Temperature Check On Early MLB Betting Trends

In today's Betting Life Newsletter:

Temperature Check: It’s a beautiful spring Tuesday, which can only mean one thing—your faithful narrator’s back in the saddle, ready to tackle the developing MLB betting landscape.

While we’re only a little over a week into the 2025 season, it may as well be the dog days of summer, considering how fast the action is happening and numbers are rolling in.

One quick point on a season that’s way more of a marathon than a sprint—don’t feel pressured to start betting until you feel there’s an edge.

Patience, It’s Still Early

For our leadoff spot, I’ve gotten inundated with so many questions about torpedo bats, the league’s offensive trajectory, and how it may affect in-season betting—it felt necessary to bust out my handy-dandy custom charts to run another leaguewide temperature check. Not to bury the lede, but let’s just say the public is likely missing the mark.

Then, I go deep into my statistical bag, using a combination of W/L record plus run differential for the latest edition of The Good, The Fun, And The Ugly (and boy, is it ugly). Finally as we round third on the way for home, I provide a sneak peek at my world-famous pitching sheets for April 8.

🗒️ 🗒️ 🗒️ A Few Notes! 🗒️ 🗒️ 🗒️

💰 All of our MLB preseason betting takes and newsletters are archived here, along with my correlating futures plays. The season is still young!

📈 I like what Sam Wallace did here on the fantasy football side with his series on “what’s my dynasty pick worth?” He has some ideas if you want to trade away the 1.01

🏈 For the latest in our NFL Draft coverage (we’re in APRIL!! It’s this month!!), we have you covered. Thor just came through with a two-round mock draft … 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

LATEST NFL MOCK DRAFT

What’s going on the NFL and more with our merry band of sports nerds!

🏈 Listen, do you want to know a secret? NFL rumors are popping.

🔮 Compare our latest NFL Mock Drafts. Freedman has some surprises at the skill positions, while Thor goes two rounds.

🪷 Yes, the White Lotus finale was a doozy, but what if the characters formed a fantasy football league?

🎮 The latest NFL Draft Linebacker rankings, featuring a pair of SEC stars.

🥶 Football on ice. Get tackled at your own risk.

⛳️ Betting odds to win the Masters.

⚾💥Torpedo Bats?—Much Ado About Nothing💥⚾

Today, we’ll continue our investigation into the league’s current power trajectory. Remember, having a handle on market directionality from a broad perspective always helps in betting MLB. Given the wide spread in stadium disparity, there may not be a more impactful macro element to wagering on any professional sport.

Think about how profitable being quick to recognize the super-happy fun ball was for bettors in 2019. Or, conversely, in 2022 picking up on the wet mooshball that wouldn’t carry out, even during the dog days of summer. I know the MLB world Is aflame with conspiracy theories of misshapen bats and juiced balls … but I’m not buying it.

Yes, some of what we’ve seen is definitely due to more efficient equipment and training techniques, but there’s also the stylistic element of pulling elevated batted-ball events. It’s nerdy and not as much fun of an answer, but still true.

Boring as it is, the best way to get to the bottom of these things is not to verbalize our emotions in ALL CAPS on Twitter (I know, crazy thought)—but to take a centered and rational look at the historicals.

Last week, I hypothesized the uproar concerning torpedo bats would likely prove to be an overreaction to small samples in a very windy Yankee Stadium. Of course, it’s still too early for a concrete determination, but it’s certainly pointing in that direction. Over the last week, MLB’s leaguewide Home Run-to-Flyball rate sank nearly two full ticks. Now nosediving toward recent lows (image below), soon we’ll be hearing how every hitter needs a new bat designed in an underground Area-51 lab somewhere.

So what can we expect going forward? Assuming an uptick in home runs as the weather warms feels like a safe bet. However, historically speaking, overall scoring almost perfectly tracks the league’s HR:FB% (image below). Long story short, the offensive landscape is far from rosy…

A little closer inspection under the hood tells a different tale, along with good news for under bettors—as well as anyone longing for the days of low-scoring pitching duels. As hitters and coaches focus more on consistently lifting the ball, assuming batting averages would drop in accordance only makes sense.

Not only is that exactly what we’ve witnessed thus far (image below)—it’s far worse than even a wet blanket like myself could imagine.

So, before you start blindly smashing overs because the internet’s going crazy for torpedo bats, please keep this in mind. You’d have to go back to the Vietnam era, before the Jets’ only Super Bowl win, to find a leaguewide batting average lower than the current .239. Yikes. Strike that … double yikes.

ODDS ON WHO IS GOING YARD TODAY

⚾🧮MLB Betting Trends—The Good, The Fun, And The Ugly🧮⚾

In my never-ending attempt to make this newsletter a must-read every Tuesday, I thought I could try something different. The MLB season moves so fast, it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees, so maybe a weekly trend check is in order.

Aside from the sheer number of games making following all the action so difficult, a lot of context gets lost in the sauce due to public narratives—something this chart will help to add some perspective to.

From left to right, it’s over record, average-run differential, record against the over, and average margin above/below the game total.

THE GOOD: LAD + CHC + SD

For my money, right now the three most balanced teams in the bigs all reside in the National League. It’s a long season, but it’s starting to feel like predetermined destiny this trio is heading to the dance come October. All three rank top-5 overall in run differential, and I highly doubt that’s changing anytime soon. Careful fading any of these squads, they can all pile it on.

THE FUN: BAL + STL

What’s more fun than betting an over? Easy, hitting it more often than not! Any fans of scoring should keep the Cardinals and Orioles in the betting queue—both teams can light up the scoreboard on any given night, while not pitching well whatsoever. This trend should continue as long as their rotations reside in the bottom five of starters’ ERA.

Do you think the O’s miss Corbin Burnes yet?

THE UGLY: PIT

The Pirates' front office should hang their collective heads in shame for having a foundational piece like Paul Skenes and doing less than nothing to surround him with talent. Who could’ve guessed that going a decade without a multi-year free-agent signing would stunt a team’s potential?

Pittsburgh’s offense ranks in the bottom five in batting average (.197), OPS (.585), ISO (.099), Groundball rate (47.5%), Barrels (6), and wRC+ (66). And that’s not all—the Bucs are 25th in both team ERA (4.98) and WHIP (1.49). Things are bad and getting worse by the day in the Steel City. I wouldn’t bet on them with my worst enemy’s money.

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TODAY’S LIVE (CONSTANTLY UPDATED) MLB ODDS

🧮⚾Betting Research Center—MLBMA Algo™ Data⚾🧮

For anyone more deeply interested in daily MLB betting on a more granular level, I took the liberty of sharing my world-famous starting pitching sheets and MLB Moving Averages Algorithm results—hit me up anytime on X @JohnLaghezza with questions or comments!

April 8 SP Sheet

(Just in case the image reads a little small, we got you covered)

Hope you enjoyed today’s Betting Life newsletter! Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback. I love hearing back from you!

TODAY’S STARTING PITCHER STRIKEOUT TOTALS