Aikido Predictions 4/17
We are ready to begin, as the program is ready to get back to work. I don’t know how often slash for how long I’ll be able to do these posts, but for as long as it refreshes me and I’m not too overwhelmed, I’ll be here.
Aikido in mid-April has a number of pitfalls to worry about. The biggest one is that you’re not operating on many games, and everyone is learning rapidly. It’s more likely something important is missing, or that one quirky game is messing with the odds calculation. Another pitfall is that totals tend to be lower, as scoring is reliably depressed in April, and this can have strange effects. As always, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on totals to keep them roughly balanced on over versus under.
The display starts with the rotation number, then the team name, then the system’s offensive ranking for them. Higher numbers mean proportionally more runs. Then the pitcher, and the pitcher’s defensive ranking. Lower numbers man proportionally less runs. Then we have Aikido’s lines, then picks and passes.
On the pick line are the picks Aikido is making. Those will each be one unit, and tracked for both line movement and results. Since this is a day-of set of bets, line movement likely won’t be great, but we’ll track it anyway. If I can, I’ll mark which wagers are day-of and which aren’t, so we can run the numbers on the subsets.
On the Passes line are anything where Aikido’s line was outside Pinnacle’s odds, so if you 100% believed Aikido’s number, there would be value there, but I decided they didn’t rise to the level of a wager.
As a reminder, I make best efforts to bet the current line when I make the pick, which is represented by when I put the odds in bold on the spreadsheet. That locks in the number. It’s up to you to confirm that I’m playing fair with the timing here.
I’ll explain my decisions below, and offer any notes.
Several totals are marked ‘7 innings’ in the pass column. I just got the program running, and it doesn’t realize those are 7 inning games for some reason. Hopefully I’ll find time to debug and fix the issue, but for now I won’t be betting over in any doubleheaders until I confirm the program did it on purpose.
951 Diamondbacks +104
Solid edge in a pick ‘em style game where we agree on the total is generally a pretty good spot. The theory here that Weaver is better than Fedde seems highly plausible to me.
PASSING: 953/954 Braves/Cubs Over 7.5-108
New season reminder: Wrigley Field weather on day of game trumps everything. I won’t go over this each time, but I’m profoundly uninterested in fading weather effects there until I have a weather model, which I totally don’t and likely never will, so we just leave those games alone and keep the totals out of the projections going forward as well.
PASSING: 962 Rockies G2 +109
This looks like a lot of value, but it’s a trap and I’m having none of it. Rockies offense has been abysmal this year, and in G1 the Mets have DeGrom so they’ll have a full pen to compensate for it not being deep. Most importantly, Lucchesi seems solid it’s just that the Mets have had a bizarre season full of cancellations. No thanks.
PASSING: 960 Brewers -134
Not enough edge to get involved, especially on day of game.
PASSING: 963 Dodgers -114
This does tempt me on an instinctive level, but four cents isn’t going to get it done especially on game day. In general I want eight even the day before.
965/966 Rays/Yankees Over 7.5-115
Park effect and good offenses are present. Those are some fine pitchers and it’s April, so I’m confident Aikido is coming in too high here, but we have enough slack that I can’t argue.
971/972 Tigers/Athletics Under 9-114
PASSING: Athletics -128
This under is a little borderline for a game day pick, but I think it’s fine. Definitely would back off here if things weren’t going great overall. The Athletics line is uninteresting, as it’s a favorite and we have a total opinion we like more.
975/976 Twins/Angels Under 9-109
PASING: 976 Angels -105
New season reminder that this isn’t as big an edge as it might look like due to paying 21 large cents in juice, but it’s still solid. Angels side is only three cents good, so easy pass and it doesn’t worry us.
977 Astros -119
PASSING: 977/978 Astros/Mariners Under 8.5-111
Yeah, I don’t understand getting the Astros this cheap. It’s my first day so my team familiarity here is pretty low. I’m happy that it’s easy to understand this one. I’m confident there’s a reason it’s not as good as it looks, but it’s still probably pretty good. Due to the moneyline disagreement, we have to pass on the under, since it would otherwise only be marginal. There’s a better way to express this opinion, but by rule we do not get greedy and bet two units. If actually wagering, I’d do more homework and consider sizing up if everything looked clear.
PASSING: 979/980 Indians/Reds Over 8-113
PASSING: 979 Indians +130
Both plays don’t have great edge, and both are there. If the Indians line wasn’t there and we had another under on our card or had established that we like a lot of unders in general, I’d likely take the over here.
985/986 Mets/Rockies G1 Over 7+124
So yeah, the program doesn’t know it’s a seven inning game and DeGrom is likely to pitch all seven innings, but Coors Field is still Coors Field and the Mets get to tee off on Gray. DeGrom is great but 54 outs at Coors are a lot of outs and 7 are not that many runs.
987 Giants +118
987/988 Giants/Marlins Over 7.5-108
These are similarly strong plays that are somewhat at cross purposes, hedging our opinion of Sanchez either way. We should be good one way or another.
Ideally I’ll be back later today with tomorrow’s games, and we’ll see how often I get to do this. If you’re getting a lot of value out of such posts, let me know so I’m more motivated to keep going. If you don’t get value out of such posts, it’s unlikely I’m going to get a chance to do much in-depth coding work or theory any time soon, so to the extent you get anything, this (give or take some extra Mets thoughts, so far so good) is what you’re going to get.