***Official*** MLB 2025 Thread

[Sanlmar]

More Judge talk

You playing this @BCR?

Win an HR pick in a selected game and you get a bonus bet of similar value for all others hit.





Judge vs LAA Kochanowicz pitch mix is mouthwatering goodness. Poor kid. He pitches a sinker 51% and Judge is feasting on sinkers. Same goes for slider and 4SFB.

Of course Judge will be walked once or twice. Hopefully NYY gets on base first.

LAA is 100% committed to HR or die to an extreme and it’s been working during their streak. Base hits are boomer talk. Should see a couple from them.

Fun promo

[BCR]

More Judge talk

You playing this @BCR?

Win an HR pick in a selected game and you get a bonus bet of similar value for all others hit.





Judge vs LAA Kochanowicz pitch mix is mouthwatering goodness. Poor kid. He pitches a sinker 51% and Judge is feasting on sinkers. Same goes for slider and 4SFB.

Of course Judge will be walked once or twice. Hopefully NYY gets on base first.

LAA is 100% committed to HR or die to an extreme and it’s been working during their streak. Base hits are boomer talk. Should see a couple from them.

Fun promo

I’ll get on this. The book I use most of the time has this one day a week.

Judge and Ohtani are unique in that even when they get walked, they get so many ABs, and can hit left or right, if you can find anything that pushes the value like a boost or second chance bet its worth it. Particularly against that Angels BP. Even if he doesn’t hit one early, you’re still alive.

Did we know China had a podcast? I’m sure it’s been posted, but I stumbled upon it on last night on Spotify right as I was falling asleep. Fell asleep listening to him talk about betting European Lacrosse.

[Sanlmar]

Did we know China had a podcast? I’m sure it’s been posted, but I stumbled upon it on last night on Spotify right as I was falling asleep. Fell asleep listening to him talk about betting European Lacrosse.

Wager-tainment is more profitable than sports betting if done well. Gotta have great production value though. YouTube ftw.

Is he doing a paid discord too?

He was a feelz guy back in the day. Wonder if he’s embraced analytics and modeling

I’ll check him out. Wish him well in his venture

[BCR]

Did we know China had a podcast? I’m sure it’s been posted, but I stumbled upon it on last night on Spotify right as I was falling asleep. Fell asleep listening to him talk about betting European Lacrosse.

Wager-tainment is more profitable than sports betting if done well. Gotta have great production value though. YouTube ftw.

Is he doing a paid discord too?

He was a feelz guy back in the day. Wonder if he’s embraced analytics and modeling

I’ll check him out.

I only listened to half of last episode. They are fairly recent. He definitely strikes me as model guy for sure. Part of groups that are definitely model based. Show seems a bit like an advertisement to find accounts for him or his group to bet through, but it was a mix bag episode taking questions from Twitter or whatever and I only listened to half hour.


Largely focused on beating small markets for half hour I listened. Being an originator in some niche before looking for funding. Stuff like that. I don’t think he is likely to give away much, so I would guess he is mainly discussing his approach without details to cultivate accounts for him to bet with that may have access to markets he doesn’t, or that aren’t burnt. But maybe he gets methodical in other episodes. Doesn’t like baseball much.

[Sanlmar]

Guardians announcers were telling Ohtani bullpen stories. Players and the Guards manager were watching today. They said he was pretty funny and rolling with all the attention.

Dodgers selected the most expendable players to stand in at bat. I thought that would be Conforto or Muncy but it was the bullpen catchers who stood in.

At one point Ohtani imitated an umpire calling the batter out with the hand gesture.

I don’t ever recall a players bullpen sessions being tracked by every city. Pray for Ohtani

[Sanlmar]

Latest on home run scandal -

Welcome to Day 62 of the 2025 Ballpark Pal Research Feed! Here’s what I’m watching for today:

If you’ve been following on Twitter/X you’ve seen a few posts on the lack of home runs over the past few days. Although normal variance is expected throughout the season, it’s notable that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday ranked in the bottom five for homers/game this season.

The Ballpark Pal model tracks every fly ball to determine how home runs are trending vs “expected” throughout the year. The differences between actual and expected HRs is most distinct between seasons, due largely to MLB’s year-to-year changes to the baseball. However, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the league to make a change midseason, which is why the model is set up to adjust for this sort of thing.

So far in 2025, home runs have been trending around -20% vs the blended expectation from 2016-24. While that’s lower than previous years it isn’t that unexpected given the direction of the changes since 2021. However, the past seven days have been around -27%. This could be random noise or it could be an actual change - it’s really too early to tell. Right now the model is mostly chalking it up to randomness. The main reason being that fly ball distance (vs expected) has not taken the same nosedive. Distance is less random than home runs so this suggests the recent home run trend may be a blip in the radar. More to come on how this plays out over the next week or two.

[BCR]

Guardians announcers were telling Ohtani bullpen stories. Players and the Guards manager were watching today. They said he was pretty funny and rolling with all the attention.

Dodgers selected the most expendable players to stand in at bat. I thought that would be Conforto or Muncy but it was the bullpen catchers who stood in.

At one point Ohtani imitated an umpire calling the batter out with the hand gesture.

I don’t ever recall a players bullpen sessions being tracked by every city. Pray for Ohtani

I’m busy today but they have an afternoon game Wed I am trying to get up to. I’d love to see him. Plus Kershaw is scheduled to start right now.

[Sanlmar]

I’m busy today but they have an afternoon game Wed I am trying to get up to. I’d love to see him. Plus Kershaw is scheduled to start right now.

You are obligated as a sports fan to catch the power trio while while they are still close to prime. All kidding aside a Kershaw visual is a box checked too

I will place a wager you will never see Mookie in the outfield again. I remember things. Amazing things

[BCR]

I’m busy today but they have an afternoon game Wed I am trying to get up to. I’d love to see him. Plus Kershaw is scheduled to start right now.

You are obligated as a sports fan to catch the power trio while while they are still close to prime. All kidding aside a Kershaw visual is a box checked too

I will place a wager you will never see Mookie in the outfield again. I remember things. Amazing things

Weather too iffy to bother with this. Probably get it in, but 60 degrees with 50% chance of thunderstorms, not my idea of a nice day at the ballpark.

[BCR]

My Sportsbook just trolling Skenes and Pirates now.

Typical: Paul Skenes to Record 7+ Strikeouts and Pirates to Score Under 2.5 Runs vs. Diamondbacks - 5/28/25

Yes
+400


The typical is their words, not mine.

[Dan Druff]

Interesting article about how, against conventional wisdom, the 2020s extra inning rule has resulted in a home field DISadvantage, and has somehow benefited the visiting teams: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-math...-disadvantage/


Home teams have only won 49% of extra innings games from 2020-24, whereas they were winning 52% before that.

The author surmises that it has to do with the visiting team knowing exactly how many runs they need to prevent, and adjusting defense accordingly. They can intentionally walk more batters, play the infield and outfield very close, and aggressively pitch for strikeouts. The home team cannot do this, as there's no limit to the number of runs they can give up, so they have to play more traditional defense.

Of course, there can be an adjustment to this strategy, but it hasn't happened yet.



However, I do want to propose one other possibility -- one not considered for this article.

Is it possible that the home teams going extra innings are simply worse on average than before, and more prone to finish 9 innings tied instead of ahead? Of course, that has always been the case, but it the 2020s have seen less parity in team ability, perhaps that explains it, too.

[Sanlmar]

You are obligated as a sports fan to catch the power trio while while they are still close to prime. All kidding aside a Kershaw visual is a box checked too

I will place a wager you will never see Mookie in the outfield again. I remember things. Amazing things

Weather too iffy to bother with this. Probably get it in, but 60 degrees with 50% chance of thunderstorms, not my idea of a nice day at the ballpark.

That’s a shame. Great game. I slept on Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott (he is certified ass) being on the mound and missed +200 and only got +105 Cleveland when 2 men were on and no outs. I heard his name in the background and my hands started shaking. +105 was still pretty sweet in that spot though. No tears.

Fun stat while watching Cleveland broadcast.

[BCR]

Weather too iffy to bother with this. Probably get it in, but 60 degrees with 50% chance of thunderstorms, not my idea of a nice day at the ballpark.

That’s a shame. Great game. I slept on Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott (he is certified ass) being on the mound and missed +200 and only got +105 Cleveland when 2 men were on and no outs. +105 was still pretty sweet in that spot though. No tears.

Fun stat while watching Cleveland broadcast.

Wouldn’t have guessed that. I can recall Toronto one, but the others escape me. Yeah it would have been fun. Dad was busy. My buddy from Columbus didn’t want to make the drive being iffy. My gfs son who would enjoy it just took a week off school to wrestle when he only has 5 days left. I would have went, but didn’t care to push it being cool and rain possible.

I caught Smith (Sox) -1.5 first 5 +115 already up 2-0 in first. Wanted to fire it last night +160 ML as gut told me Cannon was fake and bottom 30 pitcher. Scared off by weather app again as it said 100% for first pitch. got lucky neither was sharp but Mets defense also Aids and it held 5-3

[BCR]

Interesting article about how, against conventional wisdom, the 2020s extra inning rule has resulted in a home field DISadvantage, and has somehow benefited the visiting teams: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-math...-disadvantage/


Home teams have only won 49% of extra innings games from 2020-24, whereas they were winning 52% before that.

The author surmises that it has to do with the visiting team knowing exactly how many runs they need to prevent, and adjusting defense accordingly. They can intentionally walk more batters, play the infield and outfield very close, and aggressively pitch for strikeouts. The home team cannot do this, as there's no limit to the number of runs they can give up, so they have to play more traditional defense.

Of course, there can be an adjustment to this strategy, but it hasn't happened yet.



However, I do want to propose one other possibility -- one not considered for this article.

Is it possible that the home teams going extra innings are simply worse on average than before, and more prone to finish 9 innings tied instead of ahead? Of course, that has always been the case, but it the 2020s have seen less parity in team ability, perhaps that explains it, too.

Would love to dive into this from a bunch of angles. I have seen some crazy 8 run extra innings games. Cubs and Dbacks are kings. I also see a lot of home teams burn closer top of 9 with the hope to score in bottom, not score, and then set up and closer already burnt as they head to extras. If they do score in bottom 9 it isn’t tabulated into these records.

[Dan Druff]

Bullpen chickens coming home to roost for Dodgers again.

Last year they inadvertently took the correct approach. They signed a bunch of nobodies for cheap, and even acquired a nobody (Kopech) as a throw-in, and kept the arms that were hot, rotating as necessary throughout the year.

Indeed, that bullpen mostly won them the postseason, when the starting pitching was devastated.

This year they paid big money for good-but-not-great relievers in Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates, and then brought back last year's motley crew.

The problem is that no-name relievers tend to be very fickle, so you constantly need to be rotating them in and out, and not fall in love with any one name. Scott has sucked lately, Treinen is injured, Yates is injured (but also had his moments of inconsistency), and guys like Vesia and Banda aren't pitching like they did last year.

So you never know what you're getting with this bullpen. Some days it's fine, others it's awful.

Giving Scott $72m was insane.

[BCR]

Need the Padres to win first 5 as I got greedy and took -.5 for plus money against Sandy. 1-1 after 3.

Also have them ML full game over 8.5. Been hitting the ball hard as hell right at people.

[BCR]

Need the Padres to win first 5 as I got greedy and took -.5 for plus money against Sandy. 1-1 after 3.

Also have them ML full game over 8.5. Been hitting the ball hard as hell right at people.

My god how brutal. Got 5 runs in bottom 4. Up 6-1, just needed 3 outs. Gave up 5 in top 5 and now I need a run again lol

This is going to be brutal beat if I don’t get a run here.

[BCR]

So brutal.

[Sanlmar]

NYY +120 v LAD series

Gonsolin
Knick Knack
Yoshi

“The Pen”

I hate to be such an opportunist

[Dan Druff]

Cardinals now 18-5 in last 23, just 2 games behind the Dodgers' record.

This... I did not see coming.

I don't see it lasting. The team has no stars, and the pitching has collapse written all over it. Still.. its fanbase was lamenting the "awful" team just a month ago, when they were 14-19.