Wednesday Free Pick - MLB 9/21/11

We're going with a good contrarian value play in baseball today -- we're taking Oakland over Texas as a live home dog in a late game.  The betting percentages are huge on Texas, giving us a bit of line value.  

Monday Free Pick - MLB 9/19/11

We're going to take the Cubs and Coleman -- a nice home dog value.  The public likes the visiting Brewers, but the smart money is taking the Cubs.  We normally like more line value -- but we'll tail the sharps and take some decent odds at around +140.  

Home Field Advantage

This article discusses home field advantage (although not ATS).  My research shows that in some sports, there is an edge for contrarian methods AND home field advantage (like in baseball and college football).  However, in some sports, visitors have the edge ATS (like in the NBA).

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2011/09/03/in_sports_there_really_is_no_place_like_home/?s_campaign=8315

It’s a big deal. Statistics show that Major League Baseball teams win 54 percent of their home games. The benefit is even higher in other sports, according to the economist who compiled the figures. In the NHL the home teams win 57 percent of the time, in the NFL it’s 58 percent, and in the NBA it’s 62 percent.

What’s so great about being at home?

Tobias J. Moskowitz, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, ran decades of numbers in an effort to explain the well-known phenomenon, and he concluded that the single biggest contributor is - get ready to start booing - officiating bias by umpires and referees, unintentional though it may be.