The Bat Cave

I figured I should post how I did on the massive amount of action I had on MLB win totals and prop futures.

Here’s a link to my initial write up on my plays before the season: 2018 MLB Win Totals

I added a few plays after that post and a few World Series futures during the regular season.

Win Totals

Red Sox o90.5 – This was never a sweat +1u

Yankees o93.5 – I can’t ever remember thinking I might lose this one either. +2u

Cubs o93.5 – The Cubs never seemed super strong and wobbled off and on pace most of the year and didn’t cover until the last week of the season. The absence of Yu Darvish all season and Tyler Chatwood’s inability to locate the strike zone were big factors in making this a sweat. +2u

Mariners o81.5 – The Mariners drastically overperformed in the first half and a second half slide may have hurt their postseason chances, but it didn’t affect the over on this play very much. +1u

Marlins u65 – I predicted this would be a sweat and it was my last play to be finalized. The Marlins ended with 63 wins and had a makeup game against the Pirates cancelled, which felt huge with just a couple games to go. +1u

Tigers u68 – The Tigers were yet another team that didn’t come through until the last week of the season, but finished comfortably below their win total at 64 wins. +2u

Pirates u73.5 – I said before the season started that this was my least favorite play at the time and it ended up being pretty ugly as the Pirates finished with 82 wins. There were some brief periods of time where it looked like I might be drawing live at the under, but the Pirates were well above pace for basically the whole season. -1.1u

Nationals o92 – Welcome to bizarro world. I still don’t get it. The Nats seem to be living out a curse after thinking they could afford to bench Stephen Strasburg in the playoffs early in his career because they thought they would have plenty of opportunities for postseason success. Well, they haven’t been wrong about that, but they didn’t win a single playoff series during the Bryce Harper Era and that era could very well be over now. It’s bad enough that a team as good as the Nationals didn’t make the playoffs, but they barely finished above .500. This bet should have been a lock and it was pacing under basically the whole season. The Nats are a joke. I’d be very surprised if Bryce comes back. -2.5u

Rays u78.5 – I mentioned in my preseason write up that the Rays lost 6 of the 8 best players off their 2017 80 win team. They entered the season without a full rotation. They traded their ace away. And then they went out and won 90 games, all while revolutionizing the game of baseball by creating the “opener,” by having a relief pitcher start the game and pitch one or two innings. I thought this might have been my best value play before the season started and it ended up being one of my ugliest. -1.05u

Royals u71.5 – A huge laugher. The Royals won 58 games. +1u

Athletics o75.5 – I will once again refer to this article as the reason that I made this play. Despite betting the over, in my preseason write up I still thought the fact that Fangraphs projected the A’s for 80 wins warranted an exclamation point. Well, they won 97 games and I still don’t get it. Their lineup is above average, but not great and their starting rotation seems like it’s been filled with AAA types and has beens all year and yet… here we are… with some people claiming the A’s look like the best team in baseball. Goodness. I think the bullpen is pretty dynamite, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this run ends in a blow out loss against the Yankees on Wednesday. +2u

Blue Jays o81.5 – I said before the season started that if Josh Donaldson gets traded at any point this season, this bet is toast and, well, he’s on the Cleveland Indians now. So yeah. Toast. Granted, Donaldson was injured all season, but my thought was that if the Blue Jays traded him it would be because they had no chance at contending. -1u

Phillies o76.5 – It’s weird that this bet was never really a sweat because the Phillies ended up winning only 80 games. On August 5th, the Phillies had a 70% chance of making the playoffs and the Braves had a 37.3% chance. Well, the Phils ended up finishing 10 games behind the Braves in the standings, so… it was a pretty severe collapse and my bet on the over was a lock all season long that looks close at the finish line. +2u

Astros o97.5 – TThis was a late add to my ledger and it probably wasn’t a great idea. Any bet on o97.5 is going to be a sweat. The Astros were near a 98-win pace most of the season and even injuries to Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, George Springer, and Brian McCann couldn’t stop this team from winning a franchise record 103 games. The team I thought looked like the best in baseball before season started didn’t disappoint. +1u

Indians o94.5 – There was no softer division in MLB than the AL Central. The ALC featured three teams that lost at least 98 games and the Twins finished in second place with a record six games below .500 – after winning six straight to end the season! I didn’t expect the Twins to be so bad this year, but I did think the other three teams would be terrible and I expected the Indians to grab a ton of extra wins and cruise to 100+. Instead, they seemed to struggle their way to 91 wins despite playing in the worst division in baseball, while rocking a lineup of All-Stars and three Cy Young caliber starting pitchers in their rotation. Were they just not trying because they didn’t need to? The Tribe was trending below pace almost all season with some brief glimpses of hope to stay hot. This was probably my most disappointing loss of the year. -2.2u

Orioles o73.5 – Why? Why did I do this? Another late add… I just can’t go a season without losing money on the Orioles. Every year I bet the under and every year they burn me. So this year, for literally no good reason, I bet the over. Seriously. No good reason. I was already over on the Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays in the same division. It was well known they would probably trade Manny Machado before the deadline. I can’t explain why I did this. It just feels like a pure torch. The Orioles lost 11 more games than any other team in baseball. -1u

Giants u83 – I literally bet this within minutes after Madison Bumgarner suffered an injury that would keep him sidelined for two months. Johnny Cueto was hurt. So was Jeff Samardzija, I think. How the hell were the Giants going to compete starting the season with the top 60% of their rotation on the DL? The Giants were actually pretty close to an 83-win pace up until they reeled off a very thoughtful 11-game losing streak to start the month of September. +1u

Win Totals Score: +7.15u

Player Props

Jose Altuve o199.5 hits – Altuve was on pace for well over 200 hits before missing nearly a month after the All-Star Break. -0.5u

Luis Severino o15 wins – Sevvy won 19 games despite struggling a bit in September. +0.575u

Justin Verlander o14.5 wins – JV won 16 games. +0.5u

Nolan Arenado, Joey Gallo, and Rhys Hoskins MLB HR leader – I got at least 21-1 on all three of these bets, but J.D. Martinez had a healthy lead most of the year before Khris Davis ran away with the HR title. -1.3u

Carlos Correa for AL MVP – This 9-1 shot seemed decent after Correa hit .315 with 18 RBI in April, but he hit under .200 in May, August, and September, and missed the entire month of July with an injury. His final numbers are gross: .239-15-65 with a below league average .728 OPS. Yikes. He might be a good bet for MVP next year if his odds see a huge increase. -0.5u

Player Props Score: -1.225u

New York Yankees to win AL East – The Red Sox started off hot and never looked back. The Yankees won 100 games and basically never had a chance at the division. -1.35u

World Series Futures

Seattle Mariners 50-1 – 17 straight years without a postseason appearance and its not looking promising on the horizon either. -0.5u

Los Angeles Angels 20-1 – I was drinking that Shohei Ohtani Kool-Aid and if the Angels took off, I wanted to cash in. Alas, they might never put a real team around Mike Trout. -0.5u

Cubs 9-1 – I wouldn’t be surprised if I could get the Cubs at 9-1 today, but at least I got this team in the running. They play the Brewers in game #163 today for the division title and I’m not rooting for them because…

Brewers 25-1 – I’d rather have my 25-1 shot not have to face elimination in the Wild Card Game. The Brewers are substantially better than they were when I made this beat. Their lineup is sick. Their bullpen is good. Their starting pitching is… probably going to prevent them from winning the World Series.

Braves 40-1 – The sweat is real. This is a team that could feasibly win the World Series. They have the lineup. They have the pitching. This means I have 3 of the 5 teams that made the playoffs in the National League and my chances of getting one of them to the World Series is pretty strong. I will not be rooting for the Dodgers against the Rockies because I want the Dodgers to face elimination in the Wild Card Game. Because the Dodgers scare the shit out of me. I can’t believe they are even here. They are the biggest threat to my World Series futures and I truly believe the Dodgers are the best team in the National League. It’s also worth noting that I bet a full unit on the Braves and only a half unit on all my other World Series futures, so this is definitely my biggest root.

Indians 9-1 – I bet this somewhat late in the season when the Indians were kind of struggling and really getting overlooked because the Red Sox and Astros were so good. I’ve already talked about how let down I was by the Indians win total. They are a better team than that. They are easily the most underrated team heading into postseason play and it would not surprise me one iota if the Indians won the World Series this year. Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Trevor Bauer are a problem in a playoff series.

MVP Futures

Jose Ramirez 45-1 – Damn, damn, DAMN. It wasn’t that long ago that it looked like I was actually going to ship this bet. As recently as late August, it looked like Ramirez was the front-runner in a tight AL MVP race, but after hitting .185 with 2 homers in September, the sweat appears to be over. I haven’t chalked this up as a loss yet because a small part of me is probably in denial. There is just no chance the voters are going to pick Ramirez over…

Mookie Betts 14-1 – I think this is a winner. Betts led MLB with a .346 average while joining the 30/30 club and playing superb outfield defense. He also led MLB in WAR, runs, wOBA, and *gasp* slugging percentage. It’s easy to forgive the paltry 80 RBI Betts posted when you consider that he batted in the leadoff spot and still outslugged boppers like J.D. Martinez and Mike Trout. I would be shocked if Betts doesn’t win the AL MVP and I lose this bet.

Overall: +3.575u

Betts is a lock for +6.5u and hopefully the Braves or Brewers can win the World Series and make this a huge year!