It’s safe to say that 9 times out of 10, the Philistine giant named Goliath would have thrashed young David in the Valley of Elah and cashed the -800 chalk line Las Vegas closed the matchup at many seasons ago.
But the underdog’s aim was true, and David had the big upset for his backers. Think Ozzie Smith in Game 5 of the 1985 NLCS. That’s when the switch-hitter hit the first left-handed home run of his career to walk it off for the Cardinals.
Smith’s first lefty bomb came after nearly 3,000 previous at bats from the left side of the plate, and it’s freaky stuff like that that leads to baseball featuring more underdog wins than any other sport. Not just covering the spread, like in football or basketball, but outright wins.
Where Is Your Line in the Sand?
Every bettor has their own definition of what constitutes a big moneyline favorite at top-rated sportsbooks. For me personally, the line in the sand is -150. Any moneyline higher than that, and there needs to be increased certainty in the value derived from the data and stats.
That -150 line is very likely something that you’ll find with many baseball bettors who were born in the 1960s or before, like myself. At a time when a week-old Sporting News and the boxscore from last night were the most readily available information we had, anything chalkier was risky.
Once a moneyline reaches the -200 plateau, it moves from the cautionary range to the prohibitive for most bettors. Despite favorites of -200 and above winning at high rates, it only takes thick chalk to go down once or twice to wreck a bankroll.
Just as a bankroll size and standard bet or unit amount is tailored to the individual, deciding where the moneyline cutoff should be is unique to each disciplined player.
Early-Season Chalk Especially Costly
Dropping bets on big moneyline favorites is costly any time of the season, but it is especially expensive early on when oddsmakers – and fans – are most susceptible to letting preseason prognosticators influence the thought process.
Take April 2022, for example. There were 49 games that month that included MLB odds of -200 or higher on a team, and those favorites went 30-19. A 61%-win percentage might look nice, but bettors who played all 49 of those teams were down more than 12 units by the end of the month.
Just two months later in June 2022, there were 64 cases of a team closing -200 or higher, and the favorites went 43-21 in those contests. That’s an even higher rate of winning, 67.18% to be exact, but still draining nearly 7 units from your bankroll.
The betting public loves the favorite. Returning to the David vs. Goliath tale, the majority are going to bet on the giant early in the season, or the team that had the most favorable projections according to the preseason publications.
By June, some of the expected contenders have instead proven to be pretenders, a few marquee pitchers are either injured or just not fooling hitters like they did the season before, and the lines have tightened up.
Still, the heavy chalk isn’t keeping bettors in the black regardless of how the public adjusts to results from the diamond. Oddsmakers are always one adjustment ahead.
Late Season Chalk Still a Loser
Sticking with that same 2022 campaign, when MLB adopted a balanced schedule with all 30 teams playing each other and the NL succumbed to the DH, the number of games with a -200 or higher favorite increased to 94 in September.
And playing the chalk was still a losing proposition. The big moneylines went 67-27, better than 71%, and were still 1.30 units in the red.
You might also notice that the number of large moneyline favorites increased from April to June to September. Remember that bit about top sportsbooks always being an adjustment ahead of John Q. Public?
Run-Lines Are One Option
None of this is meant to scare bettors off from ever making a large moneyline play, or to suggest one should always make the underdog their MLB pick. The point is to step back and think before playing big chalk, and consider your options.
One such option is to look at the run-line. Think of it as the ‘spread’ in baseball betting, either laying a run-&-a-half on the favorite or taking the same amount on the underdog.
Depending on just where the moneyline sits for a given game, playing the favorite on the run-line can subtract anywhere from 50¢ to a dollar off the chalk. A -170 line becomes -110, for example, when shaving 1.5 runs off the favorite’s final score.
On average, roughly 30% of all MLB games are 1-run affairs, and that must be factored into calculating the odds for when a run-line wager is the right way to play a game, and the winning path to avoiding heavy losses from big moneyline favorites.
