to win the pennant and that’s just if you think they’re a flip in any postseason series once they get there. But for a couple reasons, I think they should be given credit to do better-than-a-flip in the playoffs (even though the MLB postseason is unfortunately just a crapshoot).
1. They’ll have home field advantage (probably). At the moment, the Padres have the best record in the NL. If they can finish the season strong, it stands to reason that the road to the World Series goes through San Diego. This certainly gives them a slight edge and would even make 5:1 on them to win the pennant start to seem like a decent bet.
2. They’ve got the secret sauce. Baseball statistician turned political analyst extrodinaire Nate Silver developed a formula for determining a team’s postseason success. He dubbed this forumla the “secret sauce” for doing well in the postseason which includes a combination of three things: a.) a team’s pitching staff’s strikeout rate, b.) it’s quality of defense, and c.) strength of their closer. In these ways, the Padres are nearly second to none (in fact, they were second to none a few days ago, but I see that the Giants have since taken a slight lead on the current secret sauce standings). Basically, in the metrics most predictive of postseason success, the Padres rule.
Since the strongest teams in the league (Rangers, Rays, and Yankees) are all in the AL, the path to the NL pennant is fairly soft for San Diego. Despite this, betting markets seem to be giving them very little credit. In fact, Bodog lists the Giants, who currently trail the Padres in the NL West, as bigger favorites to win the pennant. Also being given shorter odds to win the pennant on Bodog are the St. Louis Cardinals who Baseball Prospectus predicts as being barely more than a coinflip to even reach the playoffs. Who else does Bodog think has a better chance of winning the pennant? The Atlanta Braves, which might not be too unfair, but at nearly doubly more likely than San Diego, 3.75:1, is a joke. Even if you knew they’d be in the playoffs, which is far from certain at this point, you would be hard pressed to expect them to be better than 3.75:1 to win.
In short, betting markets have no love for the team that should probably be considered favorites to win the NL right now, so I’ll give them some love and hope they return the favor this fall.
Gooo San Diego!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
