A Minus Number Is A Price, Not A Prediction
Four of today's six plays are moneylines and every one of them has a minus sign in front of it. Guardians minus 157. Brewers minus 160. Mets minus 138. Orioles minus 129. If you are new to this, the first instinct is to read those as confidence scores, as though minus 160 means the model likes Milwaukee more than it likes Baltimore at minus 129.
It does not mean that. A minus number is a price tag. It tells you how much you have to put up to win one unit and nothing else. Minus 160 means risking 1.60 to win 1.00. Minus 129 means risking 1.29 to win 1.00. Two tickets can be equally strong opinions and carry completely different prices, because the price is set by the market and the opinion is set by whoever is betting.
Beginner Note: How To Read An American Price
A minus price is what you risk to win 100. Minus 157 means put up 157 to win 100, or in units, put up 1.57 to win 1.00. A plus price is the reverse: plus 130 means put up 100 to win 130. There are no plus prices anywhere on today's card, which is what people mean when they say a card is heavy on chalk. Every ticket today asks you to risk more than you stand to win.
Every Price Has A Percentage Hiding In It
Turn each price into the win rate it requires and the card starts to make sense. The formula for a minus price is the price divided by the price plus 100.
| Play | Price | Has to win this often |
|---|---|---|
| Reds and Cubs under 9.5 | -115 | 53.5 percent |
| Marlins and Nationals under 8 | -115 | 53.5 percent |
| Orioles moneyline | -129 | 56.3 percent |
| Mets moneyline | -138 | 58.0 percent |
| Guardians moneyline | -157 | 61.1 percent |
| Brewers moneyline | -160 | 61.5 percent |
Sit with the bottom two rows. Milwaukee has to win this game more than 61 times out of 100 for that ticket to be worth making. Milwaukee is 84-51, the best record in baseball, and 84 out of 135 is 62 percent. The price is charging almost exactly what the Brewers have actually done all season. That is what a fair market looks like, and it is why laying big prices is hard rather than easy.
Beginner Note: Break Even Percentage
The break even percentage is how often a bet must win just to leave you where you started. For a minus price it is the price divided by the price plus 100. Minus 157 gives 157 divided by 257, which is 61.1 percent. Anything above that number is profit over time, anything below it is loss. It is the single most useful number in betting and it takes ten seconds to work out. Get in the habit of computing it before you look at anything else.
Units To Win, Not Units Risked
Every figure on this card is quoted as units to win. Because every price is a minus number, every leg costs more to make than the figure sitting next to it.
| Play | Price | Units quoted | Actually put up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guardians moneyline | -157 | 2 to win | 3.14 |
| Orioles moneyline | -129 | 2 to win | 2.58 |
| Brewers moneyline | -160 | 1.5 to win | 2.40 |
| Reds and Cubs under 9.5 | -115 | 1.5 to win | 1.73 |
| Mets moneyline | -138 | 1 to win | 1.38 |
| Marlins and Nationals under 8 | -115 | 1 to win | 1.15 |
| Whole card | 9.00 to win | 12.38 at risk |
Notice the two 2 unit tickets. Both return exactly 2.00 if they win. One costs 3.14 and the other costs 2.58. Same reward, 22 percent more money on the table, entirely because of the price. That is the whole reason the price column deserves as much of your attention as the team names.
Now The Part In The Headline
Six plays, so a 4-2 day sounds like a good day. Whether it actually is a good day depends completely on which four win.
| A 4-2 day where you win | Collected | Lost | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| The four biggest returns, losing the Mets and the Marlins under | 7.00 | 2.53 | Plus 4.47 |
| The four cheapest tickets, losing the Guardians and the Orioles | 5.00 | 5.72 | Minus 0.72 |
Identical record. A 5.19 unit swing between the two versions. The second row is a winning day on the scoreboard and a losing day in the bank account, and it happens for one reason: the two tickets that lost were the two most expensive tickets on the card.
The same effect at 3-3 is even wider. Win the three big ones and lose the three small ones and the day finishes at plus 1.25. Win the three small ones and lose the three big ones and it finishes at minus 4.62. A .500 day can be worth almost six units either way.
Beginner Note: Why Record Is Not Results
A betting record like 4-2 counts tickets. Your bankroll counts units. The two only match when every ticket is the same size at the same price, which almost never happens. This is why any honest record shows units won or lost next to the win loss line, and why a capper showing only a record is showing you the less meaningful half. Yesterday's card here went 5-4, which sounds barely above water, and it paid plus 1.07 units because the winners were spread across the sizes correctly.
Two Of Today's Six Are Not Moneylines
The Reds and Cubs under 9.5 and the Marlins and Nationals under 8 are game totals, which work completely differently from the four moneylines. Neither one cares who wins.
Beginner Note: What A Game Total Is
A game total, also called the over under, adds both clubs' runs together and asks whether the sum lands above or below a posted number. Reds and Cubs under 9.5 wins if the two teams combine for nine runs or fewer. A 6-3 final is nine and wins. A 5-5 final is ten and loses. The half run exists so there can never be a tie. Which team wins the game is irrelevant to the ticket.
The Wrigley Field ticket has the most straightforward evidence on the card. Sixty six games have been played at Wrigley this season and they have averaged 9.47 combined runs, with 36 of the 66 landing under 9.5. That is 55 percent against a price needing 53.5 percent. The Cincinnati half helps too: the Reds are 23rd in baseball in scoring at 4.13 runs a game, and their games have gone under 9.5 in 78 of 135.
The honest problem with it, and you should always look for the honest problem, is that the Chicago Cubs lead the entire major leagues in scoring at 5.21 runs a game. Buying an under against the best offense in the sport is a real argument against this ticket, and the response is that Chicago's own games have still finished under this number 71 times in 135.
The Washington Ticket Is The Hardest One To Defend
Marlins and Nationals under 8 at minus 115. Both starting pitchers are excellent. Sandy Alcantara carries a 3.38 ERA across 183.2 innings and Cade Cavalli a 3.21 with 10.23 strikeouts per nine. On the pitchers alone it looks like the easiest under on the board.
Then you check the ballpark, which is the habit worth building. Nationals Park has hosted 68 games this season averaging 11.10 combined runs, and only 16 of those 68 finished under 8. That is a 24 percent hit rate at this number in this building, against a price that needs 53.5 percent. It is the smallest ticket on the card at 1 unit for exactly that reason.
Beginner Note: Check The Park Before The Pitchers
Ballparks change scoring more than most beginners expect. This season Progressive Field in Cleveland has averaged 8.27 combined runs a game while Sutter Health Park in Sacramento has averaged 11.44. That is a three run difference in run environment created by the building alone. Two identical pitching matchups in those two parks are not the same bet, and checking the park first will catch more mistakes than any other single habit.
The Riskiest Ticket On The Board
Guardians moneyline at minus 157 for 2 units. It puts up 3.14 units, a quarter of the day, and it needs Cleveland to win outright 61.1 percent of the time to break even.
Cleveland is 8-2 in its last ten and has allowed 2.93 runs a game across its last fifteen behind a 3.73 staff ERA. Kansas City is 9-1 in its last ten and averaging 5.33 runs a game across its last fifteen. Both clubs are playing well and this same ticket lost 3-0 in this same ballpark yesterday. That does not make today's version wrong, because yesterday's result has no influence on today's game, but it does show what a 61.1 percent break even feels like when it misses.
If You Only Take One Thing From This Page
Convert every price into a percentage before you decide anything. Minus 115 needs 53.5 percent and minus 160 needs 61.5 percent, and that eight point gap is much larger than it looks. Then check the size of each ticket, because a card can go 4-2 and lose money when the two losses are the two biggest positions.
Every play here is posted before first pitch and graded when the games go final, wins and losses both. Nothing gets removed afterward.