Five overrated baseball betting stats

While baseball is a stat driven sport, stats to baseball handicappers can become cumbersome and grossly misinterpreted, sometimes leading baseball bettors to go against their better judgment and their normal betting practices.

Truth is, some stats in baseball for handicapping purposes, can sometimes be totally ignored. They are as follows.

The first is hitting streaks.

Hitting streaks can be deceiving, as it is be possible for a hitter to have a long hitting streak while still hitting less than .250 overall. Why? Because it’s easy for a hitter to average more than four at-bats per game. That means the hitter may not be hitting as good as perceived.

Next, is batting averages.

While a player’s batting average is an important statistic that tells whether a player is probably better than one with a very low one, it does not paint a complete picture of how a player is really hitting.

Handicappers need to know if that player hits well in certain situations, like with men on base or runners in scoring position. Also, does he hit singles, doubles or home runs, and is he more effective at home than on the road?

Batting average is again only one part of the picture, and without several other pieces, is dangerously deficient.

Another stat that bettors put too much emphasis on is the number of wins or loses a pitcher has collected.

Loses can be misleading, especially if a player has gotten no run support from his team, or a bunch of poor outings from the bullpen.
Bettors trying to evaluate a pitcher need to use all of his stats to measure how well that pitcher is actually pitching, and when factoring closers, saves aren’t one of them.

A closer’s save stats are a ridiculously overvalued these days.

Let’s say a closer had 20 saves, that would be impressive, but saves are meaningless without looking at how many opportunities a closing pitcher has had. If a pitcher had 20 saves in 25 tries, then would be considered great, but if he only had 20 in 40 attempts, then he is probably a total disaster. Baseball bettors can’t judge anything by looking at just the number of saves a pitcher has.

Finally, like wins, RBIs can be a useful at times, but also misleading. That’s because some things are just out of a batter’s control, and it takes the right set of circumstances at every plate appearance for a player to consistently pile up a lot of RBIs.

For example, a player can’t drive in runs if the lineup ahead of him does not regularly get on base.

In the end, without looking at all the circumstances surrounding particular baseball stats, handicappers can’t truly judge the effectiveness of any of them as sole guide to wagering on any game.