The summer must be coming to an end, because my kids are back to school tomorrow, and the weekly Sunday free-subscriber posts have returned!
In an effort to streamline these posts (I can ramble, if you couldn’t tell from the last year or so of writing) I’m going to whittle down the weekend a lot more. I’ll talk about three different betting markets impacted by news, results, or information from the weekend, or ones that might be impacted coming up soon. Less “here’s a recap of 100 things and games and plays,” and more “here are a few interesting things happening in specific betting markets.” I think it’s a win-win.
Anyway, here are your three markets in motion after what we saw this weekend.
The Heisman Trophy in College Football. Last year’s winner Caleb Williams (QB, USC) made his season debut Saturday against San Jose State. He picked up right where he left off last year, finishing 18-for-25 for 278 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 56-28 USC win. Williams entered this season as the favorite in the betting market to win this year’s Heisman, and this creates an interesting handicap because it’s very tough to win this award in back-to-back years. The last player to do so was Archie Griffin about 50 years ago. Most winners aren’t able to repeat because they turn pro, obviously, but there are several examples in the last few decades of a winner coming back to school and trying to repeat. They’ve all been unsuccessful. Tim Tebow. Lamar Jackson. Sam Bradford. Just a few of the names. And the latest example was the #1 overall pick in this past spring’s NFL Draft, Bryce Young, who won the Heisman two seasons ago, before returning to school and playing well but not well enough to repeat. In almost all these cases, the defending Heisman winner has a very good season again, even a great season, but they fail to capture enough votes, or they fall just short statistically of the record-setting season they had the year before. This historical trend makes Williams’ status as the favorite a bit tenuous, because you wonder if he is destined for the same fate as those mentioned above. His odds changed slightly Saturday after his big game, and he became an even bigger favorite, about 3/1 at most sportsbooks. Just my opinion, of the players with a chance to beat him, the highest-upside candidates are Quinn Ewers (QB Texas), Cade Klubnik (QB Clemson, with a new, excellent offensive coordinator) and Joe Milton (QB Tennessee, but I don’t like that team quite as much this year). There are probably a dozen others with a chance too, those are just the ones that stand out to me for the combination of projected team success (based on win total) and insane stats. Based on price in the market, the longest shot who has both those attributes as well is probably Dillon Gabriel (QB Oklahoma, about 60/1).
Inter Miami (now led by the greatest player of all time, Lionel Messi) to win the MLS Cup. Unless you’ve been living under a sports rock, you are probably aware that Messi, the best player ever, now plays in the United States, for MLS club Inter Miami, as his career sort-of winds down. And if you haven’t watched him play, you’re probably thinking to yourself “wait, the best player ever, against random MLS players…that’s going to be pretty one-sided!” And you’re right! It’s been completely one-sided so far. This is the Summer of Messi. He is dominating. His team seemingly can’t lose. He is amazing, and the lack of quality competition is making him look even more amazing. He even got a couple of his former Barcelona teammates to come play at Inter Miami with him, and now it’s really really unfair. Inter Miami has won 9 straight matches, all with Messi, and he has scored or assisted in every one of those matches. He came in off the bench Saturday, in the second half as a substitute, and still scored. This run has created something special. People are paying thousands of dollars for tickets to watch him play. Famous celebrities are attending the matches to get a glimpse. It should be no surprise, then, that Inter Miami are now the co-favorites in some sportsbooks to win the MLS Cup at the end of the year. Except there’s one big problem: Messi’s team may not even make the playoffs. Wait…what? Messi joined Inter Miami when they were the worst team in MLS, and had virtually no hope of making the postseason. And although this nine-match run has been incredible, only Saturday’s match counted for the league standings (the other matches were a part of other competitions, tournaments, etc.). Inter Miami are still near the bottom of the MLS standings despite what has happened. So this is essentially about to be an insane race against time to see if the best team in the league (now, with Messi) can actually make it to that league’s postseason. The MLS season consists of 34 total matches (17 home, 17 away). Saturday was Inter Miami’s 23rd match, and they are currently 14th out of 15 teams in their conference (the top 9 teams make it to the playoffs). So 11 matches to go, and they have to climb 5 spots in the standings and make up 11 points (3 awarded for a win, 1 for a draw). Impossible? Not at all, because they literally haven’t lost with Messi. But will he play every match due to fatigue? He came in as a sub Saturday. Does it matter because his presence seems to be enough now in some cases? Maybe not. It’s one of the most bizarre season-long betting situations you can imagine. The team that’s the favorite to win the title has a very real chance of missing the playoffs. If they miss, they obviously can’t win. If they make it, they’re the HUGE favorite to win it all, a way bigger favorite than their current price. What a knife-edge.
National League MVP in Major League Baseball. This award was once viewed as an afterthought, with Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. having a spectacular, historic offensive season. Acuna was priced in some places at about -500 or more (meaning you’d have to bet $500 to win just $100) entering the final couple months. He was a big, big favorite. And it’s not like he’s been MUCH worse. He’s been good… and the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts has been other-worldly. Betts is hitting better than .450 in August, and it’s not like it’s August 5th and that’s going to regress. It’s the night of the 27th. His other offensive stats are just as eye-popping. Betts was about 15/1, even 20/1, back when Acuna was a really, really big favorite, and as this prolonged hot streak has continued for Betts, the prices between the two players have compressed dramatically. After Betts homered during Sunday’s game against Boston, the market flipped so dramatically that Betts is now a small favorite in most places over Acuna to win the award. It was a move that was building for about a week, and the home run Sunday just happened to be the catalyst. There are two very predictive statistics for MVP — bWAR and oRAR. That looks like alphabet soup to some, I’m sure, but it’s essentially one of the Wins Above Replacement calculations (the one done by baseball-reference) and Offensive Runs Above Replacement. On Sunday morning, Betts had finally passed Acuna in both of these metrics. That’s of course very good for his candidacy. The second part of the handicap of this award, though, is the mind of the voter. We have not had a recent poll on MVP since Betts has been doing this. There will probably be one this week on MLB’s website. If Betts has gained ground with voters as well, passing Acuna there too (which seems likely given Betts has been so good recently), it’s really all-systems-go toward him winning the award. If there is still for some reason a gap between the two (Acuna has gotten almost every vote in the last two polls) it becomes very interesting down the stretch. Voters are subjective, biased people, and although we can try to predict what they’ll do, sometimes they surprise us. From just a statistical standpoint though, Betts is absolutely ahead of Acuna at this point in the season, and if this market were to be priced JUST in terms of statistics, Betts should actually be an even bigger favorite. And those two stats mentioned above are the ones to watch for the rest of the season. But once the voters weigh in (whether smartly or not) we’ll have a better idea exactly what the distance is between the two players. For now, Betts’ prices seemingly have no bottom, and if he continues at this pace (which would be, again, other-worldly) he will certainly win.