2011-2012 Offseason Thread

[ORS]

When the betting opens' date=' there has been no betting play (action) to affect the odds.[/quote']

This is true. And I agree that they are as unbiased as you can get because the initial odds are their biggest risk. My main point of contention was that they don't make money by being "right", but that they make money by making the proper adjustments to the odds. If they were "right" so often, no adjustment would be necessary, but you commonly see moving odds. And since the money maker is balanced betting, their "right" is accurately predicting bettor action. Not the actual outcome.

 

In fact, because of that last point, you could actually make the case that they are not very different at all from the "expert" prognosticators. I'd be willing to bet that the media darling most commonly has best odds when betting opens - across the board in the sporting world.

[jacksonianmarch]

What the Scutaro trade rumor tells me is that the sox are actually significantly restraining their budget at the lux tax line. If that's actually true, then your team is effectively fixed as is for awhile. Ortiz and Scutaro are your only major FA's to be and part of that will be offset by the major raises due to Ellsbury, Bard, and Aceves

[Bellhorn04]

What the Scutaro trade rumor tells me is that the sox are actually significantly restraining their budget at the lux tax line. If that's actually true' date=' then your team is effectively fixed as is for awhile. Ortiz and Scutaro are your only major FA's to be and part of that will be offset by the major raises due to Ellsbury, Bard, and Aceves[/quote']

 

It's clear they don't want to add much more in 2012 payroll. I think the common theory among Sox fans right now, including myself, is that they are looking at trading Scutaro to make room to sign Oswalt or another starter in his price range.

[SoxSport]

Looks to me as if there is a difference of opinion in the FO about trading a year of Scutaro for a year of Oswalt or Floyd. Considering their needs, it looks like the pitching is the preference. Scutaro is only a year's rental now anyways, and they have Aviles, Punto and Iglesias. I keep hearing about how Iglesias is not ready as a hitter--having hit .261 with an .6xx OPs for two seasons. That kid is your typical defensive SS--you don't pay him to hit on a hitter-heavy team. That should be obvious. You hide him in the lineup and feast on his defense.

 

The disparity between the reckless spenders of last year and the penny pinchers of this year is striking.

[RedSoxFan84]

Looks to me as if there is a difference of opinion in the FO about trading a year of Scutaro for a year of Oswalt or Floyd. Considering their needs, it looks like the pitching is the preference. Scutaro is only a year's rental now anyways, and they have Aviles, Punto and Iglesias. I keep hearing about how Iglesias is not ready as a hitter--having hit .261 with an .6xx OPs for two seasons. That kid is your typical defensive SS--you don't pay him to hit on a hitter-heavy team. That should be obvious. You hide him in the lineup and feast on his defense.

 

The disparity between the reckless spenders of last year and the penny pinchers of this year is striking.

 

 

 

I tend to agree. I've got nothing against Scutaro, but I really want to see Iglesias get a chance in Boston. Some people point to his troubles with the bat, and then point to how much better Scutaro is offensively, but as you said, with such an offensively-dangerous team, we can afford to lose a little offense at SS in order to improve our defense at that position by quite a lot.

[jacksonianmarch]

The offense is still dangerous, but you have a hole in RF, a liability at C, an injury riddled 3b, and a LFer coming off wrist surgery who'll miss the early part of the season. You don't want to poke another hole in the offense if you don't have to.

[User Name]

All of those will fill themselves out as the season progresses. Also, i'm interested to hear how Salty is a "liability".

[jacksonianmarch]

He's a liability due to his .288OBP, his near 5:1 K:BB ratio and his abysmal defense. His only redeeming offensive quality is his SLG

[mvp 78]

His offense is fine for a catcher. He's comparable to most starters.

 

Defensively, he took a hit from catching Wake.

 

He still needs to improve, but he's not a "liability." If Tek was the starter, that's a liability.

[a700hitter]

This is true. And I agree that they are as unbiased as you can get because the initial odds are their biggest risk. My main point of contention was that they don't make money by being "right", but that they make money by making the proper adjustments to the odds. If they were "right" so often, no adjustment would be necessary, but you commonly see moving odds. And since the money maker is balanced betting, their "right" is accurately predicting bettor action. Not the actual outcome.

 

In fact, because of that last point, you could actually make the case that they are not very different at all from the "expert" prognosticators. I'd be willing to bet that the media darling most commonly has best odds when betting opens - across the board in the sporting world.

I am not a bookie, but I have known a few living in Brooklyn for the first 30 years of my life. First of all, media darling popularity has little to do with opening odds. It might adjust the odds slightly, but it will not be enough to overcome the actual relative strengths of the teams. The easiest bet to set the vig for is a bet where there is an opposing bet. On a moneyline bet, Bookies would like equal play for the Ravens and the Patriots. The vig on such a bet is right in the open for the betters to see. The vig on futures bets is very difficult for the ordinary better to understand and see. It is also more difficult to set the odds to get the proper distribution needed for the bookie to get the desired profit. The better those odds are at predicting the actual betting distribution the better for the bookies. In a futures bets at the beginning of a season there is a lot of time to adjust the lines to reflect play.

In a shorter duration futures play like the odds at the beginning of the post season, there is much more pressure to be right to predict the actual play by the gamblers, because there isn't a lot of time to adjust the odds. They need to know if a team is hot, injured, etc., because the gamblers will certainly know.

 

Yes, the odds are adjusted to the amount of play, but in the end the relative rankings are as good a prediction of relative strength as you will find. Bookies might differ on close calls. One bookie might have team A as 10:1 and team B as 11:1. Another bookie might have those in reverse. You can argue the relative strengths of those teams, but there is no arguing about the relative strength of a 2:1 team vs. a 10:1 team. The odds as they are set today have the Angels and the Yanks as being much stronger than the Red Sox. I think that is probably accurate on paper. The Rangers and the Sox are pretty close, but I don't know if those odds have factored in Darvish.

 

The bookies are almost always right. Do their opening odds precisely predict the Champions or playoff teams? No, but at the end of the year, the teams that are predicted to suck usually do suck and the teams that are favored are usually pretty competitive. If anything, the fact that the Red Sox have such a broad fan base and popularity probably artificially affects the odds to lower them relative to other teams rather than to increase them. The Rangers do not have the same kind of following as do the Red Sox.

[a700hitter]

Now I expect you to turn up the douche x10 to try to deflect how true this is.

Post #1 is a trolling post? Get off the board. Go away!:thumbdown

[a700hitter]

Thanks for the input King of Trolls.

Where's your intro-post. I guess you are just hiding your identity to be a dick.

[a700hitter]

Self-appointed King of a dead internet forum!

Goodbye jackass.

[iortiz]

Since future is always uncertain, even with ""favorable conditions" (e.i. NY will win Los Astros at NY pitching CC) the key factor is how Casinos/betting shops/betting firms/betting web pages/etc. reward those odds. This is how they make tons of money. A bookie/gambler always is who makes the bet (try to predict the future), on the other hand betting houses put the conditions (reward), of course based on probabilities. There's the key.

 

If the odd-makers realize (after their analysis -- whatever it means--) that an event's probability is very low in order to happen, the reward is big (e.i. Los Astros will win the 2012 WS 100/1). On the other hand, if an event's probability is very high, the reward is symbolic (You need to bet tons of money in order to win something atractive)

 

Future odds are peculiar. Look at the Philli's line, they pay you 11/2. The reward is very attractive since this kind of bet is still a loooong shot because a lot of factors will be in effect next 8 months that could change the final result, but STILL, the Phillies are the most likely frontrunner in order to win the WS. TEX, LAA and NY are above us. According with odd-makers/experts they have better posibilities than us to win the ring, but still it is a loooong shot for each team.

 

So yes, future odds are a good thermometer in order to rate the strength of a team (question marks).

[Muggah]

Hold on Spitball. Aviles would be the shortstop if Scutaro is traded and that would free up money to go after someone like Cody Ross or maybe a pitcher like you know who.

 

That's exactly what the speculation is, Fred---that if Scutaro goes it's payroll relief to bring in either Floyd or Ross. If that's the case I'm all for it.

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

Don't feed the troll.

[a700hitter]

Don't feed the troll.

You are right.

[Emmz]

 

U mad?

 

That was a good tactic like 5 years ago dude, c'mon.

[jung]

If you tell me that I am going to get one of those two pitchers for Scuts....I am good with that.

[mvp 78]

I got a chuckle over RuMart's intangibles...

 

Jacko, as a doctor, would you say to someone "I know your cholestetol is higher than the average person, but don't worry because you have great intangibles"?

 

"Listen, you have cancer, but it's ok because you've got intangibles!"

[a700hitter]

Benny Boy is getting ready for the big game tomorrow. No work today.

[SoxSport]

Sure, Aviles can play SS. But wait a minute. What happens if Youks can't play 3B? Is Aviles needed there?

Or is he needed in RF? And Iglesias can't hit? Aw, let's call the whole thing off and keep Scutaro another year. He's bound to hit .270 and play mediocre defense. Good enough for $6mil. We'll worry about this next year.

[iortiz]

Rockies, Red Sox Close To Completing Scutaro Deal

By Mark Polishuk [January 21 at 4:40pm CST]

The Rockies and Red Sox are "finishing up" a trade that would send Marco Scutaro to Colorado in exchange for a pitcher, reports Troy Renck of the Denver Post (Twitter link).* Renck believes the pitcher heading to Boston could be Clayton Mortensen, whose name was mentioned in previous discussions between the two teams (via Twitter).

 

Renck reported the deal as being close yesterday, though talks also seemed to fizzle just as quickly.* Today, negotiations began again as Renck says the Rockies had to "work through financial issues" to fit Scutaro's $6MM salary into the payroll.

[iortiz]

Seems like Oswalt is coming....

[seabeachfred]

The offense is still dangerous' date=' but you have a hole in RF, a liability at C, an injury riddled 3b, and a LFer coming off wrist surgery who'll miss the early part of the season. You don't want to poke another hole in the offense if you don't have to.[/quote']

 

That is something some of my Red Sox colleagues seem to forget sometimes Jacko. I cannot remember any Red Sox team ever having the whole lineup hitting up a storm. Even the old 1950 team that hit 302 collectively for the season had an offensive hole at catcher with Matt Batts and Birdie Tebbetts. Closer to home let me point out my favorite Red Sox team, the 2007 World Series Champions. Think back and you will see that David Ortiz, Mike Lowell and Dustin Pedroia were hot from May to the end of the season---335, 324 and 317, but Lugo had a two month slump and didn't well at all, Drew, after a strong start was mediocre at best until the playoffs, Crisp was a total washout in CF and eventually lost his job in the playoffs. Manny was under 300 with only about 20 homers and missed the last crucial month of the season, totally unManny as we were used to.

 

Youk was very steady in the 280's and close to 20 dongs with good clutch hitting while Varitek was average and stayed that way the whole year. And that was a team that won th WS. No Jacko, you and Donji on another thread had it right. You can never count on the whole team to hit but you can most certainly count on two or three having off years. Therefore, you cannot afford to stick a human out in the lineup and expect the rest of the team to cover for him because, unfortunately, is hardly ever works that way.

[Bellhorn04]

That is something some of my Red Sox colleagues seem to forget sometimes Jacko. I cannot remember any Red Sox team ever having the whole lineup hitting up a storm.

 

The 2003 team came pretty close.

[Bellhorn04]

Benny Boy is getting ready for the big game tomorrow. No work today.

 

Benny Boy never rests.

[seabeachfred]

That's exactly what the speculation is' date=' Fred---that if Scutaro goes it's payroll relief to bring in either Floyd or Ross. If that's the case I'm all for it.[/quote']

 

You know Muggah, I was ready to fall in line behind my friend 700 and join him in believing that we would have to make due with what we have going into the season when this Scutaro thing popped up yesterday. I wonder if the rumors still has legs or whether it was a tempest in a teapot with nothing more to stand on. I would be for it too if we could get Floyd or Oswalt along with Ross but I've reached the point that I don't pay any more attention to rumors save for the fact that this one seemed real. I guess we'll just have to sweat it out until something breaks one way or another. I'd sure like to go into the season with four quality starters instead of three.

[iortiz]

Matt Garza told Hollandsworth and Memolo that he's "definitely open" to signing an extension with the Cubs (mp3 link).

[seabeachfred]

That was a good tactic like 5 years ago dude' date=' c'mon.[/quote']

 

Emmz, do you know who this Rivernator is? I know I know him from somewhere and even sent him an blurb asking where I knew him from. In case he doesn't answer back it seems you do know him. Who is he? All I know is that he is pissing off my friend 700 big time----a very bad idea.