Deep into a baseball season, there’s a temptation to place handicapping weight on the “betting” performance of starting pitchers. Those who have cashed a lot of tickets will strike squares as smart choices. Those who have lost their backers a fortune will look like auto-fades.

In general, you should ignore any sort of “return on investment” analysis. Midseason (or full-season) results can be polluted by a variety of factors.

Run support : If a pitcher happens to be on the mound often when his offense scores a lot of runs, his “betting” results will look fantastic (Baltimore averaged 6.06 runs per game in Andrew Cashner’s starts in the first half of the season, helping backers earn a dozen units. Will Boston’s bats maintain that pace?). Even mediocre pitchers can catch breaks in this regard over several weeks. Conversely, a star pitcher might have bad results (particularly as an expensive favorite) if his offense isn’t scoring when it’s his turn in the rotation. In the immediate future, offenses will likely perform to their overall norms rather than pitcher-by-pitcher outliers.

Bullpen support: This has become a huge issue in 2019, as many franchises increased the burden on bullpens just as home run totals exploded from aerodynamically friendly baseballs. Some starting pitchers have losing ROI just because their bullpens have been awful. Others look like studs because they’ve lucked into Mariano Rivera-like performances over the short term. It’s unlikely either extreme will continue.



Team quality: It’s easy for starting pitchers to “piggyback” on the overall quality of the team. Innings munchers might post a great record on a juggernaut. Aces on bad teams can lose money. This isn’t a reflection on the pitcher, but on the team. If a contender falls from grace, or an also-ran is inspired by a managerial change, the results of their starting pitchers will change direction.



Blind, stupid luck: One of the early disputes between the world of “analytics” and old-school baseball was a disagreement on how many short-term stats simply reflect blind, stupid luck. Grounders or line drives are either hit directly at fielders, or not. A fly ball out on a cool night in a spacious park is a home run on a warm night in a hitter’s park.

In short, most pitchers who show extremes in ROI stats are likely to regress back toward break even in larger sample sizes. Luck from offensive or bullpen support … or the bounce of the ball … averages out.

If you’re trying to ride pitchers because they have a “proven” ability to cash tickets based on midseason profit/loss charts, you’re likely to be disappointed the next several weeks. If you’re fading current money-losers because “those guys don’t know how to win,” you’re going to get bruised when they bounce back.

Sure, a handful of pitcher trends will continue. Some “hot” pitchers will keep winning while most regress. You’ll take the worst of it on daily money lines. Some “losers” haven’t hit rock bottom. Many already started turning things around in recent action.

Sharps focus on player skill sets and game environments. Then, they evaluate whether or not money lines properly capture reality. Luck blinds squares from seeing reality.