Aikido Predictions 8/28

It is a strange day. Many of today’s games were postponed. With the uncertainty over who would play, who wouldn’t play and even who might play two that only go seven innings, no one posted lines.

I certainly can understand that. Some teams might have a bunch of players unavailable but still play, which would wreck havoc with the odds.

We here at Aikido Sports are not going to let any of that stop us.

Nor are we going to let stop us that we’ve spent the last two days trying to get seven inning games to work, and have no good way to know for sure if it worked right.

Looking at the initial games, I was concerned the program had been messed up by the transition. Every total is a 9 or higher with a 10, two 10.5s and a 13.5.

Then again, turning a bunch of the season’s games into seven inning games should make us think scoring should be higher going forward, and the predictions for today mostly have not changed outside of the doubleheaders. All the 6s and 6.5s that initially look like a different world than tomorrow’s lines suddenly made sense, and are reflected in the actual lines.

So here’s what we have for tomorrow.

901 Orioles A. Cobb Over 9.0-116

902 Blue Jays H. Ryu -160

905 Braves R. Erlin Over 9.5+103

906 Phillies Z. Wheeler -130

907 Twins S. Guy Over 10.0+102

908 Tigers T. Skubal 114

909 Rays R. Yarbrough Over 9.0-115

910 Marlins H. Mejia 166

911 Cubs K. Hendricks Over 9.5-103

912 Reds W. Miley 150

913 Nationals M. Scherzer Over 9.5+106

914 Red Sox C. Mazza 179

923 Dodgers D. May Over 10.5+103

924 Rangers M. Minor 209

915 Royals D. Duffy Over 10.0+100

916 White Sox R. Lopez -106

917 Pirates D. Holland Over 9.5-103

918 Brewers C. Burnes -186

919 Indians T. McKenzie Over 9.0-103

920 Cardinals D. Ponce de Leon 102

921 Padres G. Richards Over 13.5+101

922 Rockies A. Senzatela 154

925 Athletics C. Bassitt Over 9.5-107

926 Astros L. McCullers Jr. -120

927 Mariners N. Margevicius Over 9.5-107

928 Angels G. Canning -192

929 Giants T. Anderson Over 10.5-113

930 Diamondbacks L. Weaver -143

931 Yankees J. Montgomery Over 9.0-112

932 Mets U. Quantity 148

S. Guy and U. Quantity are my canonical ‘unknown minor league pitcher making his first start’ pitchers.

If the Mets start Porcello, Matz, Peterson or Gsellman, expect a modest but substantial improvement. If they start Wakka, given today’s line coming back from the injury, no bonus. The Twins will get a similar bonus for Dobnak, a smaller one for Wisler, and at least some bonus for anyone they’ve previously started.

This is the real test - posting the slate before anyone else does.

So, how did the program do? Now is the time to call out its mistakes. Place your virtual bets before the lines open elsewhere and explain what your fair value is and why! We’ll use the Pinnacle sports fee schedule, so assume that the line above is fair and go from there - so for example, in the Athletics game, you’d bet Over 9.5-113, Under 9.5+102, Astros -125 or Athletics +115. You get to play offense here purely in the dark, so you really should crush it - this is the kind of odds offered to get people in the door, not something where the bookmaker could make money. But that’s fine - there’s nothing at stake except pride, and we can track both results and line movement if we do this often enough.

(Note that I don’t actually expect any action on this one, I don’t have many eyes yet, but I wanted to throw it out there and see what happened.)

Of course, all these lines assume nine inning games, and they assume that both teams are entirely available to play. If those things aren’t true, adjustments will need to be made.