Don Best Odds

Major League Baseball announced that for the first time ever, baseballs must be stored at a uniform temperature. Some clubs will be using humidors, while all will have some kind of temperature controlled facility. 

Thanks to the thin air of Denver, the Colorado Rockies Coors field was easily the source of the most runs of any ballpark in the Majors for their first eight years of existence. In three of the last four years, they fell to second. The perception is that the significant drop in runs traces back to the fact that Colorado installed a humidor in 2002 to store the baseballs.

The numbers support this assessment. Coors Field averages dropped to an all-time low of 10.7 last year, as opposed to 15 runs at its peak in 1996.

But what are the consequences for gamblers? "The intention and likely result is uniformity," states Cy McCormick of MasterLockLine.com. "The early consensus is the variances from stadium to stadium will be much less than ever."

Speaking of uniformity, it is also the first time teams are mandated to use baseballs manufactured in the current year.

Stevie Vincent of BetOnSports360.com thinks scoring will be down. "The sample in Colorado is statistically significant enough to believe the trend will repeat itself across the board".  But he adds gamblers may not want to forget that the ramifications of the long-overdue crackdown on steroids will be felt gradually, not overnight as many baseball fans foolishly assumed.

"If, as widely believed, power totals were greatly bloated because of the use of steroids, the concentrated effort to eliminate steroids will not un-ring a bell." Vincent notes that players who bulked up because of years of being on the juice "were not going to become 90 pound weaklings just because they stopped."

Vincent believes with each offseason in which players do not use steroids, the power totals will slowly move back to rates of 15-25 years ago.

McCormick cautions that the sharp player will have a limited window to exploit.  "If run production is down, posted totals will quickly drop accordingly."

"The oddsmakers know what they are doing," he reminds us.

Going back to his "JD of the ACC" scorephone days, Joe Duffy has been considered the undisputed king of the underdogs and small favorites.  Now CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com, his plays are exclusively part of GodsTips.com.