Vegas Sharp Money & THE BAT Comparison (8/16/21)
Lots of DFS players rely on Vegas team totals when deciding who to roster, but Vegas totals can be driven by bias. The Yankees, for example, may be a good team today, but their Vegas total may be too high because they are a popular team and people like to bet on the Yankees, leading to inflated DFS ownership. By tracking the “sharp” money instead of the biased totals, we can get a better sense of who smart bettors believe in each night. Because THE BAT projects its own outcomes without using Vegas as an input, it can often be on different players and teams than Vegas-based models—and studies have shown that THE BAT is more accurate than standard Vegas lines. THE BAT is very often in alignment with Vegas sharp money, and when the two align you can be extra confident you’re making the right process play.
The “Trust the Projections” section identifies these situations. That’s not to imply that you shouldn’t trust THE BAT otherwise (you should!), but rather it identifies a stance THE BAT is taking that doesn’t align with Vegas lines and where that stance is in agreement with the sharp money, making it an extra-sharp play. “Something’s Up” is the opposite situation, where THE BAT isn’t in agreement with sharp money. We see far more “Trust the Projections” spots than “Something’s Up” spots (because THE BAT accounts for a lot and is a very sharp system, after all). “Something’s Up” doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t trust the projections in those spots — THE BAT may be seeing something the sharp money isn’t, after all — but it’s possible THE BAT doesn’t realize a key player is playing hurt or something like that. It may be a spot worth looking into or thinking about more.
Matt Meiselman (@PreachingSense) is a very sharp DFS player and sports bettor that has been helping out a lot this year in THE BAT Discord Chat Room (a great resource, if you’re not yet involved with our Discord community). Multiple times per week, usually 90 minutes or so before lock, he posts breakdowns of the sharp betting action on each game and how it compares to THE BAT’s projections for the game. This has become a very valuable tool for DFS players, especially GPP players looking to find that extra edge on teams others won’t be looking at. This page will now host those breakdowns as well, so that even THE BAT subcribers who aren’t involved in the Discord chat can access and use these to profit in DFS. I hope this is a valuable new tool for you. Feel free to reach out to either Matt or myself with any feedback. — Derek Carty
Note: Main slate games excluded from this breakdown are simply just games without anything notable to report on.
Trust the Projections
Cubs:
Sharp money: moderate
THE BAT’s stance: moderate
Sharp money on the Cubs has actually been an ongoing trend over the last few days, as this looks to be a situation where public sentiment has overcorrected since the trade deadline. THE BAT is on the Cubs side again too, and it makes a little more sense than normal with Jesse Winker out of the lineup for the Reds.
Royals:
Sharp money: moderate
THE BAT’s stance: mild
THE BAT is leaning toward the Royals while the sharp money is significant, and the line has moved a decent amount towards KC even with the public heavily skewed towards Houston. There’s probably not much more to this than pure standings bias, but Carlos Hernandez has actually been decent lately and the Astros lineup is still missing a few key pieces.
Mets:
Sharp money: N/A
THE BAT’s stance: moderate
The public is overwhelmingly supporting the Giants in this game, and THE BAT sees the line movement as a massive overcorrection. It definitely is an intuitive situation, as the Mets have been struggling while the Giants haven’t stopped winning all year, and the Mets being undervalued is an obvious byproduct of those things.
Something’s Up
Nothing here today :)