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#How understanding weather can help MLB bettors

#How understanding weather can help MLB bettors

August 16, 2020 | 11:01am

Sports betting is all about edges — using predictive information the general public tends to ignore. Sure, everyone knows the Yankees are good and lots of runs get scored in Coors Field, but far fewer people understand that weather is perhaps the biggest edge in MLB betting right now. The impact on the game is massive, yet the lines don’t always reflect the weather conditions properly.

Basic science tells us that hotter air is thinner air, and thinner air creates less friction on a ball heading toward the outfield fence, causing it to fly further and, more often, over the fence. Taking a look at the average runs scored per game (RPG) by temperature bears this out:

Temp.          RPG


Under 40     8.64


40-49           8.96


50-59           8.92


60-69           8.83


70-79            9.06


80-89           9.55


90              10.60

Since 2017, the difference between games under 40 degrees and over 90 degrees has been nearly two full runs per game. At one run per team, that kind of swing in weather alone would turn the 2019 Seattle Mariners (4.68 runs per game, 19th in MLB) into the 2019 Houston Astros (5.68 runs per game, first in MLB). That’s massive. The trend isn’t quite linear. Run-scoring spikes more in extreme heat, which is great because Vegas tends to handicap these games too conservatively. Check out how opening lines (OPEN) compared to actual run-scoring on the high end of the temperature spectrum:

Temp.     Open      RPG


70-79        8.82      9.01


80-89       9.05      9.45


90-94       9.46     10.26


95            9.97      11.96

At a league average 70 degrees, Vegas’s opening lines tend to mirror actual runs scored almost perfectly. At 80 degrees, they diverge a bit. At 90, a bit more. Once you get over 95 degrees, an extra two runs per game more than the opening line have been scored since 2017. Now, the 95-plus bucket is a somewhat small sample size, so the real impact is likely less than two runs, but the trend is pretty clear: Vegas doesn’t properly account for heat.

This trend is also there (albeit a bit less pronounced) in the closing lines, meaning you can still find value in games like this throughout the day. The best news of all: In this fan-less 2020 season, we’ve seen games played with temperatures as high as 113 degrees. Teams that would normally close their roofs because fans in the upper decks would swelter have decided that, at field level, games are playable enough with the roofs open, even when it’s extremely hot.

The Rangers opened up their roof on Aug. 10 to 98 degree heat. The line opened at 8.5, closed at 9, and 12 runs were scored. The D’backs shockingly opened the roof mid-game on Aug. 5 to 105 degree heat. In the first three innings, with the roof closed, three runs were scored. Over the remainder of the game, another 18(!) crossed the plate. Last Friday and Saturday night, Arizona once again decided it was fine to open the roof to 100-plus conditions, so this seems like something we could be primed to take advantage of over the remainder of the season.

This Monday and Tuesday, both the Rangers and D’backs will be home — with 90-ish degrees in Texas and 110-ish in Arizona both days. Needless to say: keep an eye on that roof status.

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