Don't chase system for MLB

All the systems I've seen for baseball involve chasing series. While it appears that it works to a certain extent, you run the risk of catching a good team in a bad streak (and they all have them) and you lose a lot of bank on 1 or 2 series.  I'm going to steal an idea from Neilsy and use the RL and ML in conjuction with one another along with the Lab line money mangement to see if you can get a good rate of return on MLB while not layin' it all out there at certain times and hoping that one game doesn't ruin all your hard work.

I'm going to start with a 2000 bankroll spread over 4 lab lines to see what kind of return we can generate. I'm going to take lines from three books that I use so as to use any variances to our advantage.

Our opening lines will look like this

Line 1-    5-5-5-5

Line 2-    5-5-5-5

Line 3-    5-5-5-5

Line 4-    5-5-5-5

We'll start tomorrow 4/25

One unit = $10

The goal is to return 4% a week on the 2000 bankroll.

First bets will be to 1 unit = $10 = 10 pts. on the line

Line 1-  FLA 10/15 (10 to win 15)      LAD  RL 10/10.50

Line 2-  COL RL  10/13   HOU RL 10/12.50

Line 3-  PIT 10/15    TEX RL  10/16  BAL 10/14

Line 4-  WAS 10/14   DET 10/13.30  BOS RL 10/12.50

Lines now look like:

line 1-  5-5-5-5-10-10

line 2-  x-x-x-x

line 3-  x-x-x-x-10

line 4-  x-5-5-x-10-10                      bankroll = 2019.50

One line cleared today. Tomorrow's bets will be $15 except for line 3. We only need a $10 bet to clear that line. We must clear two more lines before I will open more. We'll have at least two lines open at all times. 

but i mean in profit  ..i.e in a typical labby line .. a cleared line of

5 5 5 5    would mean you made 20 units of profit

another question for you kirby.. you wrote this in my thread

"At a 43% win rate you can clear a line that started with 4 places on average every 14 bets as long as you follow the rules of the labby line."

- where did you get 43% from ?..the favorite wins by exactly 1 run only 15% of the time meaning an 85% win rate...does this mean you can expect more than 4% per week ?

- I really think you have found a great way to maximize this type of betting on both sides..and would just like to understand how you got the 4% per week a little better...thanks

By trial and error I came up with an average of clearing lines every 14-17 bets with a 43% win rate. Now if we can eliminate the 1-run wins by the favorite and boost the overall win rate to 50%, then we've really got something. I think that the O/U can give us a clue as to what games might be more successful. For example today the only 1-run favorite was CHW. They were the lowest total on the board today at 8 (outside of the Giants which rizz seems to think will always have a low total and with their pitching I don't doubt it). The closer we get to a 50% overall win rate the faster this is going to work.

Plays for 4/26:

Line 1-  SD +140 15/21  TEX RL +145 15/21.75

Line 4-  DET +135  15/20.25   FLA RL  +135 15/21.75

Add for 4/26:

Line 3-  BOS RL  +115  10/11.50

Line 4-  TOR +130  15/19.50

One more for today:

Line 1-  LAD RL +125  15/18.75

Line 3-  NYM +125  10/12.50

Lines are:

Line 1-  5-5-5-5-10-10-15-15

Line 2-   x-x-x-x

Line 3-  10-10

Line 4-   15            Bankroll = $2005.00

Let's move some numbers around. We want to keep the bets as consistent as we can.

Drop 2 5's and a 10 from Line1 to Line 4. So now we have

Line 1-  5-5-10-15-15    (4 bets)

Line 2-  x-x-x-x      (2 bets)

Line 3-  10-10       (4 bets)

Line 4-  5-5-10-15   (6 bets)

I'm going to keep track of how many bets it takes to clear the lines. I said I thought it would take 14-17 bets on average to clear each line so let's see if that's what's going to happen.

I'm also going to put where each $500 bankroll is for each line so we can see what the max drawdown is for the worst line.

Line 1 bank = 450

Line 2 bank = 525.50

Line 3 bank = 510

Line 4 bank =519.50

plays 4/27:

Line 1-  SD +120  20/24   TEX RL +160 20/32  CLE +140  20/28 PHI  RL +130  20/36

Line 3-   CIN +120 20/24  LAA  RL +135  20/27

Line 4-  FLA RL +160 20/32  CHW +130 20/26  HOU RL +170       20/34  SF +120 20/24 

One thing you may want to consider is going either with or against the short term trend.  I am working a similar system using RL/ML parlays this year, and have made a pretty nice return since recognizing that the home favorites so far this season have won by 1 run at a much higher rate than normal.

So far out of the 289 games played this year, the home team has been favored 181 times.  They've covered 74 times (40.9%), they've lost outright 69 times (38.1%), and they've won by exactly one run 38 times (21.0%).  That 21% is well above the usual season average of about 15%, and cost me some money up until I threw the home favorites out of my formula.

Conversely, the away team has been favored 109 times.  They covered 51 times (46.8%), they lost outright 48 times (44.0%, and they won by 1 run 10 times (9.2%).  That 9% is really low, and has made me alot of money so far using my 3-game parlay system.

Overall (home and away), the favorite has won by 1 run 48 times out of the 289 games (16.6%), which is right around average.

My point is, if you dig down to the next level of fidelity with any system, you can usually increase your performance just by going with (or against, depends on your overall philosophy) the current short-term trend.  It is a little more work than your usual quick system, but it only takes me about 20 minutes to update my spreadsheet and make my picks, and so far I've almost doubled my starting bank this season.

Just food for thought.  Peace.

Lines are:

Line 1- xxxx  (8 bets)                Bank = 508.00         The three winners on this line tonight wiped out this line.

Line 2- xxxx  (2 bets)                Bank = 525.50

Line 3-  20    (6 bets)                 Bank = 514.00

Line 4-  5-10-20-20  (10 bets)     Bank = 483.50

Total bankroll = 2031.00